Harvard Square in the 70s

"It's like the 70s out here," Cate Great observed as we sat in the corner of Brattle Square, watching another busker do his act.

When Faneuil Hall Management instituted a set of new regulations against its street performers (where they, among other things, could "dictate performers' schedules, deny them the right to cancellations, and ban 'hat lines' asking for tips"), street performers responded with a strike.

When that strike supposedly ended and the dispute had been settled, it was too late: their trust had been breached.

"I just don't feel like performing there anymore," one street performer had told me. And that distrust created - on that one Saturday afternoon at least - a migration of some of Faneuil Hall's best buskers into Harvard Square.

A satellite view of Brattle Square from Google Maps

There were five of us there that day, "sharing the pitch" (or taking turns performing in one spot). Though I saw four other buskers there, there were only at most two other performers waiting to perform at any one time.

The big red X on the above bird's eye view of the pitch is where the show happened. The little blue circle is where we hung out as we waited. And the vibe of the "70s" - what Cate Great had mentioned - had to do with both the sudden resurgence of variety acts in this spot (variety acts, as in juggling, magic, physical comedy, acrobatics, and the like) as well as the sense of community that comes out of sharing a pitch with other buskers.

One thing I learned?
Buskers love to analyze.

A bunch of stuff.
This is where buskers left their gear as they waited for their turn to perform.

And it's not just about reflecting and analyzing when a researcher asks specific questions. It's about analyzing each other, analyzing themselves, and working constantly to improve their art.

As I was sitting there watching one show, two other performers near me pointed out a couple. Those two were "critical," one said to another. If they stayed - even for a little - then the audience will come. If they left too early, the performer will have to work a lot harder to build his audience.

Sure enough, they stayed, and the audience materialized around them.

Another thing I learned:

There's a world of difference between a circle show and a sidewalk show.

For one: your audiences are much much much larger. The shows have to play bigger. And, because of that, you can do fewer shows.

I took a shot at working that space and failed miserably the first time around. The second time around, I did a little bit better - but not by much.

Working a smaller space where I'm much more comfortable (like at the little green square in the map above, where another magician frequently works) has more to do with my physical presence interrupting the flow of passersby. In these larger spaces, the idea is the same - but at a much larger scale.

Cate Great, making herself big.

The busker has to make herself even bigger, which is even harder in the larger space (and not only for someone of my height and stature).

And since it takes longer to build an audience that can fill the space, the busker has to manage the crowd in different ways - getting them to stick around those first five, ten, fifteen minutes of audience-building.

None of this is any different from what I learned from Chicago's performers; it's a different slant to what is ultimately the same basic principles, illustrated with different examples that can help me better understand what they've been showing me all along.

What does this mean? Weeks of more analysis, maybe. I'm not sure if I can do that in a blog post without doing it elsewhere first... but we shall see.