STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
Street arts play a key part in relation to the wider issue of how to promote festivals. At this
stage, we must look at their specific predisposition to reach the non-public, to engage with the
local population and, in the long term, to move away from the strictly event-based system
characteristic of festivals.
Conclusions
• We cannot look at street arts audiences in Europe outside a more general framework.
Although we need to identify their specific characteristics, there are other far wider
issues. The background to the question concerning us is made up of three major
problems.
• The diversification of audiences for culture, live performance in particular, and the
possibility of reaching ‘disadvantaged’ audiences are two challenges that face a Europe
of culture in its entirety.
• Since the main way of promoting street arts in Europe at this point remains through
festivals, street arts audiences today are mainly festival-goers, with the basic
characteristics that kind of promotional context implies.
• Presenting artistic events in an outdoor environment, with free and open access, has a
strong impact on attendance.
3. Specific features of street arts audiences
‘The audience for street arts is significant. A recent pilot study (2001) carried out by the social
survey division of the Office for National Statistics indicates that over a 12 month period, 18%
of respondents had attended street art, carnival or circus compared to 22% at a play or drama,
11% at pantomime and 10% at a dance event. The survey also showed that 23% were 16–24
year-olds and 25% were 25–34 year-olds. The survey also shows that there were “no noticeable
class differences in attendance for… street arts” (as well as carnival and circus), which is to be
expected given the nature of street arts sites, in particular, and these artforms generally’ 339 .
In France, the most recent study 340 of French cultural practices, dating from 1997, found that
29% of survey respondents had attended a street show in the past year. Those encouraging
figures must be taken with a pinch of salt. The surveys in question do not dwell on the semantic
complexity of the term ‘street’: what does it mean to the spectators? Do they see it as including
the musician they pass at the market or the living statue they saw on holiday? The attendance
figures are equally precarious. How can one quantify an audience when it consists of a crowd
taking part in an event that is free of charge and open to all? Despite these difficulties of
methodology, which are intrinsic to the subject under consideration, the available surveys do
provide some valuable information.
339 Hall, Felicity, Strategy and report on street arts, op. cit.
340 Donnat, Olivier. Les pratiques culturelles des Français, enquête 1997, La Documentation Française, Paris,
1998.
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PE 375.307