STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

1.2. Annual programme of Street Arts
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Street Artists in Europe
It was clear both from festival organisers and artists, that there exist few opportunities for
professional companies to get work outside of the festival (summer) season. In Britain, there is
now a significantly higher use of street artists for traditional festive occasions – Easter,
Halloween/en, Christmas and New Year and Christmas (again, usually at a festive occasion).
France is pioneering the use of street shows at small events throughout the year, especially
connected to shows being presented where there are Creation Centres. This is partly in order to
spread the number of working months that artists are able to get paid work, and also to
encourage audiences to come to see different street arts shows away from a festival context.
Networks of promoters and artists are being established in hubs around towns and cities, whose
aim is to maximise the opportunities for artists to tour around a locality, establish workshop
activity and interventions in local towns and villages. Much of this is being undertaken as part
of a three year long initiative in France entitled Le Temps des Arts de la Rue.
1.3. Festival Promoters
Street arts promoters largely from non-profit organisations, theatre companies or community
associations. In some countries the festival director and staff are all volunteers with day jobs
elsewhere (this was especially apparent in Italy where programmers were very hard to speak to
as they had no office and were not free in the daytime). One German and one English
respondent described their associations as ‘commercial’ in that they have to earn their living
through selling the services of their organisation in order to ‘earn’ the time to organise their own
festivals.
This is an unsatisfactory situation as such organisations are not stable and may find it extremely
difficult to put the necessary time into organising aspects of a festival.
In several countries, festivals are also organised by local government departments, or by
individuals contracted to a local government body with the purpose of running a festival. This is
particularly the case in France and England. In many cases this makes a much simpler and easier
relationship between artistic and logistical production of a festival, but not always! In England,
council services are now frequently almost independent from each other and goods and services
must be purchased in the normal way. In France, many festivals are directly supported by the
local authority, who provide many or all logistical requirements, from machine plant, to road
closures, to cleaning, to providing staff to help manage the festival in action, which is extremely
beneficial to any festival.
1.4. Funding for street arts across Europe
In spite of the vitality of the festival circuit, it is a consistent perception among presenters,
cultural officers and artists that the street arts remain of low value as an art-form and are very
badly under-funded. Budgets are extremely small, in comparison to every nation’s budget for
the conventional performing arts (in complete contrast to the number of people keen to watch
such work).
It is extremely difficult to ascertain with accuracy at this point what budgets are available. Many
respondents (both those returning questionnaires and those interviewed by telephone) did not
know and were unsure how to find out how much money was available. In many countries,
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