STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

6.4.3. Budgets
49
Street Artists in Europe
It is extremely difficult to ascertain with accuracy at this point what budgets are available. Many
respondents did not know and were unsure how to find out how much money was available. In
many countries, respondents wrote ‘almost nothing’, or ‘less than 1%’ or ‘it is impossible to
find out’. Street arts rarely appear as a discrete budget separate from performing arts, or theatre,
or even education.
In countries where there is established funding for street arts, money comes from a variety of
sources, national, regional and local; most festivals and companies are funded through public
money.
In some countries, a number of street arts companies receive regular funding to maintain
themselves, as well as for creating shows. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, these are known
as ‘annually funded’ (there are around 20 companies in total), in France they are
“conventionnés” (around 29 companies). There are a small number of funded companies in
Belgium, Holland, Slovenia and Spain. Other countries stated that they both funded artists yet
had no budget for street arts. In one of these cases, they described artists as working indoors as
well as outdoors (Finland).
The ‘Assédic’ for “les intermittents du spectacle” is one of the keys to the astonishingly
productive street arts scene in France, with hundreds of companies producing new, often high
quality work every year. Another key is the extensive network of creation centres, designed to
enable artists to create work with a maximum of support and a minimum of practical deterrents.
6.4.3.1. Income from festivals
Most of the festivals are usually free to the public. In these cases, the artists are either paid to
perform free for the audience or are allowed (and sometimes encouraged) to pass the hat at the
end of the show.
However, a number of respondents claimed that there were situations and circumstances where
admission is charged. In some cases this is the only way to fund the festival, in some cases it is
in order to limit numbers for small capacity shows. At one festival in England, nominal
admission is charged at an enclosed site in a park, as a way of counting visitors and keeping
bicycles out, as well as giving visitors the chance to feel they are part ‘investors’ in the event the
following year.
In the Netherlands, it is a principle adopted by festival organisers to charge for theatrical
presentations, which they describe as locatie theater. All Dutch outdoor theatre festivals charge
the public to see shows 87 .
In French-speaking Belgium, festivals have to show some income in order to qualify for grant
aid. In some cases the audience pays to enter the whole festival; at Namur en mai, much of the
festival is free and visitors pay to see the tented booth shows (fairground arts). The festival has
created its own monetary unit for the weekend – the ‘sous’!
87 Anne Tucker mentions: ‘I have not ascertained definitively whether this is a funding requirement or an
economic or ideological necessity (opinions differ – some further research would be useful on this).’
PE 375.307