In the eighties and nineties I lived in London and throughout that time, London Underground put buskers on a par with the small, grey, dusty mice running between the rails. That is, vermin ripe for extermination. Okay, maybe not extermination, but certainly eviction. Signs and notices festooned every station, threatening fines, arrests and stern words for anyone who tuned up within earshot of passengers.
I wasn’t a busker (I can’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow) but I knew people who were and, while they bemoaned the unfairness of London Underground’s antipathy towards them, they also rather relished their maverick status and the cat-and-mouse game they were forced to play with officialdom. If they’re still busking today, they are operating in a very different environment. The Man sooner or later comes to realise that outlawing an activity is never as effective as subsuming it; and so it is with busking.
In 2003, LU performed a spectacular U-turn, deciding buskers now represented a much-loved tradition of street entertainment in the capital and offered them licences. Of course a certain amount of quality control was needed and musicians seeking a permit were required to audition. Perhaps more pertinently, they then had to pay to perform. This arrangement is still in force today and London has 300 licensed buskers. However, the licence doesn’t guarantee a pitch and a daily round of multiple phone calls is part of daily life for the street musician wanting a prime, busy and warm pitch on the Underground network.
Predictably, when people are making a buck, big corporations come sniffing, and this month CBS Outdoor began offering clients the opportunity to sponsor every busking site on the London Underground for a year. Previously, The Underground has struck similar deals with thelondonpaper and Carling but a new contract is available from July 2012. Offers in the region of half a million pounds are likely to be taken seriously.
For this not insubstantial fee, the successful brand will enjoy exposure at each of the network’s 34 busking pitches at 22 stations. CBS claims:
Brands could build specific music genres or themes into the line-up or even extend the branding above ground and link in to their own experiential activity.
In reality, the executions tend to involve hard-wearing vinyl print work on which the busker stands, backed with some poster displays. That said, moving screens are becoming increasingly prevalent on the Tube, so in future, watching a busker may more akin to seeing U2 at Wembley than tossing a penny in the cap of a scruffy old sailor with a harmonica.
Surveys show the vast majority of commuters welcome the presence of buskers, so a big slice of brand currency is certainly there to be won. Add to this the chance to align a product or service with the capital’s burgeoning music scene and the proposition begins to look pretty attractive.
So, what’s in this for the people at the centre of the campaign - the musician themselves? Sadly, not a great deal. Of course they will still be allowed to collect the coins which accumulate in their hat, box or flight case, but they had that 'privilege’ anyway. Of the £500k paid to CBS Outdoor and ultimately the London Underground network, the violinist running through the ˜Rites of Spring’, the guitarist giving us his ˜Ticket To Ride’ or the baritone belting out Nessun Dorma for the eighteenth time, will see not a penny.
This is a shame. Although CBS’s promotional literature boasts that busking brought KT Tunstall her success and a member of Tom Jones’ band was hired after his Tube work was noticed, this campaign does nothing to promote the art. Indeed, the whole endeavour has little to do with music and plenty to do with advertising space and cold hard cash. I’m not averse to the cut and thrust of media sales but this isn’t anything like adventurous enough for me. There is a spectacular PR piece to be gained from the deal. How about a prize or recording contract for the best busker of the year (voting on phones or online)? Or CBS sponsoring a big busker festival in the summer?
This kind of activity may still occur when the deal is done with the advertiser, but it didn’t happen with the previous incumbents so it looks likely the performers will be doing all the hard work to attract travellers’ attention to the marketing but will also be the only ones not trousering a fee for their efforts. Or even any substantial support for their talents.
Perhaps it was all just a bit more authentic and fun when hairy youths with battered practice amps were chased from Platform 2 at Oxford Circus by uniformed fellows brandishing ticket clippers. But that was then and this now.
Magnus Shaw - writer, blogger and broadcaster
