Visitors to Stephen Avenue will have likely noticed that over the last few weeks, the Calgary Downtown Association has gone to great lengths to snare in the right kind of treble.

Across the 8 Avenue SW pedestrian zone, the CDA has painted large music symbols at key locations, with the goal of formalizing places where buskers can play music and perform without interfering with restaurant and pub patios.

In return, the new locations mean that Calgarians looking for live outdoor music and entertainment know exactly where to find it.

“What’s happening is we have some buskers that are performing right in front of a patio with over-amplified music as an example. So, we wanted to bring more curation to it, to allow more facilitation, and say, ‘here’s a good spot to perform,” said CDA Executive Director Mark Garner.

In effect, he said, the CDA is creaking “busk stops” that are aimed at getting the right kind of attention and interest to buskers.

The goal for more curated busking, he said, included more theatre in the round which involves bringing more types of acts beyond just music to Stephen Avenue.

Jugglers, magicians, and theatrical performances were all staples of the pedestrian street before the pandemic, and Garner said that he wants to see that kind of art return to Stephen Avenue in addition to music.

Formalized busking an improvement for the public and performers

The painted symbols have been up for several weeks already with success, Garner said.

"It seems to be helping. I don't have bylaw issues. I don't have complaints, because the circles are saying, 'here's where we've deemed a good spot to perform,'" he said.

"I'm looking out my office window right now, and there's somebody already performing in front of ATP. Who it is, I don't know. But he's got a speaker, guitar and a mic stand, and he's out there performing right which is great. So, the performer is not like, 'well, you can't perform here, or you're disturbing the patio,' we've already done that pre-determination."

James Cunningham, who goes by Busker James, said that he welcomed the formalization of the busking spots along Stephen Avenue, and hoped that it would make for a more fair system for performers.

Especially for those who go through the permitting process to get a licence to perform on Stephen Avenue, and have to compete with unlicensed performers using sound systems.

"If you're going to have amplification, make sure that everybody knows, so that they know what to expect because amplification is a big problem here in Stephen Avenue," said Cunningham.

The addition of the painted spots though, came as a surprise, he said.

However, Cunningham said it would make it easier to know where to perform instead of the current strategy, which uses landmarks like flower installations along Stephen Avenue to direct performers to approved locations.

"My license when I got it, it was back about six months ago, they told me to play where there's a flower pot. There's so many different types of flower pots on Steven Avenue, it confuses people," he said.

"[The Calgary Downtown Association] don't back off. If you get static from buskers who are going to ignore you, then that's fine. This Stephen Avenue, it is public space... however, this is public space that is private property. It's now run by the Business Association, and I appreciate that."

Increasing the amount of live entertainment on Stephen Avenue year round

The longer-term goal, said Garner, is to work with the busking community on a strategy, marketing, and promotion to draw in crowds looking for year-round outdoor entertainment.

"I think for me, it's about bringing a surprise back to Stephen Avenue. People saying like, 'hey, what are we doing Thursday night? Well, let's go downtown.' Well, why do you want to go downtown? Because Thursday night's busking night, and you see all these great performers. So let's go to a restaurant and walk the street to see all these great buskers," he said.

"That's what I think is unique to downtown. You're not going to get that in Mahogany or other neighbourhoods. So, how do we make that as a bit of our—hate to say it—our competitive advantage and why you want to be downtown."

That extended to events like Chinook Blast, held every February in the Downtown Core.

"We did busking during Chinook Blast last February, and we saw a lot of people lingering and watching the performances. So, part of what we'll do for Chinook Blast this year is we'll do more busking component as part of that," Garner said.

"The challenge has to be, and this in our conversations with the busking community, is do they want to perform 12 months of the year? Not just four months or five months. So we're trying to bring the seasonality to it."

He said that the CDA would also be looking at other locations that could be more formally activated with busking, like on Centre Street and Barclay Street, or at transit stations.

Currently, the CDA has put at least one busk stop on every block along Stephen Avenue, with only one of the spots time-limited by hours of the day.

The stop in front of National Bank is being limited to buskers from 5 p.m. onwards during working days.

Garner said that the CDA also purposefully did not place busk stops near venues that regularly offer live outdoor music, like Earls and the Cactus Club near the Galleria Tree at Bankers Hall.