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Australian Street Festival Live Up Land of Oz

Reports from Kym Olsen and Sally Kimpton

Robert Nelson, the Butterfly Man, was declared winner of the Quantas International Buskers Festival at Darling Harbour, Australia, winning a round-trip ticket to London for the Covent Garden competition. Second place was won by Australian mime/juggler Rob Spence. Also performing, but not competing, was New Yorker William Lee. Lee's flight to Australia and one week's accommodation at the Intercontinental Hotel were part of his prize for having won the Covent Garden competition in 1989.

Another Australian festival, the first Annual Australian Street Performers Festival, was held in late September 1989 in the beautiful east coast resort town of Coffs Harbour, Australia.

Twenty-one performers received expense money for that festival, and vied for prizes of $5,000 and an all-expense paid trip to represent Australia in the Halifax Festival next year. The ten-day festival was organized by the Rotary Club to aid the Crippled Childrens Foundation.

Five pitches across town were advertised and covered by the local television station, culminating in a half-hour show. Few people in Coffs Harbour had seen street theatre before, but the massive crowds proved they loved it. Every evening featured a "Buskers at Night" presentation in the city center mall. Buskers thrilled the crowd with five or six shows, then pooled and divided the hat.

Audiences paid $2 for a festival program and received a ballot to vote for their favorite acts. The top vote-getter was Antebodies (Nani McMullin & Wayne Condo), who won prize money and the trip to Halifax. The other prize winners were: Drue Franklin (mime); Circus Fiasco (juggler and unicylist named Forest); Arty & Pretentious (juggling, music and comedy -Sally Kimpton, Stef Torok & Nick Engleman); and Benni & Richard Seidel (physical imagery with dance and mime).