Imagine a job that required you to work late hours and in all weather conditions. One that required you to put your life in danger every day for no set wage.
Now, imagine if that same job meant you could travel all over the world, meet people and was one that you loved.
That’s exactly what street performers, commonly known as buskers, do.
Queen Street gets closed down to traffic during the week of Harvest Jazz and Blues for the purpose of having buskers perform their routines. Routines vary from musical acts to magic tricks to fire tamers.
The wet weather caused some routines to be cancelled, but there were a few who pushed through to do their job and give the audience a show they could enjoy.
One of those people was Brant Matthews, also known as The Fire Guy. He performs tricks such as juggling flaming torches and fire eating.
He has been street performing for over 15 years and said he wouldn’t change it for any other job.
“You get to be around people when they’re celebrating something,” Matthews said. “So, the people around you are happy and it’s a part of your job to be happy with them.
“It doesn’t feel like going to work. It doesn’t feel like doing taxes or anything like that. It’s just a lot of fun.”
Matthews said it’s important to keep the energy up in street performing because if you don’t, the audience will get bored and leave.
“It’s cool because of the energy transference between you and the audience,” Matthews said. “There’s something about street performing where the audience wants you to keep the energy up. The more energetic you get, the more energetic they get.”
Victor Rubilar is another street performer who was at Harvest. His specialty is doing different tricks with soccer balls. He started learning the tricks 10 years ago, but has only been busking for five.
He is based out of Europe and has travelled to 48 countries to perform.
Rubilar said street performing is an honest profession. You get paid exactly what your customers think you should get paid and if they want to leave then they can.
When asked why he does this, he paused for a second. In that time a man came up to drop money in Rubilar’s hat. The man said how much he loved the show and appreciated Rubilar sticking it out even during the bad weather.
“That’s why I street preform,” Rubilar said. “I like hearing things like that and I like being close to the audience.”
