Busking the Balkans

[vconaway]

I'm interested in going to Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and doing some busking on my next European spring tour. Albania is the country I'm looking at the hardest, because it's very convenient to eastern Italy where I'm already planning to spend March.

Is it worth doing? I know that the local currency is worth squat outside of various countries, but I've heard that while there you can do very well for yourself while you're there.

I'm a musician, a hammered dulcimer/cymbalom/santoor player, and I usually busk pedestrianized streets or other high foot-traffic areas for passers by. I don't need circle show pitches, just enough space for five or ten people at a time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[gav]

Street musicians are mostly Gypsies in the balkans and a lot people will treat you as such.
I live in Croatia and it's probably the best balkan country for busking, you can do quite well here as a circle show but I don't really know how well musicians do.
I've worked at a busking festival in Macedonia and you won't make money there. I imagine Albania would be the same.
I've also worked a busking festival in Serbia and it was pretty good.

[vconaway]

Thanks so much for the advice! Are there any regulations or rules in Croatia (specifically Zegreb, unless you can recommend any other specific cities) that I should be aware of? As for being regarded as a gypsy, in Italy at least it helps that my Irish heritage is very obvious

[gav]

In Croatia, generaly speaking, there are no rules for or against street performers. This can either work in your favor or against it.
Most people don't have any problems as long as they're not too loud and don't work the same spot too long. Common sense.
Zagreb is full of people all the time, Split and Dubrovnik are popular toursit areas in the south and should be busy in June.
Rijeka might be ok. Most other places at that time of year are a bit slow.
We have a street festival in zagreb in June, send me an email if you're interested.

[divingrichm]

Hi gav,

Definatley keep me informed on the balkans. I've never been to Croatia but both of my parents were born there. My mother was born in Zagreb and my father was born in billybrig, they migrated to America back in the 50's when it used to be Yugoslavia. I was born here in the U.S and the only language i learned was english
:-( . If i can scrape up enough funds i like to check out Croatia one day. I'm a balloon twister but can do balloon shows.

Rich Markovic

richmarkovic.com

[vconaway]

One more question gav - how well does English go over? I'm specifically interested in Zagreb, but info on other cities would also be appreciated. I also speak Italian, but I'm not sure how much that might help.

Even though I'm a musician my busking technique is more of a running conversation backed by music than anything else, and while doing a silent (vocally) show would be an interesting creative challenge it would be nice to know ahead of time

Thanks so much for all your help!

Vince

[gav]

V, english is very well understood and spoken pretty good too amongst the younger generations. The key factor here being that they don't overdub tv and movies. Everything is in original language with subtitles.
Italian is actually useful in the coastal regions especially Istria.

Rich, I have been wondering for some time if there's anyone out there of Croatian decent that is a performer. Now I have an answer. There's you.
I know the place your dad is from, always reminds me of the scottish musician Billy Brag.

[divingrichm]

gav,

if you want shoot me an email at richmarkovic@gmail.com and i'll be glad to share some family history with you and honestly there's a lot about Croatia i'd like to learn. If your ever passing through northern kentucky in the summer i'll be glad to hook you up with our local pitch.

[jeep caillouet]

Where's a local pitch in Kentucky?

[divingrichm]

jeep,

Newport on the Levee. It's a privatley owned riverside complex across from Cincinnati Ohio with retail, restaurants and entertainment. they are fiendly towards buskers but the only stipulation is buskers need to audition and there's a coulpe minor rules they usually set, an example would be fire, there pretty finiky about fire. The person you would need to contact is Ashley Martin and she'll audition all year round as they have a inside section but as far as tips go, summer is really the only profitable season. Cold and ice are setting in up here right now killing any outside work and people seem to have a different mentality, i'm trying like hell to stay afloat right now and it don't seem to be working.

here are some buskers that have passed through here at one time or another, you might of met them before.
checkers -New Orleans
john Holmes- Texas
hilby- Ny
kozmo-NY

Here is there website:http://www.newportonthelevee.com/
if you watch there flash video ad there two scenes of a stiltwalker dancing... that's me, i've been doing that since 2001 but this year is the last year for stilts for me .... i'm getting to fat

[vconaway]

Just got back to Italy after ten days in Croatia (Dubrovnik and Split). I did pretty well and roughly broke even for the time I spent there. Considering it was March I'll chalk that up as a win. The weakness of the kuna was a bit of a drag (considering that people tend to tip change to musicians and the most valuable Croatian coin is worth a third of a 2 euro coin), but my CD sales did pretty well. Thanks for the tips gav, I look forward to going back in June!