Next month the Covent Garden Street Performers Association will celebrate 50 years of continuous street performance on Covent Garden’s West Piazza with a special line-up of performers on Sunday 11 May, including internationally acclaimed artists, emerging talent and long-time Covent Garden favourites.

The event will also celebrate the open-access, performer-regulated approach to street performance that operates in Covent Garden.

It’s an approach that has helped ensure continuous street entertainment on the West Piazza for five decades, entertaining millions of visitors as well as providing a career launchpad for countless performers, including Eddie Izzard, Dynamo and Stomp.

The celebration comes amid concerns about the future of street performance in London. Although the CGSPA has not been directly impacted by the recent legal battle over street theatre in Leicester Square, it has been navigating moves by Westminster City Council to instigate a licensing regime that it argues doesn’t work.

The association has reached a truce with the council, for now at least, though it would like a more formal commitment that its approach to street performance in Covent Garden is assured in the long-term.

Ahead of the celebrations, we spoke to CGSPA spokesperson Peter Kolofsky, who also performs as Heavy Metal Pete – pictured with fellow spokesperson Melvyn Altwarg – about how street performance in Covent Garden works and why the CGSPA’s approach needs to be protected.

CC: Can you give us a very brief history of street performance in Covent Garden and the CGSPA?
PK: Modern street performance in Covent Garden began in the early 1970s as part of the local community’s battle against the redevelopment plans of the General London Council.

In 1980, Covent Garden’s West Piazza was reopened and a group called Alternative Arts, led by the redoubtable Maggie Pinhorn, began to programme performances which included both street shows and theatre shows.

Over the years Alternative Arts left and the performers themselves took over the management of the pitch and the Covent Garden Street Performers Association – or CGSPA – was born.

The very first CGSPA elected representative was none other than Eddie Izzard!

CC: How does it work today – can anyone perform and how do they get a spot?
PK: One of the things we take great pride in is how open and accessible our space is – I dare say Covent Garden is perhaps the most open and accessible pitch in the world for new performers.

We welcome anyone to perform on our pitch, the only stipulations being that the performer must have an existing show and must hold public liability insurance up to £10,000,000.

Show slots for the day are booked every morning – 9.30am during peak times and 10.45am during the quieter parts of the season – in what is known as the West Piazza Draw.

It’s basically a lottery, shows are randomly assigned with the performer who comes out first in the draw getting the first pick of showtime, second performer to be drawn getting second choice etc. We find it’s the fairest way to allocate show slots.

CC: Why do you think your approach works so well?
PK: In a word: flexibility. Performers themselves run the system. That means when problems arise – as they inevitably do in any public space – they’re dealt with swiftly, with nuance and from within. There’s no faceless bureaucracy or distant committee; just people who understand the reality on the ground because they live it every day.

Decisions are made collectively, giving every performer a voice, whether they’ve been on the pitch for 20 years or 20 days. It’s a direct democracy that prizes consensus and cooperation over hierarchy. It has evolved organically over decades, shaped by lived experience and the need for fairness, not imposed from above.

It’s also self-regulating. There are rules – but they’re not arbitrary. They’ve been developed and agreed upon by the community, refined over time and grounded in mutual respect. Peer accountability plays a huge role here. No one wants to let down a system that’s been built by performers, for performers.

This model fosters a unique culture of cooperation. Performers support each other, share knowledge, and – perhaps most importantly – hold each other to account. It’s not utopian. It’s just people, working together, because they know the system only works if everyone plays their part.

CC: What changed within Westminster City Council in 2021 and what impact did that have?
PK: In the spring of 2021, Westminster City Council attempted to impose a ‘licence’ scheme on Westminster’s street entertainment community with the stated aim of reducing noise complaints.

Our association had grave misgivings about this initiative from the outset which we voiced to the council at the time; we pointed out that the scheme would do nothing to alleviate noise issues but would instead result in innocent artists being effectively criminalised.

As such, a ballot of our membership was taken and the members unanimously voted to politely refuse to participate in the scheme.

Four years later we feel that our position has been vindicated as noise complaints from street entertainment have risen across the pitches that operate under the Westminster licence regime whilst remaining minimal on the pitches that we manage. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

CC: What is your current relationship with the council and what would you like them to do?
PK: We are currently enjoying something of a truce with Westminster Council who have recently taken an informal ‘hands off’ approach to enforcement in Covent Garden.

Negotiations about the future management of street entertainment on our pitches is ongoing. Last year we submitted a proposal for an alternative to the current scheme that would be truly ‘light touch’.

It is our view that this approach would be far more effective for keeping noise to reasonable levels without potentially criminalising London’s street entertainers.

The current scheme is still under review, it is our association’s view that our proposal should be piloted across the borough. At the very least we think that Covent Garden should be formally removed from the scheme currently in place.

CC: What do you think Westminster Council – and other local authorities around the UK – could learn from your approach to street performance?
PK: That by its very nature street entertainment as an artform is not suited to top down control, it just doesn’t work. Across the world the best run and most successful pitches all operate along the lines of the Covent Garden model, grassroots bottom-up management, run by the performers themselves.

It’s always going to be the performers who have the best understanding of the realities and challenges on the ground as well as genuine local knowledge and engagement with the local community, in a way that is not possible for someone formulating rules and regulations from an office in City Hall.

CC: It feels like some people use street performance to hone their craft and launch their career, while for others street performance is their career. Would you agree? What is your role supporting both groups?
PK: I would agree with this statement, yes. Personally I would not have a career as a circus performer were it not for the freedom afforded by street theatre to learn and hone my craft.

Eddie Izzard, our erstwhile first representative, has been quoted as saying that it was the skills learned and honed at Covent Garden that resulted in the ability to play to huge crowds at venues such as The Hollywood Bowl.

At Covent Garden we try our best to be as nurturing as possible to newer performers while also maintaining a cultural space for those of us that choose to make street performance their career.

I’ve personally performed all over the world in all kinds of different spaces and events, but I will always return to Covent Garden. I have a deep and abiding love for street performance as an artform and I think the same can be said of all of our members.

CC: What advice do you have for budding street performers?
PK: Get out there and give it a go and, if necessary, fake it til ya make it!

I began my street performance career 22 years ago as a fresh faced youngster just juggling three balls with a hat in front of me on the Holloway Road with no idea where such humble beginnings would take me!

That’s the best advice I can give to any budding street entertainers, give it a try! One of the things I love most about the artform is that it is for absolutely everyone, no barriers, no glass ceiling and the freedom to perform to anyone anywhere.

CC: Tell us about your upcoming celebrations – what have you got planned?
PK: It’s going to be a spectacular celebration of 50 years of an iconic British cultural institution as well as a reunion of Covent Garden’s talent and alumni past and present.

Big circus set pieces, jugglers, acrobats, a youth dance troupe and a community choir, puppet shows all day in the church gardens, two Charlie Chaplins, dangerous stunts and derring-do, jaw dropping magic illusions and more.

I don’t want to give away too much, suffice to say that it’s going to be a wonderful day out for all the family, as well as a celebration of fifty years of the greatest street entertainment venue in the world. Here’s to fifty more!