Where Have All The Street Performers Gone? The Attack on Culture in Fort Collins

I recall brighter days when the businesses around the Town Square in the City of Fort Collins were tolerant of buskers. People by and large in this city appreciated them playing in the square. Lately a handful of people from the Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority have become increasingly hostile towards musicians and artistic performance.

I played there yesterday for a bit around lunchtime. As a folk artist in this area, i love the connection i get with strangers when i perform outside in the daylight, sharing my art with them in the bustle of the world. It happens in public spaces that are meant for human connection, where our inner individual worlds can collide with others. We each leave a mark on the pages of our lives, however small it may be; though you may be surprised how big those marks can get when you open yourself up to strangers. It's probably the closest thing i have to church.

Soon after i started playing, a guy named Todd Dangerfield came at me wearing a cute bicycling outfit, providing an amusing juxtaposition to his serious demeanor. No niceties, all business. He stared me down sternly until i regarded him, then proceeded to curtly inform me that there was no amplification allowed in the town square.

Not too long ago, i recall not only myself playing here without being harassed, but there'd often be two maybe even three people performing throughout the square. They would either have modest amplification, or their instrument was loud enough they didn't need any, but the unwritten law is don't be a nuisance, and don't go any louder than necessary to reach your modest sphere of influence.

This was literally the first time in my life i had ever had a negative experience performing in public (aside from the occasional embarrassment of messing up a song 😅), and it caught me off guard. A bystander informed me that if i just moved to the edge on the other side of the barrier wall that says "Old Town Square", then it's out of their jurisdiction. Okay, not ideal but i was willing to comply, so i moved outside of the logical area that would be considered Old Town Square and i set up again. In the spirit of it, i even made sure my amplification was directed towards the street instead of towards the square.

Not long after that, a different guy who didn't give me his name but did identify as also being part of the DDA was straight up rude, up in my face and interrupting my song. I informed him i was outside of the square and when he disagreed i asked him to show me the exact definition of where the lines are drawn (he didn't). Two bystanders came up in my defense telling him to leave me alone. I was obviously not being a nuisance. The people were welcoming me and appreciating that i came out to share my art with them.

That guy walked off to call the cops and i continued playing until eventually Officer Kyle Duncan of Fort Collins Police Department and his partner came out to chat. Kyle was extremely polite, hinting almost apologetic, noted that i wasn't loud at all, and explained that the issue is a bit complicated due to the mixture of public and private space in the square, but that the articles in the code do seem to technically apply. Apparently, the border that the code claims includes the exterior sidewalk all around the block even though no one would rightly refer to that space as "old town square".

By this point, it was pretty much time for me to pack up anyway, so i went home to read up on this code. When reading it, it becomes quickly obvious that the spirit of the code is meant for genuine vendors who would like to sell for profit, rather than artists sharing their craft for free, but in their definition of an "Outdoor Vendor" they patched it up (likely quite recently) to hostilely extend it to the artistic community.

In a noisy atmosphere using instruments that don't carry well, disallowing the modest use of amplification effectively kills the opportunity to connect. Even people directly in front of me not 10 feet away would have trouble hearing the intricacies of my finger-style guitar techniques or the deep and soft vocals in my folk songs. It's also worth noting that there is nothing in the code about the use of amplification, it's all about being labeled an "outdoor vendor", which applies in their corrupted definition regardless of amplification, so it's really to their discretion. If they don't want you there, they have the power to shut you down. If someone was playing the trumpet, or something else naturally loud, in the square without amplification, they'd get shut down just the same.

Street performers are not competing with anyone's business, we are not "vendors", we're adding value to our public spaces. It's clear that the people of Fort Collins by and large want our town to foster art and creativity, and aside from the folks at Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority, i have never met a person against people performing in our public spaces.

So, if you're wondering why the town square no longer has street performers (unless it's one of their sanctioned performances on stage), this is why. This is our town and we can change this. Reach out to the the mayor and other city council members and tell them to stop the attack on culture in our beautiful city.