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Downtown Las Vegas Performers Weigh In On New Ordinance

Two months in, how are street performers adapting to new rules?
Matthew Straubmuller/Flickr

Two months in, how are street performers adapting to new rules?

The Fremont Street Experience pedestrian mall in Las Vegas has been under new rules governing street performers since November.

Buskers looking to work on Fremont Street now have to register with the city, and enter a lottery to get a performance spot.

On Tuesday, City Attorney Brad Jerbic  invited buskers to City Hall to weigh in on the municipal ordinance governing their trade.​ 

Colton Lochhead with the Las Vegas Review-Journal was there and talked to KNPR's State of Nevada about what was discussed.

Lochhead said about 20 performers were in attendance.

The meeting lasted approximately three hours and participants were evenly split about whether the new ordinance is working for them.

"Some of the people really liked the old ways of being able to stand where ever they wanted to, moving where ever they feel like," Lochhead said, "The other half seemed to be pretty okay with it. Some of them actually said the circles feel like they're performing on the stage now."

Lochhead said most of the meeting focused on small changes to the rules like allowing the performers to move to a space other than the one they're assigned, if it's available.

They also wanted to change the lottery system. Currently, the performers just put their names in a hat essentially and then are randomly assigned a space. They want to be allowed to request preferred circles and have that be taken into consideration.

According to Lochhead, the city seemed to be open to some of the changes to the ordinance. 

He also said in the two months since the rules were put into place the city has received zero complaints about street performers on Fremont Street.

 

Colton Lochhead, reporter, Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Nikole Robinson Carroll is KNPR's Morning Edition host. You can hear her every morning from 5am until 10am on News 889. She also produces segments for KNPR's State of Nevada.