September 1, 2009

I took Lucas to the Waterloo Busker Carnival on Saturday night. There were a couple of things we wanted to check out, despite the apparent alarming ‘coincidence’ of approximately half of the acts being some sort of acrobatic routine. Lucas wanted to see The Pogo Dudes, and Phil had recommended that we check out Charlie Caper, a magician from Sweden. We headed to Uptown Waterloo around 7:00 pm on Saturday night, so that we could catch Charlie Caper at 7:30 and then The Pogo Dudes at 8:15. (we had checked the schedule on the website)

We got there and picked up a program from the information booth, and saw that Charlie Caper was going to be performing on Pitch E, in front of Starbucks, so we headed over there to get a good seat up front. We watched the finale of The Phantastyks (kinda cheesy), and then were mulling around waiting for him to show up. 7:25 rolls around and no one is there, so I try to find someone to ask. I figure I’m not just asking any volunteer, I’m looking for someone with a headset so that if they don’t know, at least they can find out. I find someone and ask if he’s still performing there at that time, and he just shrugs and says, “He’s supposed to be.” Obviously this guy doesn’t care, so I go back to the information booth, which is now inaccessible because they’re doing a show on Pitch C right in front of it.

Why on earth would you set it up this way, so that people who need information can’t get to the booth? It was ridiculous. I went around to the back of the tent and asked about the show, and another woman with a headset told me, “He generally shows up right when the show starts. He should be there soon.” without checking anything. Obviously, no one was interested in actually providing information at the information tent. She also told me that “he doesn’t have much equipment, so it doesn’t take him long to set up.” Well, I know for a fact from my friends who are street performers that you don’t just ‘show up’ and start your show with no crowd. He has to build his crowd. And if he’s not there now, he’s not coming.

Now I’m pissed off because this is the one show we really wanted to see, and it’s obviously not happening. Plus Lucas doesn’t understand what’s happening and I’m trying to explain it to him. I ask another person that I run into, and they just shrug again. Then I run into a fourth person (it is now about 7:40), and when I ask him, he tells me “Oh, he’s on the Public Square stage doing his show now. He’s just finishing up.” I mention that he’s listed at a different time and location in the program and on the website, and he looks at me like I’ve said the dumbest thing he’s ever heard, and tells me “We haven’t been following that schedule all weekend.”

Oh, I see. You just make up a schedule and then ditch it? Why even make it in the first place? The worst part of this entire situation is that there is a big white Dry-Erase board at the information booth that says “Schedule Changes”, and I made a point to look at it when we picked up our program…and it was blank.

We never got to see Charlie Caper. That was his last show of the night. Well-organized as usual, Waterloo Busker Carnival.