After staying a month in Germany we left to Netherlands. The first stop was Maastricht were we spent 5 great days :)
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| Sunset in Maastricht |
One of our hosts in Maastricht found out in an official site how things work. But unfortunately it's only in Dutch... Basicly it says that if your performance contains "noise" you have to have a permit. If you are individual musician just with instrument you don't need an audition (exept if you play with accordion,trumpets and loud instruments ). If you sing at the same time while playing an instrument or you are in a group you have to go for an audition. You're not allowed to use amplifier. You are not allowed to play in front of caffé's and ask for money afterwards. If you get the permit there are places where you are allowed to play half an hour than you have to change your place.
It doesn't say anything about having to pay for the permit. Somebody said it's 20 euros per day but I think it's ridiculous. And there is a woman on the street who had two flower-shaped spoons and she's just clapping with them and she got a permit...
So if you just read this you might get pretty scared, but we didn't meet anybody who had big problems playing on the streets without permit. We actually never met any policeman. Of course we heard stories that somebody got fined because he didn't have a permit, but if they catch you at the first time, and you are polite I don't think so that they will give you a fine immediately.
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Our experiance:
It was good! :) The first days were extremely hot so we just played in the evenings. After 6pm 90% of the shops are closed and in 20 minutes everybody disappears amazingly fast from the streets. So we played in a deserted place where at least the acoustic was good. For us most of the time it is better like this. The average was around 15euros/40minutes which is good for us :P
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| Cafe de pieter |
We were invited by a great!! musician/bartender to play in a small pub in the center and in the end it turned out to be an open mic :) Almost everybody had some musical talent in the bar. We had such a great time!
And we also met wonderful musicians on the street! A whole band with drums and amplifier and blowing instruments. Though they didn't have a permit either, they didn't have problems at all with locals(I mean shops) or police. :)
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| busking places in Maastricht |
- Grote straat
- Kleine straat
- Maastrichter burgstraat
- Hoender straat mall entrance(that's where we played= the green dot)
- The walking bridge
- If you just chose one of the walking streets can be okay I think
In Maastricht we felt that we were really welcomed and it was very relaxing. We met wonderful people who made are stay even better! :)
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