Covent Garden Street Party

The Covent Garden Street Performers Association (CGSPA) is proud to announce a major public celebration marking 50 years of modern street performance in Covent Garden.

The one-day event will feature a full programme of performances from past and present artists, marking half a century of organised street theatre in the square – a tradition that has delighted millions of visitors and helped launch the careers of household names such as Eddie Izzard, Dynamo and Stomp.

Across the day, the piazza will come alive with a dazzling line-up of street performers — from internationally acclaimed artists to long-time Covent Garden favourites. Expect astonishing feats from Magic Sam, fresh from levitating Machine Gun Kelly on stage in the US, and Juma, a hand-balancing acrobat who balances seven feet in the air, Juma is a member of the world-renowned Black Eagles, known for balancing in handstands atop stilts.

Audiences can also catch high-energy ladder acrobatics and clowning from Unstable Acts, daring Cyr wheel tricks from Chris Thomas (a graduate of the National Circus School), and a trampoline-meets-breakdancing double act from Karbula and Dan Edwards.

For fifty years, the West Piazza of Covent Garden has been home to world-class street theatre – open, accessible, and, perhaps most remarkably, self-regulated. To this day, there is no formal authority managing the pitch; yet despite the success of Covent Garden’s self-regulated model, the future of street performance in the square remains uncertain.

In 2021, Westminster Council introduced a borough-wide licensing scheme for street performers, including Covent Garden. While many performers across Westminster applied for licenses under the new scheme, the CGSPA chose to continue their proven model of self-regulation – technically operating outside the licensing framework, but doing so in order to protect a system that had worked smoothly for decades. The council has not provided any formal exemption or recognition of their model and the future of the square is still officially “under review” – leaving the community in limbo.

The 50th anniversary event is both a joyful public celebration and a quiet reminder: Covent Garden’s Street performers are an essential part of London’s cultural fabric, and their future must be protected.