Rules? There are no rules. Just turn up and play
Big Beach Busk founder Paul Lambie on creating an alternative to Edinburgh's commercially-driven festivals
“No tickets. No booking. No asking for permission (there's no-one to ask).”
These are the instructions on the evergreen poster which pops up every year in August, ahead of the Big Beach Busk in Portobello. On the final Saturday in August, for the last 15 years, hundreds of musicians have rocked up on Portobello Prom for an afternoon of totally informal mass busking. According to Paul Lambie, who first came up with the idea of the Big Beach Busk, at its peak the Busk was attracting well over 300 people to perform, and many more spectators.
The busk often sees established musicians stopping for the Busk on their summer festival circuit; Einstein's Wardrobe, Katie Nicoll, Super Moons, and Overton & McCann are a few of the recognisable names that have popped up in recent years. At least three acts have performed in disguise. Countless performers have played their first public gig at the Busk, and some have gone on to performing on cruise ships or have their songs played on public radio. But for Lambie the busk is not about the big names. “There are no headliners, no-one on the prom is any more more prominent or important than anyone else,” he says.
The Big Busk will see parent-child performing duos, choirs, charity fundraisers, kids trying out their new instrument, people who have been bedroom musicians for years, and much more. “There was an adorable kid who came down with his mum the first year, and he brought an iPod and a Bluetooth speaker and a little bit of lino, and he break danced all day. The next year he came back, he had a full tracksuit and a boombox. And then the year after that, he came down with a posse, and it just grew... that's what the busk is about,” says Lambie. Lambie says he will see performers moving to give children space to perform, or inviting each other to perform together. As someone who has never performed at the Busk himself, he says the buskers are what makes the event so special: “I'm so grateful to all of the people who come along every year with their with their courage and their confidence.”
Lambie also mentions Lindsay Perth, a self-declared non-musician who is attempting to learn 15 songs on ukulele to perform at the beach busk, raising money for Crisis and Medical Aid for Palestine. “For years, at the annual Beach Busk here in Portobello, Edinburgh, I both loved and envied the people who played and sang,” she writes on her fundraising page. “The human spirit rises with music, whether you're singing, playing or listening. Sadly, I can't even play a triangle.... [but], heck, it's only embarrassment and people throwing tomatoes right? I can take a truckload x 100 of that if you can help me raise money for people whose suffering is aided by Crisis and Medical Aid for Palestinians ” At the time of writing, Perth had already raised over £1400 on her fundraising website.
Origins: a deliberately disorganised event
In its third year, Lambie was approached by an events manager with a large brewery sponsor, who offered to the buy the Big Beach Busk. Lambie refused, and has instead turned it into an almost non-organised event, with no sign-ups, no tickets, and a re-usable poster for every year.
This is because for Lambie, the event was a deliberate alternative to the expensive and hyper-commercialised August festivals in town. “A large part of what I wanted the busk to be was an alternative, something for me and my friends, that meant we could gather in August without having to spend an extortionate amount for a drink... to be able to have fun and to see some amazing performances without having to navigate the festival and the crazy costs that that incurs,” he says.
The idea for the busk was apparently born one evening on Portobello beach in August, when Lambie was sitting with a folk musician friend trying to enjoy the beach despite the tinny music coming from a neighbouring bluetooth speaker. The pair commisserated the fact that buskers never ventured down to Portobello beach from town; but then wondered how many they could get if they invited all their musical friends. A few years later, the first Big Beach Busk had over 60 performers.
After that the event was on a roll; Lambie would make a poster, shout about it online for a few months, invite some personal contacts, and speak with local police. After a few years of growing attendances, positive reviews and zero antisocial behaviour, Lambie reckoned he could let it go, step back, and stop doing any organising at all.
“I kind of thought of it like the many-headed Hydra. There is no one organizing this. If you cut my head off, there's five other people that will step up and put posts out on socials... I spent the first 10 years shouting about it from May till August. I don't do anything at all anymore. And it just happens because people want it to happen,” he says.
This year, Lambie has devised a poster which is automatically re-posted onto a Facebook page, and he has a friend who will occasionally check on the social media. He might put up some posters if he feels like it, but these days most locals already know that the Busk is on the last Saturday in August. On the day, he will wander up and down the prom once or twice to see the performers; then he will leave and have a lie down in the quiet in the middle of the day.
Designing the Big Beach Busk as a self-propelling event not only means it can remain free and inclusive - it means that Lambie can keep it going without burning out. Lambie remembers there was a small music festival in Porty when he moved there, but it got too big to organise and everyone burned out. “ I kind of thought, if we can make this free to organize and or, you know, if we can make it free for absolutely everyone involved... [then] if nobody comes along, I'm probably going to enjoy myself anyway, right? It's in my diary that I'm not doing anything that day. If nobody comes along, not even my wife and my kids, I'm going to sit on the beach that day, and I'll be perfectly happy to do so,” he says.
Proof of Portobello's potential?
A final reason that Lambie wanted to bring performers down to the beach is in an effort to draw more attention and investment to Portobello Beach.
Lambie argues that Portobello Beach is an incredible asset to Edinburgh; what other European capital city has its own mile-long beach? Since Lambie moved to Portobello in 2009, the beach has certainly grown in popularity; but many Portobello residents and business owners say the facilities have not kept up.
Earlier this year, many residents complained after plans for new public toilets on the beach were initially scrapped. New ones are now expected by 2027, thanks in part to the city’s Visitor Levy which will be applied from next summer. Residents and business owners say that the current toilet provision is completely insufficient for the numbers of visitors in the summer. During the day, businesses said they are overwhelmed by visitors wanting to use their toilet facilities without paying, and after the public toilets have closed at 6pm, there have been reports of urinating and defecating in gardens and on the street.
There have also been numerous complaints that the Scottsish Government is not doing enough to improve water quality at Portobello, and tests taken by the local Water Collective found dangerous levels of ecoli last year.
Lambie also would like to see other investment in showers for swimmers, better playparks and an even surface so people with wheelchairs can navigate the prom more easily. “I had a single meeting with a guy from the Edinburgh Council events team, okay, who was really positive... but I just don't want their help with the Beach Busk. The Beach Busk doesn't need them. The community needs them to invest in the beach itself. We'll deal with the events,” he says.
For more information about the Busk and how to take part, you can see the event's Facebook page. However, the instructions are pretty simple; turn up, play, watch, be kind.
 | A guest post by
|