In a remarkable “Plate of Shrimp”/cosmic unsconsiousness type event, this popped up on BoingBoing today.
City fights illegal gig posters with CANCELLED stickers
The city council of Glasgow is fighting illegal handbills with science: they’re paying city workers to go around and stick “cancelled” stickers on all the illegal gig posters put up around town. Staff who patrol the city every working day spotting new posters and marking them are now a central part of the council’s £100,000 a year war on flyposting.
And other workers have been issued with “cancelled” stickers which make it clear the ad has been banned by the council. And they have already had an impact on some rogue promoters who have been inundated with complaints from music fans. People who have bought tickets to some of this summers big gigs have complained, thinking that an event, rather than the advert, had been cancelled.
Link (Thanks, Jono!)
(Photo thumbnail ganked from a larger pic credited to Jamie Simpson)
I had seen a circus poster in the subway with a “CANCELLED” sticker over it in NY last month. It was the only one I saw and it made me wonder if it was fake. Then I thought… anyone could do that! Which turned into another idea that will materialize at Conflux this September. Oh the suspense…
(thanks Mark.)
4 Comments
I wish something like this happened during last months elections time in France…
Does anybody know how much these CANCELLED STICKERS are costing Glasgow City Council taxpayers??
at least a few cents each. AT LEAST!
The council already employ staff to remove illegal fly posters just for them to be reapplied over and over again, so it isn’t any extra cost. The ‘cancelled’ stickers cause problems for the promoters and are very simple to apply (ever tried scraping a fly poster off?)