Folks would you please reply with your thoughts on this question?
I don't rope off the pitch, but I place a medium sized bronze lion on a table directly in front of my pitch that commands respect
and some space of it's own. It's a bit more user friendly than a rope, I would say. I could be wrong.

Depends on the pitch.

If I have a pitch where I need to walk people closer to me, I like a rope line so they know where the are supposed come.

But for smaller doorway pitches where I am closer to the crowd, it is not necessarily.

So to me it is a people management issue.

-JoeJoe

I guess for now, it's just you and I entertaining America on the streets eh Joe-Joe? Hard to believe!

I found that opening with a fire effect would serve to deter anyone from getting too close. Never used a rope.

Rope dirtys your hands
as does chalk,
unless you use a chalk holder
water is my choice...

I havnt done many street pitches to be fair, but I have done a few indoor conventions. I normally found a corner dropped a 30ft peice of rope and put on a show. The place was pretty crowed, but it worked fairly well for me and my little show. Setting the edge at the beginning was the hardest part.

When I was in NYC I used chalk; at renfairs I use rope. as I'm standing om grass or dirt. but this was/is for a juggling act where I need space and can't alwase keep an eye on everybody.
I have used the rope for the magic, but I don't have to.

I rope off my pitch as it generally helps me in audience management
in several ways. One it shows me where to fill in the holes, two
it tells people where to stand, and three provides a performing area
clearly outlined to perform. Kinda like blocking for me...

There is also this theory that I read somewhere where just laying
out the rope is part of the act and provides flash. Though, I have
yet, personally, have someone come up while I was laying out the rope;
I've seen it work and where you can interact with person. I also
seen a SJ routine where the laying out of the chain (kinda like the rope)
is part of the act...

I actually use about 12 to 20 of those flickering LED tealights- 4 for a buck at a dollar store- I generally have to open them up and correct the shoddy soldering/loose ends, but being a DIY guy, it's no problem.

I set them out in a semi-circle about 3 to 4 feet around the front of my table. On top of the table I have 5 more accompanied by 2 larger "pillar" LED candles. All of them flicker and look very realistic.

Instant atmosphere/lighting control with no fire danger!

Ekuth, yours is a novel approach to working during the evening...I'm curious do you also use this method during daylight hours?
Cheers!

Hey Devious-

About 90% of the time I'm working in dusk conditions (or maybe it's just the events I've been hitting).
For daylight, I'm going back and forth between rope and some of that blue painter's tape. The tape works pretty well- it's visible and peels off the pavement lickety split.

However, it doesn't always stick, and I don't wanna use duct tape and leave a bunch of sticky residue behind (that sounded dirty somehow...) so I resort to the rope for those occasions.

Thanks for the compliment- and I like your lion idea!

http://www.hanklee.org/xcart/product.php?productid=94&js=n

Not my personal cup of tea, but that would do the trick!

Hey ringmaster, I agree with Ekuth, it would do the trick (no pun intended), but it's not my bag (pun intended)either.
Stay cool!

Nice double entendre there, Devious.

This is actually a good question that I have been thinking about
lately...

When I worked with Mario; he mentioned that the rope would/could be
limiting and I found that it was limiting and became a cruch. So
I got rid of it entirely.

It helped tremendously not depending on it and focusing on building
and managing my audience; which, allowed for more interaction on my
part...in short I believe it made me better.

I recently re-introduced it, but instread of using my slinky white
"magician's" rope; I am using something thicker more colorful. I
pulled it out from my experience to as flash (mentioned above) to
help build a crowd. It became part of my show and surely helped in
gathering my crowd...

In short, if you look back; I am in agreement with JoJo...it depends
on the pitch...

I like the rope, I have found that if I don't have it, and sometimes even when I do, the crowds will crowd me as they get bigger. I have to push them back and remind not to crowd my stage. I think if you use a table it may be easier for you to keep them at a respectable distance. I don't have a table yet so I like the rope.

I do a sidewalk show and never roped off anything. I've seen some guys doing a circle show, I';d definatly use a rope or some sort of boundry for that

Last night for my "live" audition, I roped off my "stage area" with the 100 ft rope that I use for my escape finale ( I folded it over itself, not actually roping off 100 feet). I made a joke to people about how I went to home depot to buy some wood to make myself a stage, but they were all out. So I bought this rope instead, which I am glad they only had rope because I am a terrible carpenter anyways.That was my way of introducing the rope and it's purpose.

I found some nice-looking bright orange (and bright green) diamond braid polypropelene rope on WalMart yesterday (shopping for soft rope--no luck. Looked like it would be great for roping a pitch, but I did not pick any up . . . yet.