Professional clowns say 'silly' trend is threatening their safety and livelihood.

Professional clowns in Queensland say the “creepy” clown trend sweeping the country is threatening their safety and livelihood.

A spate of incidents of people dressed as clowns terrorising unsuspecting people across the US and now Australia has seen police make arrests as the craze spreads across social media.

Sunshine Coast man George Farmer, whose clown name is Rocco, said the prank is also scary for well-meaning entertainers like him.

“We don’t go out alone to visit places, we have to travel together, we might have to look at taking our makeup up down when we go home,” he said.

“For a clown who has done what I do for 16 years, it’s very scary.”

Mr Farmer is the president of the Coastal Caring Clowns, an organisation which trains volunteers to perform visits to hospitals, schools and community organisations.

He said the recent string of incidents shown in videos of clowns scaring neighbourhoods at night posed concerns for his own safety.

“We have to think how we react because in the public, we would see the clown and somebody might think ‘Oh that’s a scary clown, get him’,” he said.

Mr Farmer does three outings dressed as Rocco a week and visits four different hospitals a month.

He said getting into costume for his day job was “liberating”.

“When you start to learn clowning, you really become another character.”

“If I would not have a costume to go to somebody in a nursing home and they don’t know me, they would not look at me.

“They would feel ‘who is that stranger?'”

According to Mr Farmer, the trend is also altering perceptions of clowns as deranged predators instead of happy entertainers.

“We have to think what can we do to protect us from them, and also what can we do to promote that other clowns are around.

“There are only a small part of clowns that do these silly things, but damaging the whole trade.”

‘Creepy’ clown trend impacting job prospects

Tanya “Sparkles” Abbey, a clown with 20 years experience, argued the trend could see her and others in her industry secure less work.

“We’re worried that people might be hesitant before they let us come into hospitals to entertain sick kids or to raise money for charity or things like that,” she told ABC Sunshine Coast.

“These people aren’t clowns, they’re people dressed as clowns doing silly, thoughtless things.”

Ms Abbey, who is seven months pregnant with her first child, said the craze is impacting the way she goes about doing her job.

“It sort of takes a bit of the fun away,” she said.

“I used to enjoy driving to work because people would laugh and smile, and now I feel like they’re going to look at me very sceptically.”

Police condemn ‘intimidating or antisocial’ behaviour

The creepy behaviour is a concern for Queensland Police, who today condemned the actions of those who take part in the craze.

The state’s Police Minister Bill Byrne said intimidation of the public will not be tolerated.

He told Queensland Parliament that the behaviour is dangerous and stupid.

“The last thing this state needs is for our policing resources to be wasted due to the people running around dressed up as clowns, intimidating and scaring members of our community,” he said.

“The police have made it clear they will not tolerate anyone engaging in intimidating or antisocial behaviour.”

He said Queensland schools would be taking a tough stance against clowning around.

“Like police, principals will be taking a tough stance against any student found to be associated with these activities, and will impose disciplinary consequences,” he said.

This post originally appeared on ABC News. 

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