
How NYC's subway buskers are faring - mikeisag
http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/future/economics/216567-is-busking-on-the-nyc-subway-more-lucrative-than-streaming-on-spotify
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stevetjoa
I busk solo violin in San Francisco's Powell Station -- 45 times since January
4, 2014. I last played on September 20 and made $51.02 per hour. My friends
have encouraged me to write about my experiences onto Hacker News, but I never
have.

You learn a lot about people and crowd dynamics. Donations come in clusters;
if a person sees someone else donate, he/she is more likely to. In an attempt
to teach empathy, mothers often give cash to their three-year old kid to put
in the violin case. The few who drop a $10 or $20 are often over 40 years old.

Twice I've had money stolen, both by dudes in their late teens or early
twenties.

Sound definitely matters; you can't just "look good". Busking at the Ferry
Building was a bad idea; no one can hear you. I'll never do that again.

High-density foot traffic is not always a good thing. In the evening rush
hour, there are so many people obstructing view and making noise that I
imagine it's difficult to appreciate the music by the time you've reached the
fare gates. I believe that a medium traffic density works best where the sound
can travel and there is always a direct line of sight between pedestrian and
performer.

Sometimes the "great works" make poor busking choices. The Bach Chaconne is a
great example.

Unsurprisingly, an ensemble with more performers earns more than a soloist. On
August 20, 2014, we played the Mendelssohn Octet in Powell Station and
collectively made $461.64 over 90 minutes, or $307.76 per hour. However,
that's $38.47 per hour per person. I make $15-50 per hour solo. So I wonder
where the diminishing returns begin, i.e. what ensemble size maximizes revenue
per hour per person.

Is it scary? The scariest part was leaving the apartment that first day.
Exiting the apartment door was the point of no return. "Okay, I have my jacket
and shoes on and my violin, I might as well go on with it." That moment when,
for the first time, alone, I plopped my music stand in the middle of
Embarcadero Station was one of the most _uncomfortable_ moments of my life.
However, once you start playing, that's easy. The music is the easy part.

If you want to busk but are scared, I recommend going at a less busy time,
e.g. Saturday morning at 10 am. Get used to the surroundings; embrace your
anxiety. Once you're comfortable, try again next week at 2 pm.

~~~
greggman
Would it be worth it to pay a someone to appear to donate every time a crowd
walks by?

I love seeing live performers although it depends on the situation. In Paris
the hallways are too small and the buskers are basically blocking the already
crowded hallways. In NYC the ones that actually come on the trains and then go
around with a hat make me feel uncomfortable although any performer who's
really good I appreciate.

I'd also be curious how those numbers change in countries with larger coins. I
assume it's easier to give coins? No worries about bills being blown away.
Coins "feel" more disposable? There are €2 coins in Europe. There are 500yen
coins in Japan (about $5) where as there are only basically 25 cent coins in
the USA (yea 50 cent and $1 coins exist but are not common)

~~~
stevetjoa
Hmm, interesting. Perhaps it is not worth it to "hire" a spectator to donate,
but I think simply a spectator to stand around like an audience member can be
more effective. That's another thing that often clusters; people who stop and
listen. At really odd times, I'll look around and all of a sudden notice five
people who stopped to listen.

Yeah, positioning is key. I do not disrupt traffic flow at all; for those who
know Powell, I stand at the end of the long hallway on the 4th street side.
That gets me a captive audience for about 30 yards. They have no choice but to
listen to me on their way to the BART/Muni gates. Acoustics are good too.

Indoors, there is little chance of bills being blown away, but otherwise, I
agree with you about coins. $1 coins are actually not that uncommon.

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santaclause33
Anecdote: For the summer between high school and college, I made am average of
$17 per hour busking on the subway (an average of 24 hours a week)

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AndrewKemendo
I always wonder about how these people will keep getting money as commerce
goes increasingly cashless.

I never carry cash so whenever a beggar asks, I say as much. One guy I
encountered recently, jokingly said "I take credit cards too!" If he actually
did, he would probably clean up.

~~~
stpe
I've seen a live performer in Stockholm, Sweden (where I live and I haven't
had cash in my wallet for a few years, although I guess most people have some
"just in case") accepting Swish [1], the instant mobile cash transfer solution
(no fees).

I believe it is more about cash being more physical and thereby more
immediately noticeable to the perfomer who can give the donator
acknowledgement that is the major issue, not the technical transfer aspect.

I guess next step is to have performers carry a small LCD screen and an
Arduino to instantly acknowledge received transfers to make it more
"physical". (Wooah..! YC, here I come! (jk)).

[1]
[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(mobilapplikation)](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_\(mobilapplikation\))
(Swedish)

~~~
toomuchtodo
I've always thought it'd be cool for a bitcoin ATM to be able to laser sinter
bitcoins out of steel or titanium on the fly, with the wallet info etched into
the coin as a QR code.

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bemmu
Just for fun, one night I sat next to a street performer in Japan on his
performance from the start at 10pm to end at around 3am. Total take was
2500jpy ($25), which was 100 jpy from 5 different people + 1000 each from two
generous gentlemen.

He said the highest donation ever was 30000 jpy from a very drunken salaryman.

~~~
rtpg
was this in Tokyo? It's true I don't see the performers earning much, but
wasn't expecting 500 yen an hour

I guess most of these people have day jobs

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leroy_masochist
Jeff, the multi-instrument guy in the Times Square station who briefly shows
up in the article's picture section, needs to be thoroughly documented by some
kind of historical-record-preserving outfit. Now that James Brown is dead,
Jeff is probably the hardest working individual currently working in show
business. He's always hustling.

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ethagknight
Isn't it generally thought that albums are just marketing for live
performances, and concerts are where all but the biggest artists make all
their money anyway? Since busking is live performance...

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aidenn0
Live shows are typically more lucrative for artists than recordings anyway...

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chjohasbrouck
I've seen dozens of articles with similar headlines. I don't think anyone
should be concerned with how much Spotify pays, for 2 reasons:

1\. The people who made the music sold the rights to the music to the people
who own the music, who then licensed the music to Spotify for an agreed-upon
amount. Everyone agreed, presumably because this deal was beneficial for every
party involved, which it most likely is otherwise Spotify wouldn't have been
able to obtain licenses to almost every artist's music.

2\. There will never be a shortage of art in this world, whether it's
compensated monetarily or not. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I
don't see a big need for artists to be compensated. If they stopped being
compensated, we'd just be left with a few million artists of every medium
producing art for free because that's what most artists do, whether it pays or
not. If they weren't compensated, there would be less mass-market art, but
since the quality of art is both subjective and relative, we'd probably all be
just as satisfied with it.

If you stop compensating most professions, their output drops to zero. If you
stop compensating artists, they just keep producing art. One could argue that
we'd get even better art if we stopped compensating artists. We'd be left with
nothing but the passionate ones.

~~~
bwy
I can't believe you can say this seriously. Have you not played an instrument
or drawn before? Art is in many ways relatively, but objectively,
quantitatively more people enjoy listening to Mozart than Cage's 4'33", and
more people enjoy Picasso than a 5 year old's finger painting.

Those art things require training just like any other profession.

~~~
cousin_it
I don't think GP's argument hinges on art enjoyment being 100% relative.
Whatever kind of art you happen to enjoy, be it Mozart's string quartets or
Cage's 4'33'', someone out there is making exactly that kind of art for free.
The difference in quality is tiny compared to the difference in popularity.

Yes, making good art requires training, but so what? These people are willing
to get training, create art, and give it to you for free. You might say that
it's immoral to take stuff from them for free, but _that 's what already
happens_. The overwhelming majority of artists lose money, rather than make
money. If you removed artist compensation completely, fewer people would go
into art hoping for the pie-in-the-sky chance of success. The overall societal
loss in terms of smashed hopes etc. would become _smaller_. And the quality of
art you consume might become higher, because you'd lose the cookie cutter
commercial crap. That's how the argument goes.

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RickHull
Silly comparison -- linkbait headline. It doesn't even delve into Spotify
economics, nor particularly the passive aspect of streaming income that
starkly distinguishes it from busking.

~~~
caryhartline
All income from content creation could be seen as passive, but there's an
initial amount of work that is much more difficult with little chance of
success.

~~~
NeutronBoy
Except busking (indeed any performance) carries an active component. There's
opportunity cost with busking - not so with Spotify.

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jonas21
The article doesn't even attempt to answer this question.

~~~
pbreit
Probably OK since the question doesn't really make any sense.

