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Is busking a scam?
Provocative title, yes, but I don't think busking is a scam. It's more that I'm interested in where that idea comes from.
I got the first intuitions when I was at my first busker's festival, in my hometown of Ottawa. I was an enthusiatic, naive 16 year-old, and I told a reporter how much I made per night. The other performers were a bit peeved -- they explained to me that you should "Never tell them how much you make."
So why was it a secret? I justified it as pragmatic PR -- people don't understand how much work and time goes in to getting a street show together. The amounts we make would seem like too much to those who've never tried it, and they would stop giving. I'm less sure of that now, but I still dodge the question of how much I make. Usually I tell people it's a rude question.
Then I saw the way that some performers looked at their act -- their job was to get as much money as possible from the "punters" -- the suckers, the marks -- for as long as they could get away with it. These usually tended to be the people with the most sterile, standard acts. They also tended to be unhappy. For them, I realized, it was a scam. They wanted it to be. So, in that respect, I think busking *can* be a scam.
But it isn't, except in the perverted sense. I noticed that the best performers never talked about the money, they weren't attached to it. Later I learned it was mostly *because* of this non-attachment that they were good, and that they loved their work.
The most neurotic among us (myself included) sometimes feel guilty that we make such good money for something that seems so little like work. But it doesn't mean we're ripping people off. It means we are doing something we love, at the place where what we want to create meets what people want to see. You can't ask for better luck than that.
I got the first intuitions when I was at my first busker's festival, in my hometown of Ottawa. I was an enthusiatic, naive 16 year-old, and I told a reporter how much I made per night. The other performers were a bit peeved -- they explained to me that you should "Never tell them how much you make."
So why was it a secret? I justified it as pragmatic PR -- people don't understand how much work and time goes in to getting a street show together. The amounts we make would seem like too much to those who've never tried it, and they would stop giving. I'm less sure of that now, but I still dodge the question of how much I make. Usually I tell people it's a rude question.
Then I saw the way that some performers looked at their act -- their job was to get as much money as possible from the "punters" -- the suckers, the marks -- for as long as they could get away with it. These usually tended to be the people with the most sterile, standard acts. They also tended to be unhappy. For them, I realized, it was a scam. They wanted it to be. So, in that respect, I think busking *can* be a scam.
But it isn't, except in the perverted sense. I noticed that the best performers never talked about the money, they weren't attached to it. Later I learned it was mostly *because* of this non-attachment that they were good, and that they loved their work.
The most neurotic among us (myself included) sometimes feel guilty that we make such good money for something that seems so little like work. But it doesn't mean we're ripping people off. It means we are doing something we love, at the place where what we want to create meets what people want to see. You can't ask for better luck than that.
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