Blessed Are the Buskers1

I love street performance, I really do. I do not think there is any manner of art more equalitarian. These extroverted entertainers create a free market in spectacle, where passersby may choose to sample or enjoy the wares for so long as they like, and they never need pay a cent. It's the Pandora of theatre.

I discuss buskers in economic terms because I believe that is how they should be perceived, with donors as buyers and performers as sellers. Buskers are not beggars. Rather, I would contend they are a sort of professional, offering a service. True, buskers resemble beggars in their method of collection, and donating to either increases the incentive for the activity. But the distinction becomes clear when one thinks about the incentive of the donor rather than the performer. When a donor gives to a beggar, they want the beggar to go eat, find shelter, and in short, to stop being a beggar. When the same donor throws coins to a busker, they are saying they want this activity to continue.

In any market, if there's money to be made, people will seek to make it. And if there's lots of money to be made, then talented and intrepid people will seek to make lots of it. Thus, a humble suggestion: give to the buskers.

Why, you might ask? Why should your hard earned pocket change go to drama students without enough common sense to work at a coffee shop? Answer: incentives again. It's no coincidence that the best street performers appear in crowded tourist spots, usually where shopping -- and thus, spare change -- is abundant. In every major European city I've visited, I have seen buskers everywhere. And just as frequently, they have their admirers. People constantly stop to listen to the music, watch the dance, or witness a painting materialize before them. But most pass on without offering any token of appreciation to the artist who has brightened their journey.

Buskers, like beggars, bankers, and the rest of us, like to eat, and if they can't manage it performing in the street, they'll do something else instead. Thus, the absence of donating is not a neutral response to the performance. Every person who walks by without giving a coin or two encourages the street performer to pack up and become a barista. Even more damaging to the performer's morale, I would argue, is the person who both lingers and pinches his pennies. That tells the busker: I have considered your performance and found it unworthy. Go and seek your apron.

Conversely, generous donations will draw better and better talent. I saw one such talent this past weekend while on another trip to London. While walking through Covent Garden, I noticed a very large throng of people. They had formed a circle about 20 meters in diameter around not a flower girl², but a busker, and an odd-looking one at that. There, atop an unsupported two-legged ladder, wielding three very nasty looking scimitars, stood a fellow named Pete, his baby-bald head offset by a black kilt³ and combat boots.

Pete is a true showman. He drew a crowd, kept them there, kept them laughing and gasping. And he did it balancing ten feet in the air, in a dress, while juggling cutlery. What stuck with me about Pete, however, was the brief appeal he made before his final stunt. He told the crowd that this performance was his job. It had taken time and effort -- years, in fact -- to get the act right. And he wanted to keep giving it, he wanted to keep performing and pleasing the crowds like he did that day, but he couldn't do it for free. Then he thanked the audience, black-flipped off the ladder, and made a two-point landing just in time to catch both his tumbling appartus and his thunderous applause.

I found myself thinking about Pete when I went to the National Theatre that night. The professional production I attended there was precise, witty and thought-provoking. But the audience in the black box couldn't have been much larger than Pete's crowd. In fact, it looked much smaller. I do not mean to slight traditional theatre with this comparison. Rather, I hope to give some perspective to Pete's achievement. Through nothing but hard work and creativity, he managed to entertain an audience larger than that of a playhouse, and for an almost laughable fraction of the price.

That is why I give my spare change to fellows like Pete. I don't pity them. I appreciate what buskers do, and the laughter and pageantry they bring to the city streets. A little unsolicited jollity is worth at least that.

And if you see Pete, please be extra generous. Maybe then he'll be able to get himself some pants.

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¹Slang for street performer.<sup>a

aMy apologies to those of you who read the footnotes only after the rest of the text. Some people aren't as resourceful as you, what with your clever googling. Also, you're pretty.

2</sup>Though wouldn't that be lover-ly?

³An odd fashion choice, I thought, for someone who earns his daily bread perched out in the wind above large crowds.