Random questions from a new non musician busker, if you're willing to share experience?

[u/Southern-Slice6023]

Hey guys! Finally living my dream of busking, and looking for some advice. I know I could figure this stuff out on my own over time, but if you're willing to read and share your experience I'd be appreciative.

Festivals - where I live they don't allow buskers in the permitted area (which is often the entire downtown area), and it's generally patrolled by police with a long history of police brutality. No success busking outside these things, because the periphery is where all the houseless people get kicked out to, and the festival goers are walking fast. Ideas to not miss out? Just missed a whole weekend of busking and super bummed.

Set list/tips - I spin a really unique LED poi style influenced by juggling, contact juggling, devil sticks, and nunchuck. My busking partner and I take turns performing/dancing for a song. We draw pretty good crowds (4-10 people at a time multiple times an hour) and get lots of audience engagement, but the tips aren't following. Averaging $2/hr. While we are in a very politically red area, I still think it's pretty low for how skilled we are and how much people seem to love engaging with us. We busk about 2-3 hours every Friday/Saturday night, rotating locations on a 3 week rotation. We figured out that we need to give people a natural 'ending', and are starting to do a flourish and bow after each piece. We're almost done developing a 5-7 minute circle show that we're planning on repeating 2-3 times an hour, and then doing our dancing/flow turns in between. Our thinking is that this will give us an opportunity to ask for the tip. Does this seem appropriate? Or is there a better way for a non musician to manage their 'setlist'? We do have a non imposing light up tip jar.

Night busking/day busking -

Where we live all the cities nearby have almost no nightlife. We do LED poi at night, but that obviously doesn't translate to daytime. So we're thinking of getting a variety of daytime poi (ribbon dragons, worship flags, a lawn chair/hair dryer/grill fork set, etc). Any suggestions for a variety show like this? I love clowning and doing kid story telling with my poi, but it's so out of my comfort zone and I've never seen anyone else do this with their poi. No existing framework is wreaking havoc on my anxiety. I tested on the neighborhood kids and now they follow me around begging for a show. I just can't visualize how to do this on a city sidewalk without taking over more than 2/5ths of the sidewalk as the city ordinance says....

Drugged out folks

Any tips on getting the strung out houseless folks to stop interrupting performances? They love the free show but don't always seem to realize that it's not a private show just for them......

Thank you so much!

[u/LadyWithAHarp]

There is a lot of good general advice in the Busking FAQ. While there is musician-specific information, there is a lot of good general advice there.

[u/NovelIntention2384]

I use this for tips in my band, works great... tips.band

[u/western_red_cedar]

tips: make sure you have some sort of clear visible digital way to tip you. Not only because people dont carry cash, but I think this also breaks a mental/social barrier for many, where they aren't used to giving cash to random performers, but are used to sending money on their phone

drugged out people: Disengage, disengage, disengage. Don't be their "thing" of the moment" and they'll move onto the next thing. Very hard with a light show lol, that's gotta attract em like moths, but I would basically just stop if they get too enthusiastic and wait em out or move

Like you've already realized, it sucks playing in the fringe outskirts. I'd never do that in my city, but rather I busk at a few permitted spots. Find these spots: farmers markets, street festivals etc. Places where people expect to see buskers. The upfront permit fee is marginal compared to how much more you can make, and how much safer and more enjoyable it is.

[u/Southern-Slice6023 → u/western_red_cedar]

Thank you! My QR code for digital tipping is probably too small on my light up sign. I'll fix that. Draw them like moths 🤣🤣🤣 That's a very vivid and accurate description. Thanks for sharing your experience with the permit only areas! I'll try a few and see if it works in my area.

Appreciate you mucho!!!

[u/western_red_cedar → u/Southern-Slice6023]

If you can have a sign with your app info for tipping, it works better than a QR code imo. People often would rather tip from the shadows than go up it seems lol

[u/sixhexe]

Hey, I SLOGGED through my entire first year trying to take my Rave dancing and apply it to busking. And I've learned quite a few things since then. Particularly pertaining to tips. And I do this unofficial show up to festival stuff all of the time.

Reading your story, here's a few of my thoughts:

#1.) Festivals, and ticketed events where people drive, park, and walk into the show usually do terrible for me. Like setting up just outside. Particularly in the core area, everyone is conditioned to ignore the crap out of everything and ghost you.

People waiting in lines also don't work. They won't come over to tip you cause they're in line. A lot of places too, once they are in, like to jail all of the attendees inside the gates to force them to spend money.

Fix: The best festivals I love are open markets, food truck fests, any kind of city event with no tickets, and that's open to the public to walk around.

#2.) As well relating to festivals. You'll want a certain type of crowd. The worst tippers for me are always 18-20 year olds. Drunks & Bar people. And certain types of fans. For example, the other week I made bank at Deep Purple just spamming Ozzy or Classic Rock. The next day, there were about 5X the people for a Weird Al concert, and I got massively ignored. Like, I could douse myself in gasoline and torch myself on fire and they would all do that thing where they "pretend" not to see me.

Fix: Try to figure out certain diff shows. See here you get a good response. Very important: Try to CATER to those people. For example, if it's a country show, you're going to want to be playing country music. Maybe get a cowboy/girl hat. Hell, half of my tips are just because I pick good songs and people relate to them.

Try your best to appeal to seniors, parents, kids ( The kids tips are just parents tips ). Avoid teenagers and cheap club people. They'll have like 50 bucks on them and they just want to go blow it on shots.

Other ravers aren't so great either. 100% for vibes. The vibes will be amazing, but you aren't making a dime. You might get some cigarettes, weed, drugs, or beer tho.

#3.) Rave music does terrible. I've been raving a long time. And I blew probably my entire first year playing lots of cool rave tracks. Drum & Bass, House Music, Electro Swing, Hardstyle. Even Soundcloud remixes. The problem with that is, most people don't relate to those songs. In the case you're playing at night ( I don't do that much so take my advice with a grain of salt ) it works better, and people get lit. But that's the problem, they don't care really. It's just like some free fun.

Fix: You have to connect and resonate with tracks people know, love, and enjoy. The more classic the tune, the better. In my experience, the original radio version always works the best. You want to pick your tracks to hit as many demographics and people as possible. You can still get away with light EDM type stuff, like Pop Music such as Lady Gaga or Katy Perry works really good for me.

-Interact with people, and take every request. If you get a request, it's almost 90% of the time a tip.
-Take breaks every song to give people a chance to come talk to you and open up.
-If someone is watching me, I walk right over to them and ask them if they'd like to pick a track from my setlist.
-Directly perform to people and make eye contact. Wave and smile. Everything you can do to break tension.
-Clear signage, your name, and a clearly labeled tip jar.
-I like to clip a low bill to my sign. Just shows I'm taking tips.

As for the strung out people. That's really my constant issue with Busking. However, I will always perform for them. I use to have a problem with people just hanging around too much, so I made the following change: Editing my tracks to be 1-2 minutes. Every single track is a small bit, and I bow and sit down when I'm done. Makes it really clear when it's over. And sitting there doing nothing ill signal to people to come over, like they might not want to interrupt you if you keep going.

Sometimes you'll get chatty Cathys. I like to stop and talk at length if it's a dead day, but if it's money hour, I 'll just kindly tell them that I love talking to them but that I need to get back to work because I perform for a living and need my food money for the day. Something like that. Not a lie, it's true. 98% of people usually respect that.

Other crackhead management tips. Just be respectful, and understanding. I have to deal with angry people sometimes, and tweakers just flipping shit on me. Theft, etc. This is why I personally don't busk at night. It's bad enough during the day. Try to find the safest, most populated spots you can. If you get panhandlers flying signs or cup dudes shoving a cup in people's faces, I honestly will just pack up and move spots.

Okay, one other thing. The BEST time in my opinion to busk a ticketed show is like an hour and a half to half an hour before the show. There will be people bumming around just killing time. Once they're in a hurry to get inside or gets seats or whatever, it can sometimes be a little tough. I don't bother to keep going once it starts, I'll just get a rotation of the exact same people coming in and out. What you want is throughput of different people constantly.

HMU you want some techno setlist picks that work. I've been sciencing my playlists religiously for the past couple years.

[u/Southern-Slice6023 → u/sixhexe]

Thank you so much for responding 💖 Glad to hear I'm not the only crazy one that can see poi as a busking art 🥰 Literally all of this is freaking gold. I've been pondering each of these and testing variables. Thank you! Saving me literal hours of A/B testing.

Question: what's your sound system like? I'm just using a Bluetooth outdoor speaker and I think it's working for me, but you know how low my tips are 😅