Quit your job, learn to busk

We all know StudyLink is a sorry excuse for an income. Once you’ve paid your extortionate rent and bills, you’d be very lucky to have even $5 to go towards food, cones, shit wine and other student essentials. Most of us will spend our weekends running around a busy restaurant or cafe. Or maybe you’re in the retail game and spend your days off from uni explaining to middle aged women that no, you can’t return an item you didn’t even buy from this store. If you’re part of the small demographic of people whose parents pay their rent, we hate you so much, but only because we’re jealous. But what if there was an alternative to working for The Man? Could busking and street performing be the student way of the future? Massive investigates. 

Getting a busking license is relatively easy, as long as you’re not performing any dangerous stunts. In Auckland and Wellington it’s free, unfortunately for Palmy students though, there’s a $15 application fee if you want to sing your heart out on the streets of Manawatū. Keep this on the low, but you don’t really need a busking license, you’re very unlikely to get caught and you can always just play dumb. You’ll probably need an instrument and at least a little bit of talent before you take the streets. If you’ve got a nice family member or manage to score an old guitar at the Sallies then your set-up costs are still pretty low. You’ll need something to collect your cash in too, could be anything really. A hat? A shoe? Maybe a menstrual cup? Then you’re all set. 

So far busking seems pretty idyllic, you go out on the street sing a few bangers and make a few bucks. To get a more realistic look at busking as a career prospect, Massive tracked down some real life performers to discuss their biggest cash money contributions as well as their strangest non-monetary donations, plus the do’s and don’ts of performing on the street. 

Liam, a Creative Media Productions graduate and all round badass, was a busker for around five years. During that time they received some pretty unique donations, as well as some pretty decent cash. For around two hours of busking, Liam would receive anywhere between $60 and $240. That’s fucking decent cash right? Even on the low end that’s significantly higher than minimum wage, which would see you earn $40 (before tax) for burning yourself on a coffee machine or pouring overpriced drinks. When asked what his motivation for busking was, Liam was pretty straight up. “I was just super poor mostly, and I needed money for darts and cones.” This seems to be the motivation for most students I spoke to, they realised they were broke and then realised they could be less broke because of a skill they learnt when they were a kid. Like hey, thanks for forcing those guitar lessons on me, Mum. Time to cash in. 

Jesse is a first year student and has been playing the bagpipes since he was a kid. He jammed his pipes on the Wellington waterfront for years and spent some time playing in Brisbane when he lived there too. Bagpipes are a pretty unique instrument to see played on the streets, and Jesse explains that they aren’t the most busking-friendly. “It’s pretty physically demanding playing the bagpipes for hours, so I’d tend to play between 45 minutes and an hour. This would usually get me anywhere between $80 and $250.” Can you imagine getting $250 cash for an hour’s work? Holy shit, where do I sign up for bagpiping lessons? Jesse says he’s not motivated by the money though (whatever you say, Jesse). “My motivation for busking is the enjoyment I get out of it watching everyone’s reactions when I play the pipes. From eyes filled with widowed tears to smiles from ear to ear.” I’m sure the $250 an hour probably helps too. Jesse reckons busking is an excellent way for a student to make a bit of extra cash. “Busking is definitely an excellent idea if you’re actually good at an instrument. It’s an awesome tool to use for public confidence. It’s handy that you get cash in the process too, you know, to fuel your addiction to lifted serotonin levels.” 

Even though it sounds fun (and very profitable), busking isn’t all sunshine and daisies. “I used to get people nabbing my money from me. I also had my phone stolen while busking once, that wasn’t fun,” Liam notes. Jesse had to deal with similar shitheads, he’d get drunk dudes approaching him on the street just begging him to let them play his bagpipes. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine anything worse than some drunk breather putting his mouth where I will also have to put mine directly after. There’s also street performer politics to deal with. Penny is 38 now and has a proper adult job working for the government. When she was a student she busked on the streets of Wellington and Brisbane. “The worst thing is when there’s someone else performing a little too close to you and you just keep having to try and drown each other out.” The council has rules about how loud (and I guess annoying) you’re allowed to be, so you’d have to be careful not to be too competitive or they might get you to move along. 

When people can’t provide cash to street performers they offer up some pretty interesting alternatives. Liam once got given a gnome while busking, as well as darts and even a tinny one time. He also received a lot of foreign coins, completely unusable to him. It’s the thought that counts though, I guess? 

Although busking can provide a lot of joy, it’s also a lot of admin according to Jesse. Setting up the pipes and the effort of playing them for hours just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. Penny has two kids now but said she would absolutely be up for a bit of busking if the opportunity arose. “When I was younger and the clubs would close, I would sit down with homeless people at 4am and have a random jam with them for a while, my husband is super horrified by that now.” Liam got put off the idea of busking when Covid-19 reared its ugly head. “The idea of touching coins from random strangers just seemed a lot less ideal then.” 

All in all though, busking does seem like a pretty viable option for students looking to make some extra cash. It seems fairly important that you actually have talent (which rules me out), and you definitely need the confidence to perform for a couple of hours at a time to random strangers. You’ll know you’ve made it in the busking world when someone hands you a garden gnome, a tinnie or a handful of foreign coins. So maybe put down the coffee cup and pick up your guitar, you’ve got nothing to lose right?