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“Busking exists in a data black hole.”

I’ve used that line often to explain why so little has been written about the impact busking has had on the world, and why so few scientific papers have focused on the subject.

Thankfully, that does seem to be changing. Busking is appearing more frequently in the scientific literature:

That academics are turning their attention to street performance won’t sit comfortably with everyone. Some buskers want to keep the discipline flying under the radar.

But, the simple truth is busking is not flying under the radar at all. Countless councils over the past couple of decades have passed anti-busking legislation. Buskers are increasingly being legislated out of town. Hiding busking’s importance to the world—by ignoring it entirely—has not been working. We need all the help we can get.

When researchers study street performance properly, the results can be remarkable. Just look at what just two researchers managed to achieve between 2018 and 2020.

Robbie Ho and Wing Tung Au’s 2018 paper invented a new and methodical way of analysing how people judge street shows.

Titled, “Development of Street Audience Experience (SAE) Scale” (SAE), it demonstrated that street audiences are aware, discerning and—most importantly—influenced in how much they tip buskers by the quality of the performance.

This paper showed there buskers have a significant financial incentive to get better. So, the next time a politician is mouthing off that audiences tip without caring how good a busker is, we can respond with science.

Building on the SAE scale, Ho and Au published a second paper in January 2020, looking at how the pitch itself impacts the show.

They found that busking on more “suitable” pitches results in a higher SAE score—in other words, that good pitches make happier audiences, which, in turn, will result in higher tips to the performers.

So no, you can’t just stick buskers out of the way somewhere and expect them to be able to earn. Audiences enjoy shows less if the location sucks—so let’s put buskers on the best pitches in town, as it’s better for everybody. Science!

In December 2020, Ho and Au published yet another paper, this time looking at how street performers impact our perception of a public space (kind of a reverse of the previous paper).

They found that buskers make spaces seem more friendly, more likeable, more relaxing, worth visiting and worth spending more time in, which was true in every space other than at a memorial:

Taken together with the previous two papers, we now know the reason why great busking locations are so often great shopping locations: they are great for each other.

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Busking is good for the arts, it’s good for cities and it’s good for the artists as long as we let them busk in good places.

That’s what Robbie Ho and Wing Tung Au showed in just three years. Imagine what else we’d find, if more scientists started researching the topic. That’s the task I set myself this week: to come up with a list of papers that I think could really change how academics and city managers view busking.

What proportion of the total money made by the world’s breakdancers comes from busking? What about other disciplines with large street but tiny indoor audiences?

Do buskers increase tourism? If so, how does that translate into local taxes?

Do buskers increase how much “dwell time” and money (e.g. on food/drink) that visitors spend in town?

Are street audiences more or less diverse than other venues? What proportion of a busker’s audience has attended little-to-no other live shows in the last year? What proportion of homeless people, refugees and other disenfranchised groups only ever get to see live entertainment in the form of street shows?

Are buskers more likely than the median person to have a physical or mental disabilities? Are people in the audiences at street shows more likely? What impact does busking have on the lives of performers and audience members with disabilities?

What financial impact does busking have on the lives of performers from less fortunate socioeconomic backgrounds?

When a city enacts an amp ban, what percent of music genres and/or musicians are prevented from busking? For the remainder, what impact does forcing them to perform acoustically have on the art they can produce? On their voices? On their incomes?

How big a financial gift are buskers giving to the cities in which they busk? Quantify the total financial impact busking has on tourism, local businesses and city budgets.

What impact does hiring a dedicated individual (or team) to liaise with street performers and get to know them have on noise complaints? How does hiring a busking liaison compare in cost to inventing, debating, enacting, managing and policing a busking licence? What’s the mood in cities who’ve hired a busking liaison this compared with cities whose only interaction with buskers is through cops?

Do people who complain regularly about busking tend to live or work in buildings with thin walls or leaky windows? How much impact would soundproofing make? How does soundproofing compare in cost to inventing, debating, enacting, managing and policing a busking licence?

So much to choose from here! What is the size of the stationary audience at street shows in a city? The passing audience? What proportion of a passing, non-tipping audience appreciates the street performer they’ve just passed? How much do tourists, customers at local businesses, employees and residents (both far from and near to popular busking pitches) like street performers? What is the “complaint rate” of street shows, in terms of the number of people reached and/or entertained per complaint, compared with other things people complain about?

Recently, a judge described busking in Leicester Square as “psychological torture”, giving the council the excuse it needed to go ahead with a complete ban.

If we’d had answers to the 11 questions above, we might have been able to show the judge that:

If we had more science looking into busking, perhaps advocates could stop spending all their time reacting to repressive law after repressive law, and instead be working with governments to encourage a lively street scene to flourish.

News, stories and gig opportunities from around the world, compiled over the last couple of weeks. In this edition: an Irish grant funding opportunity, a company producing an amp for buskers that sponsors can brand, Oprah Daily backs busking and yet another scary Spiderman in New York.