As Don Lee points out below, Joshua Bell's flirtation with busking is the classical story du jour, or de la semaine, and the consensus is that the experiment was a failure, including a financial failure:
In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.
Perhaps, perhaps. On the other hand, note that that $32 was earned in 45 minutes.That's an hourly rate of roughly $40. Let's assume that you can only earn that during rush hour, and that each rush hour, morning and evening, lasts an hour and a half. Three hours a day, five days a week ... that's a take of $600 for a
30
15-hour week. Which doesn't seem so terrible.
Or are my assumptions way off? Any readers with busking experience care to weigh in?
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