There are some street performers who do really well for themselves. Theres this group Tic and Tac that def make a few hundred per show just from people donating. They are really good and really funny.
You wont be living in a straw hut, lol. I have a 3 bedroom Apt, one bedroom was converted into an office. The other room would be for whoever wanted to try this. We have a wii/ xbox, beer pong table.
I think it would be a fun experiment, see how much money a talent footbag player could make. I also thought it would be fun to go to the morning shows and try to get on. They go outside and talk to people, why not jump in and play footbag.
I've been busking for a year in small doses in Montreal.
With little public interaction, or lets say none, I can average 25-30$ an hour.
If I went for interaction, talk and invite people to watch and make a REAL show, I guess the money will be way better.
What I do is only performing on music, bailing and lowering difficulty so I don't drop, or drop very little. I got pannels saying I'm collecting money for Worlds and it just works by itself.
There are 2 things you want to do (from my observations with pro's in montreal that I go watch)
- Prepare a show, have a way to interact and invite the crowd to watch you, and stay for the whole show (more then 10 minutes)
- Keep your crowd until the end, and have an original way to collect money, and it as to be as easy as possible.
If you just wanna shred, don't think you're gonna do too much money, because at one point you will have too little energy
I'm up for this, but i really wish some one closer will say yes (and with a higher skill level and experience). I don't want to ask for a week off work. So in other words I can't i guess.
You definitely *could* make a living playing footbag. When I was busking regularly I was making about $50 for 15 to 30 minute session minimum, but often made over $100 (I think my record for time/money was just over $160 in 15 minutes).
It's also very easy to get paid demonstrations/performances - I never charged as much as I could for these because I cared more about promoting footbag and I didn't particularly need the money, but typically you can get paid anywhere from about $100 to $2000 (or presumably a lot more for bigger things) for a single 10 to 30 minute demo. With a tiny bit of self promotion these are easy to organise and can be self perpetuating (doing them leads to doing more). I haven't done any kind of self promotion in years and I still get offered demos fairly regularly, even though I turn a lot down (because I have to work or play sport instead).
Size and nature of where you live definitely is a massive factor in how much you can earn. I think living in Hobart, if I really put my mind to it, I could definitely earn $300 to $500 a week from footbag minimum - however that would be without any job security and would quickly feel like really hard work. As it is I earn significantly more than that working in a real job, and also working in a job where I feel like the sole purpose isn't just trying to make money for myself.
This is the main reason I never busk anymore - when you're busking, if you want to make money you can't play your normal game (or at least I can't), you have to play completely to the crowd and do the things that impress them, not yourself. I end up playing completely one sided and hitting the same moves over and over (datw, other double dexes, ducking, ps whirl, long easy runs, only tricks I'm 100% confident about). There are definitely some positives for your game to be got out of busking, but money has never been a motivation for me to play footbag and I'd much rather play how I want to than play in a manner that makes the most cash.
