Street Interview

I carried my foldable stool with me to Trafalgar Square today. I found a busker and stood there for a good 20 minutes before even have the courage to take out my chair. I was extremely self-conscious the entire time. I kept reaching to my bag but hesitated to take out my stool and throw it in the middle of the crowd. Doing some sort of experiment in the public is totally out of my comfort zone.

After 20 minutes of struggling, I pulled the stool out of my bag and placed in the circle that the audience had formed in front of the busker. I waited for a while and no one took the seat. I sat on it for a while then left thinking people now have seen what I did, maybe they will sit on it as well. Still, no one took the seat. I was really embarrassed so I asked a couple next to me why they don’t want to sit down for the performance. They told me that because they are tourists, they have somewhere else to be, they don’t want to stop and sit down.

I suddenly realized that sitting down has a psychological implication of stopping. Trafalgar Square is a place full of tourists, people are in transit constantly. They might not want feel like they are stopping. Most of them prefer standing because it does not mean stopping for them psychologically. They can leave at anytime and continue their adventure.

Busking and tourism have a very close relationship. Buskers love to perform at popular tourist spots because more foot traffic means more income. Busking became part of the tourist experience because of that. The temporary relationship formed between the busker and the audience are pretty disposable because of the nomadic nature of busking and the constant fresh flow of tourists at those tourist spot. Could my structure help change that dynamic and make people stay longer? Who are more likely to sit down and enjoy the music? Because those are the people who are more likely to stop and interact with the structure.