Where the streets have no change: how buskers are surviving in cashless times

Dropping coins in a hat is increasingly, well, old hat. Is it time street musicians turned to contactless card readers?

It is a crisp, blustery, autumn afternoon on the South Bank in London. Charlotte Campbell stands with her back to the river playing an acoustic guitar and singing Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah, a buskers’ favourite. “Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord, That David played, and it pleased the Lord, But you don’t really care for music, do you?”

People stop, watch a while, film Campbell on their phones, or mouth along. “It goes like this: The fourth, the fifth, The minor fall and the major lift, The baffled king composing Hallelujah …” Some drop coins into her guitar case, or send their kids to do so. Pound coins, silver ones, or just a few coppers.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QsgJex

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