[cm2012]

An example of live performance making money - my friend and I busked the summer after high school and made $15 an hour or so, 6 hours a day before our voices gave out. So we were each able to make around $4k for college over two months. Annualized, $24k a year is not great, but it was a lot to us, and we also got about a gig offer per week which we declined. If we had wanted to be full time musicians we probably could have had a decent career in short order.

[spunker540]

I was in a busking trio playing mostly covers of oldies -- when we were 15/16 years old we had a good novelty factor and could make around 45 an hour combined street performing. Eventually we started playing bars in a touristy part of Wisconsin and we'd make $200-300 per 3 hr set. Hourly it's alright, but there's not many options in terms of daytime gigs during the week.

Incidentally, I put this on my resume back in college when my resume was mostly empty, and think it played a part in me getting rejected from a Microsoft internship. At one point an interviewer asked me point blank "would you rather be a professional musician or a computer programmer" and I didn't answer correctly!

[vkou]

What an asshole. Would he rather be interviewing people at Microsoft, or sipping Piña Coladas on a beach?

The difference is that he would probably not answer that question honestly.

[cm2012]

It helped me get a job, because I framed it like having a small business. But I also never wanted to be a professional musician.

"We tested train routes and song styles against each other to calculate optimal earnings per hour, tailored our pitch to the audience most likely to donate, blah blah"

[jongold]

the correct answer is musician, right? right?

[privacypoller]

plus that's tax-free cash!

[lisper]

No, it isn't. It's easier to get away with cheating on your taxes if you're paid in cash, but cash is still taxable income. And if they do catch you, you can go to prison (as Robert Manafort is currently learning the hard way).

[cm2012]

*Paul Manafort