Street performers and donations in an online environment in the wake of COVID-19

The spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has meant that street performers can no longer perform on the street. This has changed the landscape for the exchange for money between a street performer and their audience. The paper uses a unique data set from the online busking platform ‘The Busking Project’ (https://busk.co) to analyse whether sign up by performers to the platform and donation by individuals to street performers through the platform has changed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The results show a lift both in street performers signing up to the platform and in individuals' donations to street performers after the announcement. The recovery of cities and the cultural economy from COVID-19 will not be immediate. As we move to a post COVID-19 world our results have implications for performers, for donors and for (local) governments as street performers return to the street. •COVID-19 means buskers cannot perform on the street.•We find an increased use of an online platform.•Implications are for buskers, donors, and policy.