There’s something ironic about street performers, who’ve spent centuries perfecting the psychology of the donation in a hat, now having to master QR codes and digital payment interfaces. Our research, published in the Journal of Cultural Economics, explores this transition at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. What we found challenges some assumptions about how people give.
The Digital Dilemma
For generations, buskers relied on carefully crafted “hat lines,” persuasive phrases like “take one or two pounds out of your wallet…and give me the rest”, refined through centuries of trial and error. The COVID pandemic accelerated society’s shift away from cash, forcing buskers to adapt (Elkins & Fry, 2022). Now, as well as passing a hat, they display QR codes.
This isn’t just a technological upgrade. It changes the relationship between performer and audience. The spontaneity of tossing a coin into a hat becomes a multi-step digital process: pull out phone, scan code, navigate webpage, and complete transaction. Each step adds friction.
The Democracy of the Draw
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the world’s largest arts festival and a pinnacle event on the international busking circuit. For many street performers, this three-week festival can represent a significant portion of their annual income, attracting hundreds of buskers from around the globe. Our study tracked 82 performers across 1,587 performances, analysing nearly 5,000 QR code scans and over 2,000 digital tips totalling £12,004.
The Edinburgh Fringe operates on an egalitarian system: every morning, performers put their names into a hat (quite literally), which are pulled out one by one. The first performer drawn gets first choice of available time slots and locations, the second gets to pick from what remains, and so on.
This system ensures fairness, preventing established performers from dominating premium spots and giving newcomers their chance to shine. This randomness creates a natural experiment in street performance economics, allowing us to observe how timing and weather independently affect digital tipping behaviour without the confounding effects of strategic pitch selection.
When Rain Really Does Pour
Our most striking finding contradicts previous research on busking economics. Earlier studies found that poor weather actually increases donations, with audiences apparently feeling sympathy for performers getting drenched. We found the opposite with digital tipping.
As rainfall increased from zero to 3mm during Edinburgh’s characteristically “dreich” (that wonderful Scottish word for wet, dark, unpleasant weather), QR code scans plummeted from three per performance to below one (see figure 1 below. The reason? Getting out your phone, keeping it dry while scanning, and completing a transaction may feel like too much effort in the rain.
Figure 1
This reveals something important: technological friction interacts with environmental conditions in ways that cash transactions never did. A busker might once have benefited from audience sympathy during a downpour, but that goodwill means nothing if people won’t risk getting their phones wet.
The Anchoring Effect Is Real
We designed a simple experiment embedded in the payment interface. After audiences scanned a QR code, they’d see three suggested tip amounts: a central ‘default’ value flanked by smaller and larger alternatives. We varied the central amount (£3, £5, £10, £15, £20) and the rule for generating those alternatives.
The results were clear: higher default amounts generated substantially higher tips. A £20 default yielded tips nearly £1.20 higher on average than a £3 default. This confirms classic anchoring effects from behavioural economics, that initial number shapes our sense of what’s appropriate. For performers, £10 to £15 appears to be the sweet spot, high enough to increase average tips through anchoring effects, but not so high as to trigger backlash (see Fig 2 below)
Figure 2
Interestingly, we found no evidence of the compromise effect: the tendency for people to choose middle options. How we generated the alternatives made no difference. In spontaneous, low-pressure street performance tipping, people rely on simple anchoring heuristics rather than complex decision-making.
The Solo Performer Paradox
Solo performers generated significantly more QR code scans, but group acts received higher average tip amounts. We suspect solo performers benefit from reduced diffusion of responsibility – audiences feel a more direct connection to individuals – whereas group acts command greater perceived entertainment value.
Implications Beyond Busking
Our findings extend to any context involving digital voluntary donations, from museum kiosks to charitable giving platforms. Successful digital transformation requires understanding how technology interacts with social norms, environmental factors and psychology. Seemingly minor digital friction can have dramatic effects when combined with barriers like weather.
What Street Performers Should Know
For buskers navigating the cashless transition, our research offers practical guidance:
Default amounts matter. The £10 to £15 range appears optimal for maximizing tips through anchoring effects without triggering resistance.
Weather strategy. Rain will dramatically reduce digital engagement. Be strategic about timing if conditions look poor.
As we move toward an increasingly cashless society, understanding these digital dynamics becomes important for ensuring that technological progress serves both performers and audiences in creating vibrant, accessible cultural spaces.
This research was conducted with ethical approval and in collaboration with Nick Broad from The Busking Project at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
References
Elkins, M., & Fry, T. R. (2022). Beyond the realm of cash: Street performers and payments in the online world. Journal of Cultural Economics, 46(2), 231-248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-021-09421-8
Simonson, I. (1989). Choice based on reasons: The case of attraction and compromise effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(2), 158–174. https://doi.org/10.1086/209205
About the article
Elkins, M., Fry, T.R.L. QR code-enabled tips to street performers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. J Cult Econ (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-025-09559-9
About the authors
Meg Elkins is Associate Professor, behavioural and cultural economist at RMIT University
Tim Fry is Professor, vsiting Fellow at Nottingham Trent University
About the photo
Photo taken by Nick Broad at Edinburgh Fringe 2011, the Performer is Derek McAlister, and his stage name is “Derek Derek”.
