SXSW Part 4 — The Buskers
As part of our SXSW amusement plan we asked several street artists to display Flattr QR banners instead of their normal tip jars. We found it a little risky, but our primary aim was not to fill the busker’s wallet straight away, but to develop some curiosity. It was successful; many people stopped to scan or ask what it’s all about.
Ethan Schexnyder was one of the buskers displaying his Flattr code at the event and as he describes himself (I’m stealing from his profile): “He is a new guitarist that will amaze you with his originality.”
Along with the SXSW audience, Ethan’s manager, Jim Erickson was amazed as well, and decided to use Flattr for all of their projects from now on. o/
“We greatly appreciate the opportunity with Flattr! We took our Drei Productions Artist, Ethan Schexnyder to our SXSW 2011 Showcase and also to many locations all over Austin on sidewalks, in front of restaurants and live streaming from the Convention Center. Everywhere we went people stopped to notice Ethan and the Flattr sign with QR Code. Many people recognized it and scanned the code using their smartphones. Others got introduced to it and appreciated it! We are currently signing up our artists. Our newest is Eric Sartin.”
Also, Sascha Pallenberg (in our image above) from netbooknews.com did a video interview with Ethan using Offline Flattr on the street; it will be published in the next two weeks on his Techlounge project.
We had two more street artists using Flattr QRs at the event, one of them is the David Doyle Entertainment duo, who you could read about in our last Weekly Review, and Mauricio, the drummer, who is a real offline artist without any online presence.
With all of this, we didn’t mean to end the Internet, but Offline Flattr is definitely something that could bring the online and offline worlds closer. The possibilities of using your Flattr QR code to get support for your work are (almost) endless.
This method of rewarding artists should not end with SXSW. Last week I was walking home and an unusual phenomenon appeared in my way: a tall guy was juggling with fire. Fire is dangerous, so I didn’t want to interrupt, but I thought I must act in some way. He got 50 p (I’m generous) plus a Flattr QR code sticker. However the message can be vague, something like this could be a good way to recruit more people to use Flattr as their tip jar — offline.
Have you seen any QRs in green and orange? Are you using it? Share your experience in the comments!
Some more about this at:
t3n.de (German)
alt1040.com (Spanish)
