readyforbusking

Busking in Zürich

Zürich

Zürich is the first bigger city after Vienna that we visited this year. From the last trip we learned that smaller cities can be better for street music, but Zürich was on our way so we thought we should see how it is going in the biggest city in Switzerland.

Laws:
You don't need a special permit, but performances are banned in the city center. You are allowed to play just in the shore of the lake. Every 20 minutes you have to change your place.
click here for more details!

Map -where you can legally play

Our experiance:
We spent 3 days in Zürich. The first days it was raining all the time and it was really cold also! So we couldn't look around that much in the city as we usually do. The whole city seemed very grey and kinda boring. We got the information about the rules earlier so first we went to the lake but there was very few people walking around. So we went back to the center and played there for 40-50 minutes and made 70-80 francs(about 55 euros)! It was really good but we couldn't play longer because of the cold but we were happy.

Rain, rain and more rain...

On Sunday the weather was the same but even less people so it wasn't that great as before. We tried to play at Helmhaus with not too much luck so after an hour playing in the cold we just went home with 30 francs. Amazingly we didn't met any policeman for two days. And we were scared of the reactions of the shop owners also, but they were really kind and even payed us. And from a close by buliding some girls threw a paper plane with four francs on it out of the window. :)

paper plane

The next day the weather got better and it was really sunny, but next to the lake was still bad to busk. Also there were a lot of gipsy accordionists playing there... So we ended up playing in the center again which was good again but after 15 minutes the police came and told us that we are not allowed to play there. It seems like the police is active just on sunny days :P But the city looked very different in the sunshine! We missed the sun so much! We set next to the lake for a bit and enjoyed the blue sky. In the last weeks it was really cold and rainy and we even got snow showers in the very end of spring! :(

sun, sun, sun!!! :)

chillin' next to the lake

Zürich has shown us that it can be a really good city to busk, but if you play by the rules it's just not the right city to play. If you just stop for one or two days I think it's worth it to try it in the center till the police kicks you out, but probably the second time they won't be that kind and they might give you a fine.