O+ in the New York Times

Will Play for Health Care (at Least at One Music Event): The O+ Festival Expands to San Francisco

By BEN SISARIO | Published: November 15, 2013

The O+ Festival in San Francisco this weekend would seem a typical indie arts event, with performances by local musicians and displays of funky art. But in a twist that highlights a longstanding problem in the creative economy, the artists involved will be paid not in cash but rather in something they may need just as badly: health care.

The three-day festival, which began on Friday, pairs musicians and visual artists with doctors, dentists and other health advisers who donate their services through a pop-up clinic. Joe Concra, a painter who helped start the festival three years ago in Kingston, N.Y., describes the exchange of art for health treatment as a barter system that recalls a time before co-pays and H.M.O.’s.

“This goes back to, ‘Hey, doc, my tooth hurts; here’s a chicken,’ ” Mr. Concra said. The festival estimates that about $100,000 worth of music, art and health services were exchanged at the most recent edition, in Kingston last month. (It expanded to San Francisco for the first time this year.) Read more at nytimes.com