Gigging Toolkit: 8 Free Tools for UK BandsWhat a working band actually needs to get booked, get paid and stay booked
TL;DR: eight tools, all free, in booking order
Most bands do not lose gigs because they are not good enough. They lose them because a venue could not find them, could not tell whether they were free, or could not get a straight answer on the fee. Eight free tools close those gaps.
Everything here is free and none of it needs a website. The table halfway down shows what each one replaces and what bands pay for the same thing elsewhere.
- £167.16the MU floor per musician, up to 3 hours
- 4-6 weekstypical pub booking lead time
- £1,000tax-free trading allowance before Self Assessment
- 2 x 45the set shape almost every UK pub books
Fees from the GX Index; the £1,000 trading allowance from gov.uk. Prices for the paid alternatives are 2026 market rates.
Most bands do not lose gigs because they are not good enough. They lose them in the gaps between being good and being bookable: a venue could not find them, could not tell whether they were free on the 14th, or could not get a straight answer about the fee without three messages.
Every tool below closes one of those gaps, all of them are free, and none of them require you to build a website. They are in the order a booking actually happens, which is also the order worth setting them up in.
Straight to the tools
If you already know which gap you are closing, start here. Everything below explains when each one earns its place.
1. Being findable
A profile venues can actually search
A performer profile puts you in the results when a venue searches your city, your genre and a date. That is a different thing from having an Instagram: a booker filling next month's Saturdays is not scrolling social media, they are looking for an act who plays their kind of room and is free.
Fill in everything. Genre, act size, set format, fee range, travel radius. Every empty field is a reason to click the next act, and the fee range in particular saves both sides the conversation where you find out after twenty minutes that you were never in the same bracket.
Set the area you will actually travel to
Your radius decides which searches you appear in, so be honest about it rather than optimistic. A band who says they cover the whole South East and then declines anything past the M25 gets asked once.
It is worth setting a wider radius for weekends and a tighter one midweek if that is the truth. A Tuesday in a town an hour away rarely pays for the drive, and a Saturday often does.
One link, never an attachment
Two minutes of live video, your dates, your fee range and your format, all behind a single URL. The EPK builder produces one free. Bookers open links and ignore attachments, and a PDF that has to be downloaded to be read is a PDF that does not get read.
The live video is the part that does the work. Studio recordings tell a booker what a producer did; a phone clip from a real room tells them what they are buying.
2. Knowing your price before you are asked
What UK gigs actually pay
The GX Index publishes what UK gigs pay by act size and region, from live observations rather than a survey. The Musicians Union national rate sets the floor underneath it at £167.16 per musician for an engagement up to three hours.
Knowing both numbers before a booker asks is the difference between naming a fee and being handed one. It also stops the quiet damage of undercharging: the rooms that pay £80 for a four-piece tell each other, and so do the ones that pay properly.
Turning the range into your number
The rate calculator takes your act size, city, event type and set length and produces a figure to quote. Use it before you reply, not after you have already said "what were you thinking?", which invites the lowest number in the room.
What these replace, and what bands pay elsewhere
None of this is unique software. It is the stack a working band would otherwise assemble from six subscriptions, which is the real argument for it being in one place and free.
| The job | The free tool | What bands usually pay instead |
|---|---|---|
| Being searchable by venues | Performer profile | Agency roster fee or 15-25% commission |
| A press kit that opens on a phone | EPK builder | £8-£25/month for an EPK service |
| Knowing the going rate | GX Index | Guesswork, or an agent to ask |
| Written terms | Contract generator | £10-£40 per template pack |
| Invoicing and records | Invoice generator | £10-£30/month accounting software |
| Set planning and timings | Setlist builder | £3-£10/month setlist apps |
| Finding rooms to play | Open mic finder | Local knowledge you do not have yet |
The gigging stack, and the typical cost of assembling it separately. Prices are 2026 market rates for the common paid alternatives.
3. Getting it in writing
Five things prevent almost every dispute
Fee, set times, who provides the PA, parking and load-in, and what happens if either side cancels. That is the whole list, and the gig contract guide has the full eight-clause version for anything bigger than a pub.
For a pub booking an email covers it. For a wedding or a corporate event use the contract generator, because the fees are larger and the cancellation terms are the ones you will actually need.
Deposits for anything that is not a pub
Weddings and corporate bookings carry a deposit, normally 50 per cent on confirmation with the balance due a fortnight before. It is not distrust, it is what holds a date that you are turning other work away for. Deposit disputes covers what to do when one goes wrong.
The confirmation message
Send this the moment a booking is agreed, before anything else moves. It takes a minute and it removes the entire category of "we thought that included the second set".
Hi [name],
Confirming [band name] at [venue] on [day], [date].
Fee: £[amount], paid by bank transfer on the night / within 7 days.
Sets: 2 x 45 minutes, 30-minute break. Load-in [time], soundcheck [time], on stage [time], done by [time].
PA and backline: [we bring / you provide].
Parking: [what we need].
If either side has to cancel: more than 30 days notice, no charge; inside 14 days, the full fee stands.
Anything I have got wrong there, just say. Otherwise see you on the [date].
[name] — [phone]4. Getting paid without chasing
Raise an invoice for every gig
Even the cash ones. An invoice creates the record you need at tax time and makes you look like a band that does this properly, which is quietly why you get paid before the venue's slower suppliers.
The trading allowance covers your first £1,000 of gig income in a tax year; above that you register as self-employed and file a Self Assessment. Most gigging bands stay well under the VAT threshold, but split the fee properly between members and keep one spreadsheet of date, venue, fee and travel.
Protected payment removes the awkward conversation
When the fee is held and released after you play, neither side has to trust the other on a first booking. That matters most with the venues you have not worked with before, which is exactly where the risk sits.
- Confirm the booking with the message above.
- Put the date in one calendar, and update your public availability.
- Send the venue your load-in needs a week ahead.
- Play. Ask about the next date before you pack down.
- Invoice within 48 hours, even if you were paid in cash.
- Log date, venue, fee and travel in one spreadsheet.
5. Staying booked
Build the set for the room, not for you
Open strong, put your best song second from last, and never play three ballads in a row. The setlist builder handles timings and prints a stage copy, but the thinking matters more than the tool: two 45-minute sets is the shape almost every UK pub books, so build to it unless you are told otherwise.
Watch the room rather than the sheet. An act who changes the running order because the floor filled early is doing the job properly. Building a setlist that gets you rebooked has the full structure.
Ask for the next date on the night
The best moment to get rebooked is while the room is still full and the person who booked you is watching it work. "Are you booking for next month?" is the entire ask, and it converts at a rate no email will match.
Ask the person who runs the night rather than whoever is behind the bar, and ask before you start packing down, because once the gear is moving you are staff clearing a room rather than the act who just filled it.
Open mics are where you meet the bookers
Most UK open mics run midweek, and the hosts usually book the paid slots at the same venue. Four weeks at the same night does more for a local diary than forty emails, because a booker who has watched you play is not taking a risk.
It is also the cheapest way into a new town. Find them in the open mic finder, which lists over 1,300 verified UK nights with the day of the week and the sign-up method. The Music Venue Trust annual report is worth reading alongside it for how fragile those rooms currently are.
The three ways a booking is actually lost
Almost every gig that gets away goes for one of these, and each one is a tool above rather than a talent problem.
The other side, and the deeper guides
The same stack from the venue side, plus the two guides this post keeps pointing at.
Frequently Asked Questions
Annual refresh commitment
This guide was published on 28 June 2026 and is refreshed every June. tools and rates change every year, so annual verification matters. We re-verify every reference, recommendation, and data point once a year. Next scheduled refresh: June 2027. If any claim is outdated before then, email support@gigxchange.app and we will update it within 24 hours.
