Booking Live Entertainment: 9 Free Venue ToolsWhat a UK venue actually needs to find acts, agree terms and get the night on stage, and what each tool is for
TL;DR: nine free tools, in the order a night gets booked
Most venues do not need more software. They need the five or six specific things that turn "we should put a band on" into a night that runs itself: finding acts, checking they are free, agreeing terms, paying safely, and knowing the going rate before you negotiate.
All nine are free. The table halfway down shows what each one replaces and what venues normally pay for the same job elsewhere.
- £150-£500what a pub act costs, solo to 4-piece
- 500capacity under which most venues need no entertainment licence
- £167.16the MU floor per musician, up to 3 hours
- 4-6 weekslead time to fill a Friday or Saturday
Fees from the GX Index. The 500-capacity exemption is the Live Music Act; performance licensing is separate (PRS).
Most venues do not need more software. They need the five or six specific things that turn "we should put a band on" into a night that runs itself, and every one of them is free.
The order below is the order a booking actually happens in: find an act, check they are free, agree what you are both doing, pay in a way neither side has to worry about, and know the number before you talk about money. The last two sections are what turns one good night into a regular one.
Straight to the tools
If you already know which part you are stuck on, start here.
1. Finding acts, without asking around
Search by area and date rather than by reputation
Browse acts near you in the gig directory, filtered by city. This is the part most venues do by word of mouth, which works right up until the act everyone recommends is booked, and then you are back to a Facebook post at 48 hours notice.
Searching by area and date instead of by name changes who you find. The acts working every weekend in your town are rarely the ones with the loudest online presence, and a directory sorted by where they play surfaces them.
Check they are free before you make contact
Acts publish their free dates on their profiles. Approaching someone who is already booked is the most common way a venue wastes a week, and it is entirely avoidable: look first, then write to the ones who can actually say yes.
Or let them come to you
Posting the slot inverts the whole exercise. You put up the date, the fee and the kind of act you want, and acts apply to it. For a midweek slot that is hard to fill, that is usually faster than searching, because the acts who want a Tuesday are self-selecting.
2. Your listing is what acts read before they answer
Publish the room: capacity, PA, backline, curfew
A venue profile carries capacity, whether there is a PA and backline, load-in access and your curfew. Those four facts decide whether an act can play your room at all, and every one you leave blank is a message you will have to answer by hand.
It also sets expectations before anyone quotes. An act who knows there is a house PA prices differently from one bringing a full rig, and finding that out on the night is how a fee gets renegotiated in a car park.
Be findable when acts search your town
A listed venue appears in the directory when acts search that area, which turns your listing into inbound rather than another thing to maintain. See why every venue needs an online booking presence for the fuller case.
What these replace, and what venues normally pay
None of this is unusual software. It is the stack a venue would otherwise assemble from a booking agency, a contract template pack and a lot of unpaid admin.
| The job | The free tool | The usual alternative, and what it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Finding acts who play your kind of room | Gig directory + profiles | Agency booking fee, typically 15-25% of the act fee |
| Filling a hard midweek slot | Post a gig | Social media callout, and whoever answers first |
| Knowing whether an act is free | Published availability | Three messages and two days |
| Written terms | Contract generator | £10-£40 per template pack, or nothing and a dispute |
| Paying without risk on either side | Protected payment | Cash on the night, and a trust problem on a first booking |
| Knowing the going rate | GX Index | Guesswork, or overpaying an agency-quoted fee |
| Licensing certainty | Licensing checker | A call to the council, or an assumption |
| Listing the night where people look | Gig listings | Paid local ads, £20-£100 a night |
The venue stack, and the typical cost of doing the same job another way. 2026 market rates.
3. Terms, agreed before the night
Fee, set times, PA, parking, curfew
Five things in writing prevent almost every dispute, and none of them are contentious while everyone is still enthusiastic. The gig contract guide has the full eight-clause version for anything larger than a pub night.
Curfew is the one venues forget and then need. An act who knows the room goes quiet at 23:00 plans a set that finishes at 22:55; one who does not is still going at 23:10 while you are looking at your licence.
Agree cancellation while everyone is happy
Decide now what happens if either side pulls out, because the conversation is impossible once it has happened. Notice-based tiers are the norm: full refund with a month's notice, the deposit retained inside a fortnight, the full fee if the act is left with a date they can no longer fill.
The confirmation message
Send this the moment you agree, from your side. It takes a minute and it settles every question an act would otherwise ask by message over the following week.
Hi [act name],
Confirming you for [venue] on [day], [date].
Fee: £[amount], paid [on the night / within 7 days] by [bank transfer / protected payment].
Sets: [2 x 45] minutes, on stage [time], finished by [time]. Curfew is [time].
We provide: [PA / no PA], [backline], [n] x 13A sockets, [parking notes].
Load-in is from [time], through [door / round the back], and the person to find on the night is [name].
If either side has to cancel: more than 30 days notice, no charge; inside 14 days, the full fee stands.
Anything wrong there, just say. Otherwise see you on the [date].
[name] — [venue] — [phone]4. Paying, without either side worrying
Money held until the act has played
Protected payment holds the fee and releases it after the performance, which removes the awkwardness in both directions on a first booking: the act is not wondering whether they will be paid, and you are not paying up front for someone you have never seen.
Invoices without the paperwork
Acts raise invoices in-platform, so you get a clean record against the night rather than a text message and a bank reference. That matters at the end of the year, and it matters the first time someone asks what you spent on entertainment last quarter.
5. Knowing the number before you negotiate
Current UK fee bands, from real gigs
The GX Index publishes what UK gigs actually pay by act size and region, from live observations rather than a survey. A solo acoustic act is £150 to £350, a duo £250 to £500 and a four-piece £500 to £900 on the pub and club circuit.
Underneath that sits the Musicians Union national rate, £167.16 per musician for an engagement up to three hours. It is a floor rather than a market rate, and it is the number an act will quote back at you if an offer is low.
Underpaying costs more than it saves
An act booked below the going rate rarely comes back, and the ones who do come back are the ones who could not fill the date otherwise. The Music Venue Trust annual report is worth reading on how thin the margins are on both sides of this: the sector's problem is not venues being greedy, it is rooms and acts both operating with no slack.
6. Licensing, checked once
Most venues under 500 need no entertainment licence
The Live Music Act removed the entertainment licence requirement for live music in licensed premises up to 500 capacity between 08:00 and 23:00. That covers the overwhelming majority of pub and bar gigs in the UK, which is why the barrier to putting a band on is the fee rather than the paperwork.
What you do still need is a music licence for the performance of copyright works, which is PRS for Music, and it applies whether the act is playing covers or originals. Our licensing checker gives you a verdict for your room in about two minutes, and the licensing guide covers the edge cases.
The check itself, in four questions
Answer these and you know where you stand. If any answer is no, the licensing checker will tell you which permission you need rather than leaving you to read the Act.
- Is the venue licensed for alcohol, or otherwise permitted for entertainment?
- Is the audience capacity 500 or under?
- Is the music finishing by 23:00?
- Do you hold a current PRS for Music licence for the premises?
7. Promotion, two weeks out
List the night where people actually look
A published night appears in the gig listings for your area, which is where people search when they are deciding what to do on Friday. That is free reach you do not have to buy, and it works better than a post on your own page that reaches the people who already follow you.
The act's following is half your audience
Tag them and they will share it, because a full room is worth as much to them as it is to you. Booking the act is half the job; the other half is fifteen minutes of promotion two weeks out, and the acts who bring people are the ones who notice whether you did it.
8. Keeping the ones who worked
Save the act who held a wet Tuesday
That act is worth more than any search. Favourite them, note what they played and what the room did, and ask them back before someone else does.
A venue with six acts it trusts has a programme; one without has a weekly problem. It also changes the economics: a returning act needs no vetting, no explaining where the load-in is, and usually gives you a better date because they know the room works for them.
A monthly night beats a weekly one for most rooms
Monthly builds a habit without exhausting your local audience or your budget, and it lets you rotate three or four acts so the night stays worth turning up to.
Weekly works in a city centre with passing trade and rarely anywhere else. If a weekly night is thinning out, the fix is almost never a better act: it is usually the same night at half the frequency, promoted twice as hard. Promoting a live music night covers the rest of that.
The three ways a venue night fails
Almost every live music night that quietly dies goes for one of these, and each one is a decision rather than bad luck.
- List the venue with capacity, PA, backline and curfew so acts can plan.
- Search acts in your city and shortlist the ones already free on your date.
- Check the fee against the GX Index before you offer.
- Agree fee, set times, PA, parking and curfew in writing.
- Confirm TheMusicLicence is current, and check your premises licence if you finish after 23:00.
- Publish the night and tag the act two weeks out.
- Pay on the night, then favourite the acts worth rebooking.
The act's side of the same job
Worth reading once: what the people you are booking are working from.
Frequently Asked Questions
Annual refresh commitment
This guide was published on 28 June 2026 and is refreshed every June. tools and licensing rules 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.
