Hire a Band for a Pub or Bar: UK Fees £150-£500What a pub actually pays, what the Live Music Act lets you skip, and why the room matters more than the act
TL;DR: £150 to £500, and the night matters more than the act
A pub band costs £150-£500 for a typical UK night: £150-£350 solo, £200-£400 duo, £250-£500 for a 3-piece. Under the Live Music Act 2012 you need no entertainment licence for live music between 08:00 and 23:00 in a licensed venue holding up to 500 people, so for most pubs the licensing question is simply a PRS music licence.
Fee bands from the GX Index. This guide covers PUBS AND BARS specifically. For booking live music at larger or non-pub venues, see our venue booking guide, which covers the general process in more depth.
- £150-£350a solo acoustic act for a 2 hour pub set
- £250-£500a 3-piece band, the most-booked pub format
- 500 peoplethe Live Music Act ceiling, above which you need a licence
- 80 per centof UK open mics run Monday to Thursday, where trade is thinnest
Fees from the GX Index, net of commission. Licensing per the Live Music Act 2012; floor from the Musicians Union.
I have played pub back rooms for seventeen years, on both sides of this transaction. The bookings that worked were rarely the ones with the biggest fee. They were the ones where the landlord had thought about the room before they thought about the act.
This guide is about pubs and bars specifically: small rooms, no stage, a bar to keep serving, and a budget that has to come back out of the till the same night. If you run a larger venue or you are booking for an event rather than a regular night, the general venue booking guide is the better read and goes deeper on contracts and vetting.
1. What it costs: £150-£500 for a typical pub night
Pub fees cluster tightly. The variables that actually move the number are how many people are in the act, how long the set is, and how far they travel. Underneath the market sits the Musicians Union national rate of £167.16 per musician for an engagement up to three hours, which is the floor an act will quote back at a low offer.
Solo acoustic: £150-£350
The default pub booking. One person, one guitar, usually their own small PA, two sets of 45 minutes. At the lower end you are booking someone building a circuit; at £300 and up you are booking someone who will hold a room on a quiet Tuesday. The Musicians' Union national gig rate is the floor worth knowing, and paying under it is how you end up re-booking every month.
Duo: £200-£400
Two voices and two instruments fill a room far better than one for roughly £50-£80 more. For most pubs this is the best value point on the whole range.
3-piece band: £250-£500
Drums change the economics. A 3-piece needs more space, more time to set up and a room that can take the volume without the bar staff shouting over it. Worth it on a Friday or Saturday, rarely worth it midweek.
What pushes a fee up: travel, late finishes, extra sets
Over 30 miles of travel, a finish after 23:00, or a third set will each add to the quote. Say all three up front. A fee agreed on partial information is the single most common cause of a dispute, which is why our gig contract guide puts set times in the same clause as the fee. Check current bands against the GX Index before you negotiate.
| Format | Typical fee | Space it needs | What it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo acoustic | £150-£350 | A corner, 2m x 2m | Midweek and Sunday afternoons |
| Duo | £200-£400 | A corner, 3m x 2m | Thursday to Saturday |
| 3-piece band | £250-£500 | A real stage area, 4m x 3m | Friday and Saturday |
| Open mic host | £80-£150 | PA and a small area | Monday to Thursday |
| DJ | £200-£450 | A booth or table | Late Friday and Saturday |
UK pub live music: format, fee and what each one suits
2. Licensing: the Live Music Act covers most pubs
No entertainment licence for under 500 people, 08:00 to 23:00
The Live Music Act 2012 removed the entertainment licence requirement for live music in a licensed venue with a capacity up to 500 people, between 08:00 and 23:00. If you have a premises licence to sell alcohol and you finish by 23:00, you almost certainly need nothing extra. This is the single most misunderstood point in pub booking, and it stops more nights than it should.
You still need a music licence: TheMusicLicence
Copyright is separate from entertainment licensing. Playing or performing copyrighted music in a business needs TheMusicLicence, which covers both PRS for Music and PPL in one. Most pubs already hold it for background music, and it covers live performance too. Our UK live music licence guide covers the rates and edge cases in full. That licence is PRS for Music, and it applies whether the act plays covers or their own songs.
Finishing after 23:00 changes things
Past 23:00 the Live Music Act exemption stops applying and your premises licence conditions take over. Check what yours actually says before you advertise a midnight finish. The plain-English version of what the exemption does and does not cover is the government guidance on the Live Music Act.
3. The room matters more than the act
Put the act where people already stand, not in the far corner
The most common mistake is putting the act as far from the bar as possible to protect service. It kills the atmosphere and the act plays to an empty half of the room. Put them near enough that the bar queue is part of the crowd.
PA: most solo acts bring their own, most bands do not
Ask. A solo act will usually arrive with a small PA and need one plug socket. A 3-piece may expect a house system. Finding out at 19:00 on the night is how a booking becomes an argument.
Sound limiters: tell them before they arrive
If you have a limiter, say so when you book, and say what it is set to. Acts can work around one; they cannot work around discovering it during the first song.
The room check, before you confirm anything
Five things about the space decide whether the night works, and all of them are easier to answer now than at 19:30 on the day.
- Where will the act stand, and is it near where people already stand?
- How many 13A sockets are within five metres of that spot?
- Is there a PA in the room, or does the act bring one?
- Do you have a sound limiter, and what is it set to?
- Where do they park, and which door do they load in through?
4. Which night: midweek is where live music earns its money
Friday and Saturday sell themselves
Weekend trade is largely there anyway, so a Friday band is often paying for customers you already had. Midweek is where a £200 act can genuinely change the take. Across our directory of UK open mic nights, 80 per cent run Monday to Thursday for exactly this reason, which we looked at in detail in our midweek analysis.
Sunday afternoons are underused
A solo act from 16:00 on a Sunday costs the least, competes with nothing, and holds a roast crowd in the building for another drink.
Monthly beats weekly for most pubs
A regular monthly night builds a habit without exhausting your local audience or your budget. Weekly works only if you have the footfall to refresh the crowd.
It is also the pattern that survives. The Music Venue Trust annual report is blunt about how thin the margins are on both sides of a grassroots booking, and a monthly night you can afford every month is worth more to an act than a weekly one you cancel in February.
The three nights, and what each one is actually for
These are not better and worse, they are different bets. Pick the one that matches what you need the night to do.
5. Where to find pub-suitable acts
Search by city and see availability first
Browse acts by area in the gig directory, or search performer profiles by city and check their published dates before you write. Filtering by who is actually free on your date removes the most common dead end in pub booking, which is a fortnight spent on an act who was booked before you started.
It also changes who you find. The acts working every weekend within twenty miles of you are rarely the loudest online, and a directory sorted by where people play surfaces the ones a Facebook search never will.
Your own open mic is the best audition room there is
Running an open mic gives you a monthly look at every act within driving distance, for the cost of a host and a PA. You are not auditioning anyone, you are watching a room react, which tells you more than a demo ever does.
It is also how you find the act nobody else has booked yet. Most working pub acts in the UK started at an open mic, and the host of yours will know who is worth a Saturday before any agency does.
Agencies cost more and suit one-off events, not regular nights
An agency adds commission for vetting and cover, typically 15 to 25 per cent. That is worth paying for a wedding or a one-off corporate night where a no-show would be a disaster and you have no relationship to fall back on.
For a regular monthly pub night it rarely makes sense: you are paying a percentage every month for an introduction you only needed once, and the act you build a relationship with directly is the one who takes your call when someone drops out on the Thursday.
The message that gets a straight answer
Most slow booking conversations are caused by a first message that does not contain enough for the act to reply properly. This one does. Copy it, fill the brackets, send it midweek.
Hi [act name],
We are [venue] in [town] and we are looking for live music on [day], [date].
The slot: [2 x 45] minutes, on stage [time], finished by [time]. Curfew is [time].
Fee: £[amount], paid on the night.
The room: capacity [n], [we have a PA / no PA in the room], [backline / no backline], [n] x 13A sockets, performance area about [size].
Parking and load-in: [where to park], through [which door], ask for [name].
[We have a sound limiter set at [level].]
Are you free, and does that work for what you do?
[name] — [venue] — [phone]The tools worth having open
All free, and each one answers a question this page raises.
6. On the night: the small things that get you re-booked
Parking and load-in, confirmed in writing
Where do they park, which door, and is anyone expecting them? Ten seconds of information saves twenty minutes of a band carrying gear round a building.
A meal and a couple of drinks costs you little and buys a lot
It is close to the cheapest goodwill available to a pub, and acts talk to each other about who does it.
Pay on the night, in full
Late payment is the number one complaint working musicians make about pubs. Pay before they leave and you go to the top of their list. If you need a paper trail, our payment guide covers invoicing from both sides.
- Pick the night and the format: midweek solo or duo for trade, weekend 3-piece for atmosphere.
- Set a fee from the ranges above and check it against the GX Index.
- Search by city and date, and shortlist acts who are already free.
- Confirm in writing: fee, set times, PA, sound limiter, parking, finish time.
- Check your premises licence if the finish is after 23:00, and that TheMusicLicence is current.
- Promote from two weeks out, with the act tagged so their following sees it.
- On the night: load-in help, a meal, and payment in full before they leave.
The rest of the venue-side reading
The full toolkit, the terms to write down, and the same job from the act's side of the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Annual refresh commitment
This guide was published on 21 March 2026 and is refreshed every March. fees 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: March 2027. If any claim is outdated before then, email support@gigxchange.app and we will update it within 24 hours.
