The right act for the empty date
Pick the night, set a 60-second brief, and GigXchange returns ranked best-fit acts — fit scores, fee bands, kit tags — then sends real booking invites, not cold DMs. Free with every venue and promoter profile.
Stop scrolling directories, start inviting
Sign up free, pick the empty date, run your first match.
Last updated: 7 July 2026
How it works
From empty date to booking invites in venue-friendly time — four short steps.
Pick the date
The wizard opens on your calendar — anchor the search to the actual night you need to fill.
Set the brief
City, budget range, act type — and must-have toggles for PA, lights and transport if your room needs a self-contained act.
Pick from ranked acts
Best-fit artists arrive scored, with genres, experience and fee bands. Select up to 5 — recently-invited acts are locked until their cooldown ends.
Review, then send
Check the exact invite each act receives, tune the fee and terms, send. Each lands as a pending booking with a 72-hour window.
Everything in the match
Built for programmers who know exactly which night is empty and don't have an evening to fill it.
Start from the empty date
Pick the night you need to fill from your calendar — the search is anchored to a real date from the first click.
A 60-second brief
City, budget range, act type — plus must-have toggles for PA, lights and transport, so self-contained acts surface when your room needs them.
Ranked, scored acts
Best-fit artists come back ranked with a fit score, genres, experience, kit tags and fee bands — a shortlist, not a directory to trawl.
See the invite before it sends
A pre-send review shows exactly what each act receives — fee, times, set length, equipment, notes — editable before anything goes out.
Real booking invites
Each invite lands in the act’s bookings queue with a notification — inside the same flow that carries the contract and protected payment.
72-hour invites
Invites expire after 72 hours, so acts see a live request and your shortlist resolves in days, not weeks of "did they see it?".
Caps keep answers coming
Up to 5 acts per batch, 10 a day, 25 a week, with a 14-day cooldown per act — invites stay signal, so artists keep responding to them.
Artists run it in reverse
Acts use the same wizard to pitch venues for their free dates — so your open dates can fill from both directions.
Why ranked invites beat the directory crawl
Directories show you everyone; a match shows you who fits Tuesday.
Fit is multi-dimensional — your evening isn't
Booking an act means solving genre, budget, distance, kit and availability simultaneously — five filters a directory makes you hold in your head across forty tabs. The wizard takes the same five as a 60-second brief and hands back a scored shortlist. The evening you save is an evening you spend running the room.
Kit toggles are the unsung filter
The commonest booking failure isn't taste, it's logistics: the perfect trio who assumed a house PA your room doesn't have. The must-have toggles — PA, lights, transport — filter for acts that bring what your room lacks, before anyone's time is spent.
An invite an act can say yes to
A Smart Match invite isn't "any interest in playing sometime?" — it's a date, a fee inside your searched budget, times, set length and what kit you provide, landing as a pending booking they accept in one tap. And because acceptance flows into the contract and protected payment, a yes is a booking, not the start of an email chain.
Caps are why artists answer
Up to 5 acts a batch, 10 a day, 25 a week, and a 14-day cooldown per act. A channel that could be blasted would be ignored within a month; because it can't be, artists treat a Smart Match invite as a real opportunity — which is exactly what keeps your acceptance rate worth having.
Run it alongside the inbound tools
Outbound matching fills the specific night; Post a Gig fills the programme with inbound applications; Gig Rescue handles the dropout emergency. Price all of it against the UK Gig Rate Calculator so your budget bracket matches the market. More on the venue side: GigXchange for venues.
Built by GIGXCHANGE
The UK’s peer-to-peer live music marketplace. Browse artists, venues and live events, or sign up free to message and book direct.
Get booked direct
No commission — 5% only for protected payments, vs the 15–35% agencies take. Contracts, deposits and Stripe payouts in 3 steps.
Learn moreBook without gatekeepers
Post a gig in under 2 minutes, see responses within 24 hours, confirm with a deposit. No agency between you and the act.
Learn moreRun a roster from one dashboard
Manage 100+ artists, tender to venues across 40 UK cities, sign contracts on behalf. Keep your commission, lose the paperwork.
Learn moreBuild the lineup, run the night
Create events, source talent and venues in one place, sign every booking on a digital contract. From idea to ticketed event in days.
Learn moreMore free tools
Find an Artist is one of 17 tools that come with a free profile.
UK Gig Rate Calculator
Live market percentiles for every band size, city and event type — built on the GigXchange Index. Updated nightly.
Tour Poster
Your gig list becomes a tour poster in 1 click — 4 styles, 3 formats, ticket QR codes and an animated video for socials.
Invoice Generator
VAT-ready invoices built from your gig bookings — auto-numbered, branded PDF, tracked from unpaid to paid.
Stage Plot
Drag-and-drop stage canvas, channel input list and monitor mixes — exported as an engineer-ready A4 PDF.
Flyer Builder
Striking gig flyers from 5 designed styles in 15 templates — prefilled from your booking, with a ticket QR and high-res PNG export.
Booking Manager
Your live availability embedded on your own website — visitors see free dates and book you direct. One snippet, zero upkeep.
EPK Builder
A press kit that updates itself — 18 drag-and-drop blocks, live players, verified reviews and availability at one link.
Fans & Mailing List
An audience you own — fans join from your profile, you send branded email updates with your flyers and posters attached.
AI Matches
Pick a free date, set a 60-second brief, get ranked best-fit venues — and pitch them with real booking invites.
Post a Gig
List an open slot in two minutes and take applications from gig-ready artists — full profiles and verified reviews attached.
GX Gig Rescue
Act dropped out? Broadcast an urgent booking invite to up to 25 available acts — first to accept is booked.
Licensing Checker
Ten questions decode your venue’s music licensing — permission, copyright and cost, with official sources.
Compliance Checklist
Eight questions build your venue’s compliance board — law first, ten areas, every item linked to its official source.
Martyn's Law Readiness
The 2025 Act reaches every 200+ venue from ~2027 — six questions give your tier, your duties and a first-draft procedures PDF.
Events Poster
Your upcoming programme becomes a designed what’s-on poster in one click — ticket QRs, status badges, your branding.
Booking Contract Generator
UK-compliant live music performance agreement. 8 clauses, deposits, dual e-signatures, instant PDF.
Setlist Builder
Drag-reorder songs, auto-calc set duration, design a poster-ready setlist in under a minute. Share by link or export PNG / PDF.
GX Index
The UK’s open, free rate dataset for live music. Search by city, genre and use case. Submit your own anonymous rates.
UK Musician Earnings 2026
Data-backed report on what UK musicians actually earn — the £8bn paradox, the income ladder, the 50% rule. Free, CC BY 4.0.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the usual queries.
Fill Tuesday in the time it takes to read this
Sign up free, pick the empty date, and invite five ranked acts before the kettle boils.