The Whole Guide, In One File
Every answer on this page as one document — a quick start, all 32 answers and a glossary. Flip through all 17 pages below, or download the PDF.
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Last updated: 31 July 2026
Everything You Need to Know
32 answers across accounts, profiles, bookings, payments and more — whether you're an artist looking for your first gig, a venue searching for live acts, a booking agent managing a roster, or a promoter building a lineup.
Step 1
Create your free profile
Sign up as an artist, venue, agent or promoter — you’re live and discoverable in about 5 minutes.
Step 2
Book direct
Message, agree the fee, sign the auto-generated contract and secure it with a Stripe deposit — no middlemen, no agency markup.
Step 3
Play & get paid
The balance releases 5 days after the gig date — every step tracked in one place.
GigXchange is the UK's peer-to-peer live music marketplace — direct bookings between artists, venues, agents, and promoters across 40+ cities. No middlemen, no agency markup, Stripe-secured payments. Browse member profiles, explore the Gig Directory, or check live rate benchmarks on the GX Index.
Getting Started
Create your account, choose your role, and find your feet.
Click Get Started in the top navigation bar, choose your account type, enter your details and verify your email address.
First you say whether you are in the industry or just want to book someone for an event. Industry accounts are Artist, Venue, Promoter and Booking Agent; if you just want to hire a performer you get an Organiser account. You will also pick your territory. See account types if you are not sure which fits.
Once your email is verified you can start building your profile straight away. It takes about 5 minutes to get a profile live, and creating an account is free.
If you want a look around before signing up, you can browse profiles and the gig directory without an account.
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There are five account types, each with features built for its role.
- Artist — solo performers, bands and DJs
- Venue — pubs, clubs, arenas and festivals
- Promoter — event organisers
- Booking Agent — talent representatives
- Organiser — anyone booking a performer for a one-off: a wedding, a birthday, an office party. A stripped-back account with bookings, messages and payments, and nothing else to wade through.
The first four are for people working in the live music industry. Organiser is for everyone else — you do not need an industry account just to hire a band.
Pick the one that matches how you actually work. Your account type shapes what you see: artists look for gigs, venues and promoters look for performers, and agents manage a roster on behalf of the artists they represent.
If you work in more than one capacity, see can I have more than one role?
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Yes — creating an account, building a profile, messaging and browsing are all free. There are no monthly subscriptions and no hidden charges.
Charges only apply when money moves through the platform. If you choose to pay for a booking through GigXchange, there is a 5% booking fee added on top and paid by the booker, and in return the money is held securely until the gig is done. If you settle privately — cash, bank transfer, your own arrangement — there is no fee at all.
The same 5% applies to event ticket sales and to tips.
One thing worth knowing before you pay: the 5% booking fee is not refunded if a booking is cancelled after payment. The rest of the money follows the cancellation rules.
See paying privately or through GigXchange for the trade-off between the two, and our Terms for the full detail.
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Each account is tied to a single role — Artist, Venue, Promoter, Booking Agent or Organiser.
If you operate in more than one capacity — say you run a venue and also perform — you can create a second account using a different email address. Each account is completely independent, with its own profile, bookings, messages and reviews.
There is no charge for a second account; see is GigXchange free to use?
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Yes. The entire app is built to work on a phone, so everything you can do on a laptop you can do on the move — messages, bookings, availability and payments.
There are also native apps: GigXchange on Google Play for Android and on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Or just add the site to your home screen.
Most people end up doing the quick things on their phone — replying to an offer, marking a gig complete, checking a date — and the longer jobs like building out a profile on a bigger screen.
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GigXchange is built for the UK live music scene, and that is where nearly everything happens — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, across 40+ cities.
When you sign up you pick one of 3 territories — the UK, Ireland or the UAE. The platform works the same way in each; the UK simply has by far the most artists, venues and gigs on it today.
Payments are processed in pounds sterling wherever you are.
You can browse by city in the gig directory to see what is happening near you.
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Your Profile
The page that gets you booked — and how to make it work harder.
Sign in and open your profile from the sidebar. You can update your bio, photos, media links, genres, location, fee range and availability at any time — everything is editable in place.
A complete profile makes a real difference to whether people book you or reply to you. The things worth filling in properly:
- A clear photo and a bio that says what you actually do
- Your genres and your city, so you turn up in the right searches
- A fee range, so bookers know whether you are in budget before they ask
- Audio or video — see adding photos and media
Venues fill in the equivalent: venue type, capacity, photos and tech spec.
Your profile is public — see is my profile visible to the public?
See it in the app Your profile — bio, genres, fee range and media, all editable in place Was this helpful?
Open your profile and add media directly there — audio tracks, video links and photos.
For artists, this is the part bookers actually judge you on. A bio tells them what you play; a recording tells them how you sound. If you only do one thing to your profile, make it this.
A single 60-second live clip usually does more work than a polished studio track, because a venue is trying to picture you in their room on a Friday night.
For venues, photos of the actual space matter for the same reason — an artist wants to know the room, the stage and the setup before they say yes. You can also add your tech spec.
See editing your profile for everything else on the page.
See it in the app Promo Kit — where your press kit, flyers and posters live Was this helpful?
Go to Profile and open Availability. Click any day to set it to 1 of 4 statuses:
- Available — open for bookings
- Off — not working that day
- Hold — provisionally held, not confirmed
- Booked — already taken
Use Edit Weekly Pattern for a recurring schedule, so you are not clicking every Friday individually.
You can also sync with Google Calendar, Outlook or any iCal feed from Settings > Integrations, so your GigXchange availability stays in step with the calendar you already use.
Keeping this current matters: bookers filter by who is free on their date, so an out-of-date calendar means either missed offers or offers you have to turn down.
See it in the app The availability calendar — set each day Available, Off, Hold or Booked Was this helpful?
Yes. Your profile page is publicly visible, so potential bookers can find you without needing an account of their own. That is the point — it is how you get discovered.
Public: your display name, bio, photos, media, genres, location and reviews.
Never public: your email address, your private messages, and your booking and payment details.
So you can share your profile link anywhere — social media, an email signature, a poster QR code — and it works as your public page.
If you would rather not be listed at all, the way to do that is to delete your account; there is no half-visible state.
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Bookings & Gigs
From first offer to a confirmed date, and what happens if plans change.
A booking starts with an offer. Browse profiles or post a gig, and when you find a match, send a booking offer with your proposed date, fee and details.
The other party can accept, decline or counter-offer. You can go back and forth until the terms are right — it all happens in the chat, so the conversation and the offer stay in one place.
Once both sides agree, a contract is generated for both parties. Both of you need to sign it within 7 days of payment — if you don't, the booking expires and everything paid is refunded.
After the deposit is paid the booking is confirmed and appears on both calendars.
From there you choose how to settle: privately, or through GigXchange with the money held securely. See paying privately or through GigXchange.
Not sure what to offer? The rate calculator gives typical UK fees for the kind of gig you are booking.
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When someone sends you a booking offer it arrives as an offer card in your Messages, and it also appears in your Bookings under Pending.
On the card you can:
- Accept — you agree the terms. If it is being paid through GigXchange, the deposit is then requested; the booking becomes Confirmed once that deposit is paid
- Amend — send back a counter-offer with a different fee, date or details
- Decline — turn it down
Countering is normal and expected — most bookings settle within 2 rounds on the fee. Because it all happens in the chat, the negotiation stays attached to the booking rather than scattered across texts and emails.
Offers stay open until the gig date — if the gig day passes with nobody responding, the offer expires. Ask whatever you need to in the chat, but answer the card itself before the day of the gig — an expired offer has to be sent again from scratch.
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Every booking lives in Bookings, with filters for each stage.
- Pending — an offer has been sent but not yet answered. Either side can still accept, amend or decline. Offers stay open until the gig date, then expire if unanswered.
- Accepted — both sides agreed the terms. If it is being paid through GigXchange, the deposit is now due; the booking sits here until it is paid.
- Confirmed — the deposit has been paid. The booking is locked in and appears on both calendars. The balance falls due 48 hours before the gig.
- Completed — the gig has happened and been marked as done. Both sides can now leave reviews.
- Cancelled — the booking was called off. What happened to any money is recorded against it. Bookings in dispute also appear here while they are being resolved.
If it was paid through GigXchange, the money is released 5 days after the gig date — see when do I get paid?.
Totals sit at the top of the Bookings screen, so you can see what is coming up and what is outstanding at a glance.
See it in the app Your bookings, filtered by stage, with totals at the top Was this helpful?
Go to Explore and choose Find Gigs. From there you can filter by genre, city, date and budget to narrow it down to gigs you would actually want.
You can also browse the public gig directory, which is open to everyone and does not need an account.
Two things help gigs find you as well: keeping your availability calendar up to date, and keeping your profile complete. Bookers filter on both.
See setting your availability and editing your profile.
See it in the app Find Gigs — filter by genre, city, date and budget Was this helpful?
Once a booking is marked complete, both sides are invited to leave a review — a rating from 1 to 5 stars, plus written feedback.
Reviews appear on your public profile and count toward your average rating. They work both ways: artists review venues and promoters, and they review artists back.
This is how trust gets built on the platform. A new profile with no history is a risk to book; a profile with a run of solid reviews is not. It is worth leaving them, and worth asking for them.
Most reviews come from a completed booking on GigXchange. A profile can also carry reviews left without a booking, and testimonials brought in from elsewhere — those are labelled, so you can tell which is which when you are sizing someone up.
See it in the app Reviews on your profile, from real completed bookings Was this helpful?
Go to Bookings and choose Post a Gig.
Add the date, time, location, genre preferences and fee range. Artists in matching cities and genres will then see it in their feed and can apply.
A few things make a listing work harder: a realistic fee range, a clear genre, and enough detail about the room and the night that an artist can tell whether they fit. Vague listings get vague applicants.
If you are not sure what to offer, the rate calculator gives typical UK fees for the kind of gig and room size you are booking.
You can also browse the public gig directory to see what else is already listed in your area.
See it in the app Post a Gig — date, location, genre and fee range Was this helpful?
Yes, a booking can be cancelled before the event date. If it was paid through GigXchange, what happens to the money depends on who cancelled and how much notice was given.
If the performer cancels, the booker gets back everything they paid toward the gig, apart from the 5% booking fee.
If the booker cancels, it follows notice bands:
| Notice given | What the booker gets back |
|---|---|
| More than 28 days before the gig | Everything paid toward the gig, less the 5% fee |
| 8 to 28 days before | Half back, less the 5% fee — the other half goes to the performer |
| 7 days or fewer | Nothing — it all goes to the performer, covering the lost date |
Changed your mind quickly? Cancel within 24 hours of paying, with the gig still at least 72 hours away, and you get everything back apart from the fee.
The 5% booking fee is not refunded in any of these cases.
If you and the other side both agree to call it off, that is treated as a mutual cancellation and the booker is refunded once the other party confirms it.
Money that goes to the performer after a cancellation is held for 30 days from the date of cancellation before it pays out — see when do I get paid?.
If you settled privately, none of this applies: the money never passed through GigXchange, so it is between you and the other party.
Before cancelling, it is worth talking it through in messages first. Full terms are in our Terms.
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Fees & Payments
How money is held, when it is released, and what the fee covers.
Paying through GigXchange happens in two payments, not one. Both are held securely rather than passed straight on, and Stripe handles the card details — GigXchange never sees them.
- A deposit when you book. You choose what share of the agreed fee it is, up to half. (If the whole fee is under £20 you pay it in one go and there is no balance.)
- The balance, 48 hours before the gig. A Pay balance button appears on the booking when it is due.
- The gig happens.
- 5 days after the gig date, everything held is released to the performer in one payment.
The 5% booking fee is added on top of the agreed fee and split across the two payments in the same proportion. Every amount is shown before you confirm.
Holding the money is the point. The performer knows the fee is really there before they travel; the booker knows nothing is released until the gig has actually happened.
Every transaction is listed under Payments, so both sides have a full record.
See when do I get paid? and what happens if a booking is cancelled.
See it in the app Payments — transactions and pending releases in one place Was this helpful?
If the booking was paid through GigXchange, the money is released to your connected Stripe account 5 days after the gig date — the deposit and the balance together, in one payment.
The clock runs from the date of the gig, not from when either side marks it complete. Those five days are a window in which either party can raise an issue; if a dispute is open, the release pauses until it is resolved.
If the gig was cancelled and money came to you under the cancellation rules, it works differently: it is held for 30 days from the date of cancellation, not 5 days from the gig. That longer wait is there because a card payment can still be disputed weeks after a gig that never happened.
Once GigXchange releases the money it goes to your Stripe account, and Stripe then pays out to your bank on its own schedule — so allow a little longer for it to actually land.
Two things must be in place or the release cannot happen:
- A connected Stripe account — see connecting Stripe.
- The booking must have been paid through GigXchange. If you settled privately, nothing is held on your behalf and payment is between you and the other party.
See paying privately or through GigXchange.
See it in the app Payouts — what has been released and what is still to come Was this helpful?
The booker pays it, and it is added on top of the agreed fee. Nothing is taken out of the performer's money.
So if you agree £300, the booker pays £315 and the performer receives the full £300.
You only pay it if you choose to pay for a booking through GigXchange. Settle privately and there is no fee at all. The amount is always shown before you confirm, split across the deposit and the balance in the same proportion.
The booking fee is not refunded if a booking is cancelled after payment — it pays for the service, which was provided whether or not the gig went ahead. The rest of the money follows the cancellation rules.
What the fee buys is the protection: the money is held until the gig is done, there is a dispute process if something goes wrong, and the performer does not have to chase anyone.
There is also a 5% fee on event ticket sales and on tips. Full detail is in our Terms.
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Both are fine, and the choice is yours on every booking.
Settle privately — cash, bank transfer, your own arrangement. No fee at all. You still get the full booking record, messages, contract and reviews. What you do not get is any protection: if the other side does not pay, that is between you.
Pay through GigXchange — a 5% booking fee, so a £300 gig costs the booker £315. The money is held securely until the gig is done and released 5 days after the gig date, there is a dispute process if something goes wrong, and cancellations follow clear rules rather than an argument.
In practice, people tend to settle privately with regulars they have worked with for years, and pay through the platform with someone new. The protection is worth most exactly when you do not yet know the other party.
The 5% fee is not refunded if the booking is later cancelled.
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Go to Settings, open Integrations, choose the Payments tab, and click Connect Stripe Account.
You will be taken to Stripe's own site to complete onboarding — bank details and identity verification. It takes a few minutes. Once you are back, you are set up to receive payouts.
You only need to do this once. After that, every booking paid through GigXchange pays out to the same account automatically.
You will usually be prompted to do this when your first booking comes in, but there is no need to wait — connecting early means nothing holds up your first payout.
Stripe handles the money itself and is subject to its own terms; GigXchange never sees your bank details.
See it in the app Settings > Integrations — where you connect Stripe Was this helpful?
All major credit and debit cards, processed through Stripe. All payments are in pounds sterling.
GigXchange never stores your card details — Stripe handles the card data directly.
If you would rather not pay by card at all, you can settle privately instead: cash, bank transfer or whatever you agree between you. See paying privately or through GigXchange for what you gain and give up either way.
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Messages
Talking to the other side, and sending offers in the chat.
Every member has a built-in inbox. Go to Messages and start a conversation with any profile on the platform — you do not need a booking first.
Messages are threaded per conversation and stay in your account, so the whole history of a working relationship is in one place. They deliver in real time, and queue automatically if you go offline.
Messaging is free and unlimited. There is no credit system and nothing behind a paywall.
Because booking offers are sent as cards inside the chat, the negotiation and the agreement end up in the same thread — you are not cross-referencing an email against a text message six weeks later.
See how do bookings work? for sending an offer from a conversation.
See it in the app Your inbox — every conversation in one list Was this helpful?
Your Account
Passwords, settings, and control over your data.
Go to Sign In and choose Reset Password (under "Forgot your details?"). Enter the email address on your account and we will email you a 6-digit code.
Type the code back in, then choose a new password. It needs to be at least 12 characters. If the code stops working, just request another one.
If the email does not arrive, check your spam or junk folder first — reset emails often land there. Make sure you are using the same address you signed up with; if you have more than one account, it is easy to try the wrong one.
Still stuck? Get in touch and we will help you back in.
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Yes. You can connect an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT to your account, so you can ask it about your gigs and the public directory in your own words.
You start from inside the assistant, not from GigXchange. It takes about a minute and needs no keys or codes.
In Claude: Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Paste `https://mcp.gigxchange.app/mcp` and choose Connect.
In ChatGPT: Settings, then Integrations, then Plugins, then Add. Set the type to Streamable HTTP, paste the same address and save.
Either way, the assistant then opens a GigXchange sign-in page. Log in, read what the assistant is asking for, and approve it. The connection appears in your account under Connected AI assistants.
To find it later, or to add another assistant, open Settings, then Integrations, then the AI tab.
To end a connection, press Disconnect next to it. Access stops straight away. Signing out of GigXchange does not disconnect an assistant — it stays connected until you disconnect it.
Before you connect, it is worth knowing what your assistant can see and what it can do on your behalf.
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Yes. Go to Settings, open Account, and scroll to Danger Zone, then choose Delete Account. You will be asked to type DELETE to confirm.
Two things to know before you do:
- Any active bookings must be resolved first. You cannot delete an account with a live booking still outstanding — that would leave the other party stranded.
- There is a 28-day grace period. Your profile is hidden immediately, but your data is not erased yet, and you can still cancel the request during that window. After 28 days it is permanently deleted.
So deleting is reversible for four weeks, then final. If you are stepping away rather than leaving for good, the grace period means you are not making a permanent decision on a bad day.
Full detail on what is erased and what is retained is in our Privacy Policy.
See it in the app Settings > Account, where the Danger Zone lives Was this helpful?
Only if you turn it on. Every connection starts read-only, and acting is a separate switch for each assistant: Settings, then Integrations, then the AI tab, then Allow my assistant to act.
Turning it on is one decision that covers everything an assistant can do for you. It is not a menu you pick from, so it is worth knowing the full list before you switch it on:
- Set a date on your availability calendar
- Add or remove a favourite
- Mark your notifications as read
- Change your bio and your fee range
- Apply to a gig
- Accept, decline or counter a booking offer
- Send a chat message as you
- Submit an invoice
The last four matter most. An assistant with this switch on can commit you to work and can send money paperwork in your name, so only turn it on for an assistant you trust.
Nothing happens quietly. Every action is written to Assistant activity in the same panel, and you get a notification when one happens, so you can see and undo anything you did not intend.
You can turn the switch back off at any time, or press Disconnect to end the connection entirely. Both take effect immediately.
The full terms covering bookings and payments are in our Terms.
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A connected assistant can read four things about you: your profile, your bookings, the status of your invoices, and how many unread messages you have.
That last one is a count only. The contents of your messages are never shared with an assistant, and neither is anyone else's private information.
Alongside your own account, an assistant can also search everything that is already public on GigXchange — the gig directory, open mics, venues, member profiles and press kits, and our published market figures. That part is public to anyone, with or without an account.
Reading is all a new connection can do. It cannot change anything on your account unless you separately switch that on — see letting your assistant act for you.
You can see exactly what your assistants have been doing. Open Settings, then Integrations, then the AI tab, and look at Assistant activity — every action they have taken on your account, newest first.
If you would rather it stopped, press Disconnect next to that assistant. Access ends immediately.
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If Something Goes Wrong
Disputes, dead ends, and how to reach us.
Nine times out of ten it is the profile rather than the message.
Work through these in order:
- Add media. A recording is the single biggest thing. Someone deciding whether to book you wants to hear or see you, not read about you. See adding photos and media.
- Fill in your fee range. Without it, bookers cannot tell if you are in budget, and many will skip rather than ask.
- Update your availability. If your calendar is out of date you will be filtered out of searches for the dates you actually could play.
- Finish the basics — photo, bio, city, genres. See editing your profile.
On messages themselves: be specific. A short note naming the venue, a date you are free and a link to a track gets replies. A generic "any gigs going?" usually does not.
Build up reviews as you go — a profile with a track record is a much easier yes.
See it in the app Explore — how bookers browse, and what your card looks like to them Was this helpful?
If something goes wrong with a booking, start in Messages. Most problems are a misunderstanding about times, fees or what was agreed, and they get sorted in a couple of messages.
If you cannot reach an agreement, open the booking and raise a dispute on it. You pick a category, describe what happened, and it comes to us as a formal case rather than an email — which means it is tracked, and both sides can be asked for their side of it.
If the booking was paid through GigXchange, money we are holding is not released while a dispute is open — the release pauses until it is resolved. That is the practical value of paying through the platform rather than privately: there is something to hold.
If you settled privately, there is nothing held on your behalf and no dispute process to run — it is a matter between you and the other party.
Full detail is in our Terms.
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Use the contact form and we will get back to you.
To get a useful answer first time, include:
- A link to the booking — open it in your Bookings and copy the address from your browser
- What you expected to happen and what happened instead
- The email address on your account, if you are writing from a different one
If it is about money on a booking, say whether it was paid through GigXchange or settled privately — the answer is different in each case, and it is the first thing we would otherwise have to ask.
For common questions, it is worth a look through the rest of the help pages first — most things are answered there and you will get an answer faster.
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Related Resources
More ways to get the most from GigXchange
Learn
Quick Start Guides
Step-by-step guides and guided walkthroughs for artists, venues, agents, and promoters.
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Find open opportunities near you across the UK.
Our Story
About GigXchange
Learn more about our mission and the platform.
Updates
Release Notes
What we’ve shipped, changed, and what’s coming next.
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