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It depends which market you mean, and in August 2026 most of them read lower. As of the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, the UK median for a 3–4 piece wedding band was £990 — £52 below July, after July had risen £37 on June. The issue attributes more of that to a deeper pool pulling the median toward the middle of the distribution than to any change in what couples will pay. Corporate events slipped to £812 for the same lineup, ending three issues flat at £839, and the pub figure fell £25 to £350, its third consecutive fall.

The honest caveat: the Index has published monthly issues since spring 2026, so month-on-month movement is real but the run of data is short — nobody should extrapolate a year's trend from a season of issues. Each monthly report states its own movement against the previous issue, so the trend line grows one dated point at a time.

Figures are artist take-home medians from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities — a net 141 more than the July issue. Every monthly issue is frozen on publication, so a quoted number never moves after you print it, and the live rates index always shows the current figure.

Less than most people assume, and per gig the answer is often no. As of the August 2026 GigXchange Index, London's median for a 3–4 piece wedding band was £1,053 against Edinburgh's league-leading £1,067 — and the whole thirteen-city league now spans just £22, from Edinburgh down to Manchester at £1,045. That compression is a model change rather than a market move: location-less evidence such as national price lists now counts for every city, so a city's fee depends more on which end of the market a band works than on the city itself (which UK city pays wedding bands the most).

On annual income the picture inverts and then flattens: the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report (published April 2026) put London musicians at roughly £30,000 against a £20,700 national average — but found the premium largely swallowed by London's cost of living. On a net-of-rent basis, Scotland's live market compared well that spring: the April issue showed Edinburgh (£1,779) and Glasgow (£1,678) leading 3–4 piece wedding fees against London's £1,355.

Per-gig figures are artist take-home medians from the dated monthly issues; the live rates index carries the current city-by-city picture.

Private parties pay a UK median of £866 for a 3–4 piece band as of August 2026 — £124 behind the £990 wedding median. That is a wider gap than July showed, and the first issue in which the two function markets have stopped reading as interchangeable at this lineup size.

Corporate events pay £812 for a 3–4 piece as of August 2026, £178 behind weddings. That ends a run of three issues in which the corporate figure held flat at £839 — the earlier reports attributed the flatness to fixed budgets that do not negotiate. Festivals sit at £669 for the same lineup.

At the other end of the scale, a 3–4 piece pub gig pays a median £350 as of August 2026 (what pub gigs pay) — so the same band earns far more at a function than in a pub.

All figures are artist take-home medians from the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, built from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. The live rates index breaks both gig types down by city and band size, refreshed nightly.

96.3% of upcoming UK grassroots gigs publish no price at all, per the State of the Circuit 2026 census, captured on 6 August 2026. Of the 8,989 upcoming gigs GigXchange held on that date, only 331 published any price.

The essential caveat, stated wherever that figure appears: a missing price is not a free gig. Only 74 of the 8,989 are explicitly recorded as free entry. Everything else is simply unknown — and that opacity is the finding. A punter cannot price a night out, an artist cannot see what comparable rooms charge, and a venue booking without a reference point learns nothing from either overpaying or underpaying.

The census is a deliberate snapshot: every figure was measured against the directory on 6 August 2026 and fixed at that date, so it can be cited without the number moving underneath the citation (why every figure carries a date).

The performer-fee side of the market is measured separately by the GigXchange Index, whose monthly issues publish artist take-home fees by city, gig type and band size — see the live rates index.

UK session musicians earn around £49,000 a year on average (Salary Expert UK) and UK producers around £41,000 (Glassdoor UK), while live-focused performers sit at £20,000–25,000 (Indeed UK) — figures as consolidated in the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report, published April 2026.

The gap reflects the shape of the work: session and production income is repeat-contract work, while live performance depends on venue-booking networks and one-off engagements.

Geography moves the average less than expected. London musicians earn more on paper — roughly £30,000 against the £20,700 national average — but the report finds the premium largely swallowed by London's cost of living. On a net-of-rent basis, Scotland's live market compares well: the April 2026 GigXchange Index showed Edinburgh (£1,779) and Glasgow (£1,678) leading the UK for 3–4 piece wedding-band fees that month, against London's £1,355.

These are annual and per-gig figures from published sources, each dated in the report. For the current per-gig picture — which has moved since April — see which city pays most now and the live rates index.

The UK median fee for a solo wedding act is £330 as of August 2026, with most bookings between £233 and £450. The top end reaches £600. The solo figure barely moved on July — a £2 shift.

Adding musicians raises the fee, but not in a straight line. As of August 2026 the wedding curve runs £330 for a solo act, £526 for a duo, £990 for a 3–4 piece and £1,489 at five-plus. The step from duo to a 3–4 piece is the steepest on the curve — a £464 jump, steeper than July's £429 — which is one reason trios and quartets dominate UK function work.

These figures are from the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, built from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. Every figure is the performer's take-home, with agency commission already normalised out (why every figure is take-home), and each cell publishes four percentiles rather than an average.

For the current solo figure in a specific city or event type, the live rates index is refreshed nightly and free to use.

The UK median fee for a 3–4 piece wedding band is £990 as of August 2026 — £52 below July. The middle 50% of bookings fall between £717 and £1,367, and the premium tier reaches £1,880. The issue attributes most of the fall to a deeper pool pulling the median toward the middle of the distribution, not to a change in what couples will pay.

Band size moves the fee more than anything else. On the August 2026 wedding curve a solo act sits at £330, a duo at £526, a 3–4 piece at £990 and a five-plus band at £1,489 — see what a 5+ piece wedding band costs.

City matters less than it used to look. As of August 2026 the thirteen published cities run from Edinburgh at £1,067 to Manchester at £1,045 — a £22 spread, down from £523 in July, because the Index changed how location-less evidence counts (which UK city pays wedding bands the most).

Every figure is the artist's take-home rather than a client-facing agency price, and each cell publishes four percentiles instead of a single average (how to read the percentiles). These figures come from the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, built from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. The live rates index shows the current figure for any city, band size and event type.

The average UK musician earns around £20,700 a year from music, as of the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report (published April 2026, drawing on Help Musicians' Musicians' Census of roughly 6,000 respondents).

The average hides a sharply unequal spread: 43% of UK musicians earn under £14,000 a year from music — below the full-time minimum-wage equivalent — and the bottom earning tier is bigger than the rest combined. The report calls this the single most important statistic in the 2026 picture.

The paradox is the industry around it. UK music contributes around £8 billion a year in gross value added (UK Music, This Is Music 2025), yet most of that value flows to labels, publishers, streaming platforms and a small number of top-tier touring acts rather than working performers. More than half of UK musicians rely on non-music income (do musicians need a second job).

These are annual-income figures consolidated from published UK sources in the report. For what individual gigs pay right now, the live rates index tracks fees by city, band size and event type.

The UK median fee for a 5+ piece wedding band is £1,489 as of August 2026, with most bookings between £1,130 and £1,907. Premium-tier bookings reach £2,837. The five-plus end was the only part of the wedding curve to rise meaningfully on July.

Per musician, the economics have levelled: as of August 2026 a wedding quartet works out near £248 a head, and the five-plus median spread across six players comes to about £248 as well — where in July the bigger band still cost less per chair. The full August 2026 wedding curve runs £330 solo, £526 duo, £990 for a 3–4 piece and £1,489 at five-plus — see the 3–4 piece figure for the mid-market picture.

These figures come from the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, built from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. Every figure is the band's take-home rather than a client-facing agency quote, and each cell publishes four percentiles (p25, p50, p75, p90) so a single premium London booking cannot drag the typical figure upward.

The live rates index shows the current 5+ piece figure for any city and event type, rebuilt nightly.

Function bands are not a separate use case in the GX Index — the data groups by wedding, corporate and private party — but wedding is the closest proxy for function work, and Scotland publishes at two levels.

The clearest Scottish figure is the regional cell. As of the August 2026 issue, a 3–4 piece wedding band across Scotland sits at a £1,148 median — the middle half between £730 and £1,662, the premium tier at £1,981 — on 25 observations, against the London region's £903 on 94. Regional cells are built only from rows collected in that region, so this is the local comparison.

The city cells read closer together: Edinburgh £1,067, Glasgow £1,065 and London £1,053 for the same lineup as of August 2026. That is because, from the August issue, every city cell also counts evidence that carries no location — national price lists and union minimums — and the same shared layer sits behind all thirteen cities. Edinburgh's cell rests on ten locally collected rows and Glasgow's on eighteen, so treat the city figures as a national answer wearing a city name until more Scottish fees are reported (which UK city pays wedding bands the most). Five-plus bands publish at £1,641 in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London alike for the same reason.

So Scotland outpaces London per gig at the regional level — the Scotland-versus-London question in miniature. All figures are artist take-home; client-facing prices typically run higher where agency commission applies. The live rates index carries the current Scottish figures by city, lineup and event type, refreshed nightly, and corporate and private-party cuts are available on request.

This answer began as a journalist-style question through the /press ask box — asked once, answered publicly for everyone since.

The UK median fee for a 3–4 piece pub or bar gig is £350 as of August 2026, with most fees between £250 and £600. Pubs and bars are the lowest-paying gig type published in the GigXchange Index. Solo pub work sits at £250, a duo at £375 and a five-plus lineup at £525.

That figure is £25 below the £375 printed in July 2026 — the third consecutive issue in which it has fallen. Unlike July's drop, none of this one is a data-correction artefact: the rows withdrawn in August came from a source that contributes almost nothing to pub cells. July's fall, by contrast, was mostly a correction — an audit quarantined rows that should never have counted (how corrections are handled) — and June's £425 had itself been revised down from the £487 published in April and May 2026.

For comparison, as of August 2026 a 3–4 piece earns a median £990 at a wedding and £866 at a private party — pub work pays a fraction of function work for the same lineup, though a month of steady residency nights can still out-earn a single wedding.

These figures come from the August 2026 issue of the Index, built from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. The live rates index has the current pub figure by city and band size.

There is no single typical gig fee, because gig types sit far apart. As of the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index, the UK median for a 3–4 piece band runs from £350 for a pub or bar gig up to £990 for a wedding, with private parties at £866, corporate events at £812 and festivals at £669. For a solo act the same spread runs from £175 in theatre and £250 in pubs to £330 at weddings and £385 for corporate work (the current wedding figure, what pub gigs pay).

Because the Index rebuilds every night at 05:00 UTC, the live figure moves. For the number that is true today, use the live rates index — its calculator returns the current p25/p50/p75/p90 spread for any UK city, band size and event type, free and with no signup. For a figure that is fixed and citable, quote a monthly issue with its date instead (how to cite the Index).

Every published figure is the performer's take-home in pounds, with agency commission normalised out, and every cell states the sample size behind it (what the sample size counts). The August 2026 figures above come from 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities.

Over 50% of UK musicians rely on non-music income to sustain a music career, as reported in the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report (published April 2026, citing Musicians' Union member research).

The most common second jobs are teaching (around 32%), office work (around 21%), hospitality (around 18%) and freelance creative work (around 14%) — and many musicians combine two or more. The report's blunt framing: UK live music is, in effect, subsidised by hospitality and teaching, not the other way round.

The second-job rule follows directly from the income picture. As of April 2026, the average UK musician earns around £20,700 a year from music and 43% earn under £14,000 (the full earnings picture) — below what a full-time career can rest on, in an industry generating around £8 billion a year in gross value added.

These figures consolidate published UK sources — the Musicians' Union, Help Musicians' Musicians' Census and UK Music — into one dated, citable report, free to quote under CC BY 4.0 (how the licence works).

Edinburgh still pays wedding bands the most in the UK, at a median of £1,067 for a 3–4 piece as of August 2026 — but the league it tops has flattened. Thirteen published cities now run from Edinburgh at £1,067 to Manchester at £1,045, a spread of £22 where July showed £523. London sits at £1,053.

Nothing moved in the market; the model changed underneath it. Roughly six in ten observations carry no city — national price lists and union minimums, which apply everywhere. Until August they counted towards the country and towards no city in it, so every city was built from a thinner pool than the nation around it. From the August 2026 issue such a row counts as evidence for every city: the same 1,052 location-less rows sit behind all thirteen wedding cells, and each cell records how much of its sample is local and how much is that shared layer.

The issue is candid about what that costs: across the city grid, 176 of 299 cells have no local evidence at all and only 95 stand on three or more local rows. Eight local observations sit behind Newcastle's wedding figure; ten behind Edinburgh's. Separating the league again needs musicians reporting real fees, city by city.

All figures are the band's take-home in pounds, from the August 2026 issue of the GigXchange Index — 4,431 approved observations across 13 UK cities. Every cell publishes four percentiles rather than one number (how to read the percentiles) and states when a figure publishes (publication thresholds); the live rates index shows the current league and lets you look up any city directly.