Six numbers nobody else publishes, each computed live from the GigXchange Index’s published cells — advertised UK rates, refreshed every 24 hours — with the working shown on every card. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0; every card has a one-click copy with attribution.

Source: GigXchange Index — live published medians; × ONS ASHE 2025, × industry per-stream estimates, × MU recommended rates. Commission Freedom Day is a GigXchange model, in the tradition of Tax Freedom Day — assumptions in the index methodology.

A solo act keeps £307 of a median gig; each member of a 5+ piece keeps about £223. Bigger acts gross more and keep less each — median advertised fee by line-up size, split equally (3–4 piece counted as 3.5 heads, 5+ as 6; assumptions stated).

A wedding booking pays £860 at the median advertised fee — 2.6× a pub gig (£337). The same medians cut by booking type, all line-ups pooled, pub baseline first.

Median advertised UK fee for this booking type, all band sizes pooled — live from the Index’s published cells (pub/bar is the grassroots baseline the multiplier measures against).

A modelled illustration in the tradition of Tax Freedom Day: at 20% commission on gross, a fully-agented musician works until 14 March for the middleman each year. Slide to your own commission and find your date — booking direct makes it 1 January.

Model: day-of-year = 365 × commission share of gross fees. The 20% anchor is the same commission assumption used throughout the Index methodology, within the 10–25% range charged across the UK entertainment agency market. An illustration, not a measurement — most musicians’ true date falls between late February (15%) and mid-March (20%).

Spotify publishes no official per-stream rate and explicitly disclaims the framing, so this is a range built on the £0.003–£0.004 third-party estimates cited in the DCMS streaming inquiry — not a payout you can hold anyone to. Fees come from the Index’s published cells.

Where these fees lead. If the per-head curve stings, UK Musician Earnings 2026 shows why it matters: the average UK musician earns about £20,700 a year from music, and 43% earn under £14k. The same medians turn into a city league in the Pint Index, priced at the bar, and can be cut to your own city, line-up and booking in the GX Index — how every cell is built, and what it leaves out, is in the methodology. For the demand side, State of the Circuit counts the gigs, rooms and open mics actually on the UK circuit; gig calendar statistics shows which nights they land on, and open mic statistics covers the free stage where a lot of these careers start. The wider economy — venue closures, GVA, audiences — sits in 51 sourced UK market statistics, the UK Live Music Yearbook 2026 and the long read State of UK Live Music. Every monthly issue behind these numbers is archived in the report library.