The GigXchange Index · Issue 01 · April 2026

UK live music rates — April 2026

What gigs actually pay across the UK this month — by city, gig type and band size.

Live — 2,381 data points across 14 UK cities
Read the report Download PDF Use the live calculator Dataset on Hugging Face Zenodo (DOI)
2,381Data points
14UK cities
345Rates published
11Pages
GigXchange Index April 2026 — Cover Foreword — Why a transparent rate index matters This month's headline rates — UK medians by gig type and band size Wedding band fees by UK city How we work it out — methodology, coverage and data sources Methodology — source weighting framework Methodology — geographic fallback and regional pricing Methodology — quality firewall, refresh cadence and licence What's in this month's data — source breakdown How we keep junk out — the five-check quality firewall What this is and isn't — limitations and licence
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This month's key figures

Highlights from the April 2026 issue. The full breakdown — including methodology, data sourcing and city-by-city figures — is in the report above.

Wedding band fees, UK national

For a 3–4 piece wedding band, the typical UK fee in April 2026 is £1,340. Most bookings fall between £995 and £1,757. The top end of the market reaches £2,241. Solo wedding singers typically charge £367; duos £600; 5+ piece bands £2,000.

Top UK cities for wedding band fees

Edinburgh leads the country at £1,779 median, with Glasgow second at £1,678. Cardiff (£1,480), Brighton (£1,424) and Leeds (£1,366) round out the top five. London's median is £1,355 but it has the widest spread of any city — from £865 budget weddings to £2,444 high-end Mayfair functions. Manchester typically pays £1,240, Birmingham £1,195, Liverpool £1,160, Newcastle £995.

Other UK gig types this month

Private parties typically pay £1,098 for a 3–4 piece, corporate events £839, ticketed clubs £600, festivals £757, theatre/pit work £631, and pubs & bars £487 — the lowest-paying gig type in the Index.

Index FAQ

The April 2026 UK median for a 3–4 piece wedding band is £1,340. The middle 50% of bookings fall between £995 and £1,757, with the top end reaching £2,241. Figures are based on 4,299 weighted data points.
Edinburgh tops the league at £1,779 median, narrowly above Glasgow at £1,678. Cardiff, Brighton and Leeds round out the top five. London sits at £1,355 but with the widest spread of any city — from £865 budget weddings to £2,444 high-end Mayfair functions.
The UK median for a solo wedding act is £367, with most bookings between £305 and £560. The top end reaches £650.
The UK median for a 5+ piece wedding band is £2,000, with most bookings between £1,595 and £2,570. Each extra musician typically adds £600–£700 to the fee.
The UK median for a 3–4 piece pub or bar gig is £487, with most fees between £433 and £649.
Nine sources, weighted by trust: confirmed GigXchange bookings (1.00), artist-confirmed post-event submissions (0.85), Musicians' Union and Equity recommended rates (0.60), agency rate cards (0.48), venue gig budgets (0.25), anonymous submissions (0.16) and artist profile asking rates (0.16). The April 2026 issue is built from 2,381 active observations.
Yes — the report, the live calculator at gigxchange.app/rates and the underlying data are all free under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0). Share, adapt and build on it commercially as long as you credit "GigXchange Index, gigxchange.app/rates".
The underlying figures rebuild every night at 5am UK time. A full monthly report is published the third week of every month.

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