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The GigXchange Index · Issue 03 · June 2026

UK live music rates — June 2026

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

Live — 4,036 data points across 13 UK cities
Free report — 11 pages, CC BY 4.0
Cite this report

GigXchange (2026). GigXchange Index — June 2026. Issue 03. Available at: gigxchange.app/rates/reports/june-2026. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21197463 · PDF · CSV · Hugging Face · Kaggle

4,036Data points
13UK cities
310Rates published
11Pages

The latest issue is live

Flip through all 11 pages below, or download the PDF.

GigXchange Index June 2026 — CoverForeword — A steady market, a sharper lensJune's headline rates — UK medians by gig type and band sizeGig type × band size heatmap — UK national mediansCity league — wedding band fees by UK cityTwo markets — wedding and pub fees by band sizeMethodology — pipeline and source weightingMethodology — geographic fallback, quality gates and cadenceWhat changed in the June dataset — source mix and correctionsHow we keep junk out — the quality firewallWhat this report is and isn't — limitations and licence
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What UK live music actually pays in 2026

A free, monthly benchmark built from 4,036 real data points across 13 UK cities — for bands pricing gigs, venues setting budgets, agents benchmarking rate cards, and couples sanity-checking wedding quotes.

Audience

Who the Index is for

Working musicians pricing themselves against real market data. Venues and promoters setting believable offers. Agents benchmarking rate cards. Couples and planners checking quotes. Journalists and researchers who need citable UK live-music figures.

Coverage

What this issue covers

Fees for seven gig types — wedding, corporate, private party, festival, ticketed club, theatre/pit and pub & bar — across thirteen UK cities and four band sizes. Every figure is a median with 25th–75th percentile ranges.

Methodology

Why the Index is different

Built from 4,036 real observations across eight weighted sources — confirmed bookings carry the heaviest vote (1.00), asking-prices the lightest. New this issue: the monthly artist panel’s trust weight rose to 0.38, and the issue documents a 25-row correction in the open.

This month's key figures

The headline numbers from the June 2026 issue — wedding, corporate, pub and city-level medians drawn from 4,036 weighted observations.

Wedding band fees, UK national

The typical UK fee for a 3–4 piece wedding band in June 2026 is £1,005. Most bookings fall between £738 and £1,281.

£1,005
3–4 piece median

Edinburgh: three months at the top

Edinburgh leads for the third consecutive issue at £1,186 — with Brighton (£1,050), Cardiff (£987), Leeds (£910) and London (£903) holding the same order as May.

£1,186
Edinburgh — top

Pub & bar gigs

A 3–4 piece pub gig typically pays £425, with most fees between £288 and £630. This figure was revised down this issue after a data correction the report explains in full.

£425
Pubs — lowest

Private parties close the gap

Private party bookings pay £977 for a 3–4 piece — now within 3% of the wedding median, the tightest that gap has been in three issues. Corporate events sit at £839.

£977
Private party median

Solo wedding acts

A solo wedding singer or DJ charges a UK median of £328. Browse artist profiles to compare rates and hear demos.

£328
Solo median

Data coverage this month

The June issue is built from 4,036 observations — up 189 on May, driven by the monthly artist panel’s 154 stated-rate snapshots. A 25-row data-hygiene pass is documented in the issue.

4,036
Observations

June 2026 Index FAQ

Everything artists, venues and event planners ask about UK gig fees in June 2026 — answered with real data from 4,036 observations across 13 cities.

The June 2026 UK median for a 3–4 piece wedding band is £1,005. The middle 50% of bookings fall between £738 and £1,281, with the top end reaching £1,849. Use the live rate calculator for a personalised figure by city and band size.
Edinburgh leads for the third consecutive issue at £1,186 median, with Brighton (£1,050), Cardiff (£987), Leeds (£910) and London (£903) completing an unchanged top five. London has the widest spread — £573 at the budget end to £1,640 in the premium tier. See the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report for deeper analysis.
The UK median for a solo wedding act in June 2026 is £328, with most bookings between £247 and £458. The top end reaches £599. Browse artist profiles to compare rates and listen to demos before booking.
The UK median for a 5+ piece wedding band is £1,433, with most bookings between £1,093 and £1,800. Premium-tier bookings reach £2,678. See our guide to live band pricing for a full breakdown by band size.
The UK median for a 3–4 piece pub or bar gig is £425, with most fees between £288 and £630. The figure was revised down from £487 this issue after 20 mislabelled observations were merged into the pub bucket — the correction is documented in the report. Check the Gig Directory for live listings near you.
Private parties pay £977 for a 3–4 piece in June 2026 — within 3% of the £1,005 wedding median, the tightest that gap has been in three issues. Corporate events pay £839. The rate calculator breaks both down by city and band size.
Eight sources fed the June pool, each with an effective trust weight: artist-confirmed post-event reports (0.85), Musicians’ Union and Equity recommended rates (0.60), venue gig budgets (0.50), agency rate cards (0.48), the monthly artist-profile panel (0.38, raised after the May issue), web-extracted rates (0.35), anonymous submissions (0.16) and ticket-derived club estimates (0.11). Confirmed GigXchange bookings (1.00) — the reference signal — are wired in but yet to arrive in volume. The June 2026 issue is built from 4,036 approved observations.
Yes — the report, the live calculator and the underlying data are all free under CC BY 4.0. Share, adapt and build on it commercially with credit to “GigXchange Index, gigxchange.app/rates”. Raw data is mirrored on Hugging Face, Zenodo and Kaggle.
The underlying figures rebuild every night at 05:00 UTC. Agency rate cards rescan weekly on Mondays, and the artist-profile panel snapshots on the 28th of each month. A full monthly report is published the third week of every month. Subscribe to the blog for release alerts.
The pool grew by 189 observations to 4,036, led by the monthly artist panel’s 154 stated-rate snapshots. The wedding median edged up from £996 to £1,005, the entire city top five held rank and price, and the pub figure was revised from £487 to £425 after a documented 25-row data correction. Methodology change: the artist-panel weight rose from 0.16 to 0.38. See the May 2026 issue for the baseline.

Help us make the next issue better

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Naumaan
Founder & Builder

Real UK gig-fee data, not guesswork — built from actual bookings. Add yours and it gets sharper for everyone.

Did you know? The UK is one of the world’s largest music markets, behind only the US and Japan.
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