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The GigXchange Index · Issue 02 · May 2026
UK live music rates — May 2026
What gigs actually pay across the UK this month — by city, gig type and band size.
GX Index — May 2026
Other issues
Free report — 11 pages, CC BY 4.0
Last updated: 20 May 2026
Page 1 of 11
Cite this report
GigXchange (2026). GigXchange Index — May 2026. Issue 02. Available at: gigxchange.app/rates/reports/may-2026. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What UK live music actually pays in 2026
A free, monthly benchmark built from 3,847 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 the market. Venues and promoters budgeting realistic offers. Agents checking rate cards against national medians. Couples and event planners sanity-checking quotes. Journalists and researchers needing citable UK live-music data.
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 real observations weighted across nine sources: confirmed bookings, artist submissions, MU/Equity minimums, industry rate cards, venue budgets and public listings. Confirmed bookings carry the heaviest weight (1.00); asking-prices the lightest (0.16).
This month's key figures
The headline numbers from the May 2026 issue — wedding, corporate, pub and city-level medians drawn from 3,847 weighted observations.
Wedding band fees, UK national
The typical UK fee for a 3–4 piece wedding band in May 2026 is £996. Most bookings fall between £722 and £1,253.
£996
3–4 piece median
Top city: Edinburgh
Edinburgh leads the country at £1,186, with Brighton second at £1,050. Cardiff (£987), Leeds (£910) and London (£903) complete the top five.
£1,186
Edinburgh — top
Pub & bar gigs
The lowest-paying gig type in the Index. A 3–4 piece pub gig typically pays £487, with most fees between £325 and £705.
£487
Pubs — lowest
Corporate events
Corporate bookings pay £839 for a 3–4 piece — 16% below the wedding median. Shorter sets and fewer special requests explain the gap.
£839
Corporate median
Solo wedding acts
A solo wedding singer or DJ charges a UK median of £308. Browse artist profiles to compare rates and hear demos.
£308
Solo median
Data coverage this month
The May issue is built from 3,847 observations across 13 UK cities — up from 3,671 in April. A third agency source was added this month.
3,847
Observations
May 2026 Index FAQ
Everything artists, venues and event planners ask about UK gig fees in May 2026 — answered with real data from 3,847 observations across 13 cities.
The May 2026 UK median for a 3–4 piece wedding band is £996. The middle 50% of bookings fall between £722 and £1,253, with the top end reaching £1,796. Use the live rate calculator for a personalised quote by city and band size.
Edinburgh tops the league at £1,186 median, with Brighton second at £1,050. Cardiff (£987), Leeds (£910) and London (£903) round out the top five. London has the widest spread — from £573 budget weddings to £1,640 high-end Mayfair functions. For deeper analysis, see the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report.
The UK median for a solo wedding act in May 2026 is £308, with most bookings between £233 and £433. 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 £487, with most fees between £433 and £649. Rates vary by city — check the Gig Directory for live listings near you.
Corporate events typically pay £839 for a 3–4 piece — about 16% less than the £996 wedding median. Corporate gigs are shorter sets with fewer special requests, which explains the gap. The rate calculator breaks this down by city.
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), industry rate cards (0.48), venue gig budgets (0.25), anonymous submissions (0.16) and artist profile asking rates (0.16). The May 2026 issue is built from 3,847 active observations. Full methodology in the glossary.
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 as long as you credit “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. Industry rate cards rescan weekly on Mondays. A full monthly report is published the third week of every month. Subscribe to the blog for release alerts.
The May issue grew the pool 62% to 3,847 observations (from 2,381 in April), covers 13 cities and 313 published rates. A third UK agency feed was added alongside the two existing rate-card sources. Methodology and weighting are unchanged — see the April 2026 issue for the baseline comparison.
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