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Last updated: 15 July 2026

Release Notes

What's changed, what's new, and what's next.

GigXchange is the UK's peer-to-peer live music booking platform connecting artists, venues, agents, and promoters. This page documents every product update shipped across two products: GX Mainstage, the SvelteKit-powered app where members manage bookings, messages, events, and payments, and the GigXchange website, the SvelteKit public site with profiles, the Gig Directory, Open Mic Finder, GX Index rate benchmarks, and 86+ blog posts covering the UK live music industry. Each release includes what changed, why, and what's next.

Mainstage
Website

GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.6) In development · expected late July 2026

v0.3.6 is in development, and the first features are already landing: every venue gets its own public What’s On page to share, and a new “Your Links” button on the dashboard gathers every public page you have in one place, each with its own QR code. More notes land here as features ship, with the release expected late July 2026.

Shipped so far

Every venue gets a public What’s On page: your programme, regular nights, how to get there and what to expect • A new Your Links button on your dashboard gathers every public page you have in one place • View, copy or show a scannable QR code for any of your pages • Gig Rescue now gives you a public link to share anywhere and a live view of who is responding, and lets you book a great applicant in one tap • Share your profile link anywhere and it now shows up as a polished branded preview on WhatsApp, Facebook and more • Refer a venue and earn £25 once they join and complete their profile, £5 for any other member you refer • Finish a gig and a draft invoice is ready moments later, filled in and waiting for you to check and send • Leave a comment on an artist’s profile right beside their music, and get notified the moment someone comments on yours • Hear artists as you browse: tap play on an artist’s card in Explore and their top track plays right there, with a live waveform moving to the music • Venues can now claim the free public pages GigXchange runs for them, or create one from scratch, and keep the details fresh themselves, with every claim and new page checked by hand before it counts

In development • first features landed 5 July 2026

Your venue’s What’s On page

Every venue now has its own public What’s On page to share: your upcoming programme with dates, times and ticket links, your regular nights, the good-to-know facts like venue type, capacity and usual hours, how to get there with a map, parking and access details, plus photos and recent reviews. Publish an event and the page updates by itself, so the link you share stays current.

Claim your venue’s public pages

GigXchange runs free public pages for well over a thousand UK venues and open mic nights, and if one of them is your venue it’s now yours to run. Open the new Venue Pages screen (under Events), search for your venue, and claim your page; we check every claim by hand, and once it’s approved you keep the details and times up to date yourself. Not listed yet? Fill in your page on the same screen and publish it, and it goes live on the directory once our team has checked it. Your venue details are filled in for you from your profile, and search results show each page’s photo so spotting yours takes seconds.

Your Links: every public page, one tap away

A new Your Links button on your dashboard gathers everything you have on the open web in one place. Artists see their public profile, press kit, tour dates and any stage plots they have shared; venues see their profile, What’s On page and press kit. View or copy any link in a tap, or show a scannable QR code, handy for a poster, a flyer or handing your page to someone across the bar. Pages you have not published yet point you straight to the tool that publishes them.

Gig Rescue goes further

When an act drops out, Gig Rescue now hands you a public link to share straight into your own musician WhatsApp groups and socials, so anyone can apply in a minute with no account needed. A new status view shows who you invited, who has seen it and who is in, so you are never left guessing after you put the word out. If it goes quiet, one tap widens the search or raises the fee to reach more acts. And when the right musician applies, you can take them straight into a booking that is already filled in, ready to send.

Your profile looks great when you share it

Share your GigXchange profile link anywhere, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, X or LinkedIn, and it now unfurls as a polished branded preview instead of a plain grey link. Your photo, name, role and genres come through styled to match the platform, so every time you send someone your page it makes a strong, professional first impression. It is on automatically for every profile, with nothing for you to set up.

Refer members, earn cash

Your account page now has your own referral link and code to share. Bring a venue onto GigXchange and you earn £25 once they join and complete their profile; any other member you refer earns you £5. Share it with the venues you play and the players you know, and get paid for growing the scene you’re already part of.

Invoices that draft themselves

When a booking is marked completed, a draft invoice for the gig appears moments later, already filled in: the agreed fee, any deposit taken off, and a due date that follows your payment terms. A notification takes you straight into the editor to check, tweak and send. Nothing ever goes out without you pressing send, and if you’d rather raise invoices yourself there’s a switch in invoice settings to turn auto-drafts off.

Comment on an artist’s profile

You can now leave a comment on an artist’s profile, right beside their music. Open the comments on their tracks and a panel slides across to reveal the conversation: tell them you loved a track, ask when they’re next playing near you, or say you’ve booked them. Comments show newest first and keep loading as you scroll back, so nothing gets lost. Every artist stays in charge of their own page and can remove anything they’d rather wasn’t there, and you’ll get a notification the moment someone comments on yours.

Hear artists as you browse

Artists with music now have a play button right on their card in Explore. Tap it and their top track plays on the spot, with a live waveform moving to the music and the song name underneath. Audition acts while you scroll instead of opening every profile, and tap again to stop.

GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.6) In development · expected late July 2026

Website v0.3.6 is in development, and the first wave is already live: every free tool now has its own page. Fifteen new pages show each tool doing its real job, with genuine previews, a plain-English guide and answers to common questions, so you can see exactly what you get before you create an account. Alongside them, the menu on your phone is tidier and quicker. More notes land here as features ship.

Shipped so far

Fifteen new pages, one for every free tool • See each tool doing its real job before you sign up, with previews you can tap to view full screen • The artist toolkit: press kits, posters, flyers, stage plots, invoices, fan lists, fair rates and matches • The venue toolkit: licensing, compliance, event posters, urgent cover, posting gigs and finding acts • The Booking Manager page runs the real availability widget live • A tidier, quicker menu on your phone

In development • first wave live 4 July 2026

Every free tool has its own page

Fifteen new pages have joined the free tools family, one per tool, so every free tool now has its own home. Each opens with the tool doing its real job, then a short how-it-works, a plain-English guide and answers to the questions people actually ask, so you know exactly what you are getting before you create an account.

See it before you sign up

The previews on every tool page are the real thing: actual posters, flyers, press kits, invoices, stage plots and checklists made with the tool, not mock-ups. Tap any of them to view it full screen. The Booking Manager page goes one further and runs the real widget live on the page.

The artist toolkit, laid out properly

Nine pages for performers: build a press kit, make a tour poster or a gig flyer, map your stage plot, send a proper invoice, grow a fan mailing list, price a gig with the rate calculator, get matched to venues looking for acts like you, and put your live availability on your own website with the Booking Manager.

The venue toolkit, laid out properly

Six pages for venues and promoters: check which licences you need, work through a compliance checklist tailored to your venue, turn your calendar into an events poster, find the right act for your room, post a gig for artists to apply to, and fill a sudden gap with Gig Rescue.

Ready for Martyn's Law, two years early

A new law reaches every UK venue holding 200 or more people from around 2027 — and most owners haven’t heard of it. The new Martyn’s Law readiness check tells you whether it applies, which tier you’re in, exactly what to have in place, and drafts your written procedures for you as a document you can review and sign off. Our plain-English guide covers the whole story.

Your compliance checks now remember you

The Licence Checker and Compliance Checklist now save to your venue: your answers and ticks come back on any device, the checker names your local licensing authority from your postcode, deadlines get a countdown and a nudge before they bite, and both export polished PDFs for your records. You can also try the licence checker right on its page and have your verdict emailed to you as a PDF — no account needed.

A tidier menu on your phone

The menu on your phone now groups pages the same way as on desktop, so everything sits where you expect it. It also opens and closes crisply on iPhone.

Frequently Asked Questions

How GigXchange releases work — update cadence, what ships on the website vs the app, and how to request a feature or report a bug.

GigXchange Mainstage is the members-only app where UK artists, venues, booking agents, and promoters manage their live music bookings, availability, messages, events, and payments. Built in SvelteKit, it features instant page navigation via View Transitions, a unified design system across dark and light mode, and mobile-first UX with full-screen messaging, 44px touch targets, and iOS zoom prevention. Artists manage profiles, tracks, and setlists; venues handle bookings and availability; agents manage multi-artist rosters with per-artist commission; and promoters build lineups and manage multi-act events. All payments are processed through Stripe with escrow hold until gig completion. Mainstage is a free download on the Apple App Store (iPhone and iPad) and Google Play (Android), and it also installs from any browser as a web app.
The GigXchange website is the public-facing side of the platform: everything visitors see before signing up. Built in SvelteKit and deployed on Cloudflare Workers, the site includes member profiles with media, genres, and fee ranges; the Gig Directory with 8,245 UK live music listings; the Open Mic Finder covering 1,170 verified venues; the GX Index rate benchmarks across 90 cities; free booking tools including the Rate Calculator, Setlist Builder, and Booking Contract Generator; Member Spotlight editorial profiles with press-kit PDFs; and 86+ blog posts covering UK gig rates, venue booking, and the independent music scene.
GigXchange ships updates continuously. This release notes page is updated with every significant release across both products: the Mainstage app and the public website. Minor bug fixes and performance improvements ship between major releases. You can follow development progress on our blog, where we publish monthly platform updates covering new features, performance data, and roadmap items. New to GigXchange? Start with how it works.
GigXchange Mainstage is built in SvelteKit with Supabase for auth, PostgreSQL database, edge functions, and storage, and Stripe for PCI-compliant payments. The public website is also built in SvelteKit, deployed on Cloudflare Workers with full CDN edge caching. Email is handled by Resend. Both products share a unified design system (frosted glass cards with gradient borders, breathing glow animations, and the ice/sky/violet brand palette), documented in our glossary.
Yes. GigXchange is in open alpha and completely free to join, list, browse, and use all tools. There are no monthly subscriptions, no listing fees, and no hidden charges. Long term, the model is a small platform fee only when a booking is confirmed and paid through Stripe. You never pay just to create a profile, browse the Gig Directory, or use free tools like the Rate Calculator, Setlist Builder, or Booking Contract Generator. Benchmark your fees against the UK market with the GX Index before your first booking.
The GX Index is GigXchange's UK live music rate benchmark: a transparent, city-level pricing tool built from real UK fee data across 90 cities. Artists use it to price gigs confidently based on real market data, not guesswork. Venues, agents, and promoters compare realistic fee ranges before negotiating. All figures are disaggregated into net and gross amounts with agency commission separated, so you see exactly what the performer takes home. Unlike agency rate cards, the GX Index covers solo artists, duos, bands, DJs, and function acts across every major UK city from London to Edinburgh.
The Gig Directory lists 8,245 UK live music events, organised by city, date, genre, and venue. A grassroots filter shows only small-venue and independent events: pubs, clubs, and community spaces rather than arenas. Artists can also list their own gigs for free via the “List your gig” form on any directory page. Browse by city: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, and 50+ more.
Yes. An interactive UK map runs across the Gig Directory, venue and open mic pages, and the member directory. Zoom into any city to see the grass-roots gigs, venues and open mics around you, tap an area for a quick breakdown of what is on, then jump straight to the local list. On member profiles the map shows the artists, venues, agents and promoters in each UK city.
The Open Mic Finder is the UK's largest free open mic directory with 1,170 verified venues across every major city. Each listing includes the venue name, address, genre focus, and typical night of the week. City hub pages group listings by area with radar scores ranking each city's open mic scene, covering categories like venue density, genre variety, and week-night spread. The directory is designed for emerging artists looking for grassroots stage time, and venues looking to promote their open mic nights to a targeted audience of performers. All data is verified against venue websites and social media, with no scraped or outdated listings.
The original GigXchange app was a single-page vanilla HTML/JS application that was functional but slow. Dashboard first paint took 3–5 seconds, navigating between sections froze the UI for 1–3 seconds, and there was no component reuse across 47 routes. Mainstage is a ground-up rebuild in SvelteKit that cuts first paint to under 200ms, page switches to under 100ms, and standardises every modal, card, and form input into a shared design system. It also adds features the old app couldn't support: full light mode, View Transitions, hover prefetch, contextual coachmarks, and a mobile-first messaging experience.
The previous website was 480 hand-written HTML files, each page maintained individually with duplicated topbar, footer, and styling code. A single CSS change meant updating hundreds of files. The rebuild replaced everything with a SvelteKit application on Cloudflare Workers, using shared components (Topbar, Footer, Section, FrostedCard, FaqSection) so changes propagate instantly. It also enabled View Transitions for SPA-like navigation, structured data on every page for Google rich results, and proper SEO fundamentals: canonical URLs, OG images, and a 12,000+ URL sitemap.
GigXchange Backstage is the next-generation version of the app, currently in development. While Mainstage handles the core booking workflow (profiles, bookings, messages, events, and payments), Backstage will introduce advanced features for power users. Details will be published here when the first Backstage release ships.
All payments on GigXchange are processed through Stripe, which is PCI DSS Level 1 certified. When a booking is confirmed, the deposit is held in escrow by the platform. Once both parties mark the gig as complete, funds are released to the performer automatically. GigXchange never sees or stores card data, and all sensitive payment information is handled entirely by Stripe. The full payment flow is documented in our Help Centre.
GigXchange is UK GDPR compliant and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ref ZC132441). All traffic runs over 256-bit TLS via Cloudflare. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe (PCI DSS Level 1). Users can control notification preferences and delete their account with a 28-day grace period. Full details in our privacy policy and terms of service.
GigXchange was founded by Naumaan Zahid, a UK guitarist since 2009 who built the platform because the live music booking process was scattered across Instagram DMs, WhatsApp groups, and bank transfers with nothing but a handshake. The company behind GigXchange is Eclipse-Labs AI Limited, registered in the UK. Read the full story in the founder's blog post or on the about page.

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Naumaan
Founder & Builder

Everything we’ve shipped, in the open — I update this as we build so you can see exactly what’s changing and why.

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