Release Notes
What we've shipped, what's changed, and what's coming next. Updated with every release.
Last updated: 13 August 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.
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.7) In development · expected late August 2026
v0.3.7 is in development, expected late August 2026, and the first wave has already landed. You can now pay for the whole booking through GigXchange, not just the deposit, every booking comes with a written contract you read, sign and download in one place, and bands can invite their members to help run the profile. That last one came straight from the community feedback board. And your calendar now looks after itself: connect Google or Outlook once and your availability stays in step with the rest of your life.
Shipped so far
Publish any of your events straight to your own Eventbrite account in one tap, with the venue, address, description and line-up already filled in • Pay the whole booking through GigXchange: the deposit secures the date, the balance is paid before the gig, and both are held safely until the night is done • Every booking comes with a written Live Music Booking Agreement you read and sign in one place, then download as a polished PDF once everyone has signed • Bands can invite their members to help run the profile, with roles, an activity log and the option to hand the reins over • Invoices got a redesigned editor and download as the same polished PDFs as contracts, and agent-billed bookings are handled properly • Open mic nights now have their own gig pages, show as events, and suggest other open mics near you • Gig pages have been reorganised so the details, the map and the actions you need are all on the page • Classifieds (formerly Line-Up) is a board where musicians find each other: post that you need a player or that you’re available, get alerted when a match appears, and share your ad’s own public page anywhere • Artists can now contact venues in the directory that haven’t joined yet: write a short note and it lands in the venue’s inbox with your profile attached • A help centre with twenty-nine plain-English answers, built into the app and downloadable as one guide • You can now choose which pages appear in your menus, so what you never use gets out of the way • Connect your Google or Outlook calendar once and your availability keeps itself in step with the rest of your diary, with a calendar feed link for every other calendar app
In development • more notes land here as features ship
Send your events to Eventbrite in one tap
If you sell tickets on Eventbrite, GigXchange now talks to it directly. Connect your Eventbrite account once, in Settings under Integrations, and every event you publish here gains a one-tap Push to Eventbrite. It arrives as a draft with the details already filled in: the date and time, the description, the capacity, the venue with its full address on the map, and the act’s name where the event came from a booking. If your venue profile lists a nearest station, parking or step-free access, those land as a Good to know section for your ticket buyers. You stay in charge of the money and the launch: tickets sell in your own Eventbrite account, you set the prices, and nothing goes on sale until you publish it. Before pushing, we quietly check the event over and tell you if anything is missing, so the listing lands complete.
Your calendar looks after itself
Connect your Google or Outlook calendar once, in Settings under Integrations, and your GigXchange availability keeps itself in step with the rest of your diary: dates you’re busy elsewhere show as unavailable here, so nobody offers you a gig you can’t play, and a change in your calendar comes through in moments, not the next day. Prefer Apple Calendar or anything else? Every account has a personal calendar feed link that any calendar app can subscribe to, so your confirmed gigs travel with you wherever you plan your life.
Pay the whole booking through GigXchange
Last release introduced paying a deposit through GigXchange; now the rest of the fee goes through it too. The deposit secures the date when you book, the balance is paid in the run-up to the gig, and both are held safely until the night is done, then released to the act as one payment. The booking fee is a flat 5% of the agreed fee, shown plainly before you confirm, and what happens if plans change is written out on our terms page.
A written contract on every booking
Every GigXchange booking now comes with its own Live Music Booking Agreement, built from the actual details of your deal: who, where, when, and for how much. When it’s time to commit you read the full agreement and sign it in the same place, so nobody signs something they haven’t seen. Each signature shows the signer’s name in a handwritten style with the exact moment they signed, and once everyone has signed, either side can download the finished agreement as a polished PDF for their records.
Run your band as a team
Asked for on our community feedback board, and now live. Bands can invite their members to help run the profile: each person gets their own login, with a role label (Manager, Booker, Member) so everyone knows who’s who. The band leader can see an activity log of what teammates have changed, remove members when the lineup changes, and even hand the leader role over to someone else. Team logins are private, they never appear as public profiles, and the band’s own account can never be locked out of its page.
Invoices, grown up
The invoice screen has been redesigned around what matters: the amount due front and centre, the status at a glance, and how to pay laid out clearly. Invoices now download as the same polished PDFs as contracts, so everything you send a client looks like it came from the same professional outfit. And when an agent handles the money on a booking, invoicing now follows the deal properly instead of assuming the artist bills direct.
Open mic nights, front and centre
A venue’s open mic nights now get their own gig pages and show up in events, so players can find a stage the same way they find paid work. Each open mic page suggests other open mics near you, sorted by real distance, and a venue’s page shows its next open nights so you can plan a week of stage time at a glance.
Gig pages, reorganised
Gig pages have been rebuilt so everything you need is on the page: the key details and who posted the gig sit side by side up top, the actions you can take live in one clear row, and Getting There now includes an embedded map next to the description. The venue card shows its rating, links to its public pages, and what else is on there soon.
Classifieds: find the players, fill the gap
A board built for musicians looking for each other rather than for gigs, now called Classifieds (it launched as Line-Up). Post “I need someone” when you’re a player short, or “I want to play” when you’re available, and say the things that actually decide it: the instrument, whether it’s a permanent seat or one night’s cover, covers or originals, how often you rehearse, and what it pays. Ads have grown up since launch: alongside your pitch, an ad now carries your experience, influences, gear, rehearsal habits and location, each laid out as its own card, and every ad has its own public page you can share anywhere — even with people who aren’t on GigXchange yet. Every ad is backed by a real member profile, so you can hear their music and read their reviews before you get in touch. Search by instrument or by distance, see everyone on a map, or set a match alert and get told the moment a matching ad appears. Replies happen in your normal messages, and you can edit your ad straight from its page. Turn it on in Settings under Add-ons.
Contact venues that aren’t here yet
The venue directory lists thousands of UK venues that haven’t joined GigXchange yet, and artists can now reach them without leaving the app. Press Contact on a venue’s card, write a short note about why you’d like to play there, and we deliver it to the venue by email with your name, your photo and a link straight to your public profile, so they can hear your music before they even reply. If that venue later joins GigXchange, you’re told, so you can be first through the door. A sensible daily limit keeps every note personal.
A help centre that actually answers
Twenty-nine plain-English answers to the questions people genuinely ask, now built into the app and readable without leaving what you were doing. You can also download the whole thing as a single, properly laid-out guide to keep, print or send to a bandmate. The same answers power the help pages on the website, so you get the same answer wherever you look for it.
Choose which pages you see
Different members use very different corners of GigXchange, so the menus no longer have to be the same for everyone. A new Add-ons screen in Settings lets you switch individual pages on and off, so what you never use gets out of your way and what you rely on stays put. The essentials stay where they are and can’t be switched off by accident, and anything you turn off is one tap from coming back.
Also shipped so far in v0.3.7
- Setting up payouts now completes properly inside the iOS and Android apps, not just on the web
- Payments, events, calendars and AI now live together in one Integrations screen in Settings, instead of being scattered
- Connecting Eventbrite from the phone apps opens the secure sign-in in your browser, then picks up where you left off — you only do it once
- Handing over to Stripe or Eventbrite now shows a branded progress screen instead of a blank wait, and coming back does too, so there’s no flash of a blank screen anywhere in the journey
- Event pages gained a Getting There card with a map, and an Actions row that puts editing, flyers and publishing in one place
- Once a booking is paid, the Pay button flips to a quiet paid receipt showing the amount, so both sides can see it’s done
- Publishing a booking as a public event now waits until it’s both signed by everyone and paid, so nothing goes public before it’s real
- The balance payment screen always shows the exact figures agreed when the booking was made, never a recalculation
- Card details keep the app’s styling when your browser autofills them, instead of flashing white boxes
- Sign up from a band team invite and your invited email address is locked in and shown, so you can’t accidentally join with the wrong account
- Team members joining a band skip the new-member setup questions that don’t apply to them and land straight in the app
- Your tour posters now appear on your public profile, so people who find you can see where you’re playing next
- Find Gigs now lists the soonest gigs first, with a Recently Added row on top for everything that just landed
- Replies you post to a review now show up on your profile, instead of the review still asking for one
- The venue compliance checklist and the Martyn’s Law documents come out as clean, properly paginated PDFs that match the look of your contracts and invoices
- Every free tool’s on-screen example now matches the document you actually get, so there are no surprises when you download it
- The progress bar on a booking now matches the one on payments, so the same journey looks the same wherever you are in it
- When your money is released is now stated the same way everywhere: five days after the gig date
- Cancellation windows, the booking fee, and the 28-day grace period after you ask to delete your account are all spelled out in the app, matching our terms
- The help page heading no longer overlaps its buttons on a phone
- A booking offer now stays open until its gig date has passed, instead of timing out after three days, so a last-minute booking for tonight still works
- Searching by postcode and distance now narrows results properly when finding artists, venues and gigs, and a typed postcode is looked up for you the moment you hit Apply
- New to Classifieds? Artists now get a short introduction to it on the dashboard, with a button that lands on the exact switch that turns it on
- Every link to one of your events or gigs now opens its full page, drafts included, so a saved draft is always where you left it
- Saving an event without a title or date now tells you exactly what’s missing, instead of quietly doing nothing
- Deleting one of your feedback posts now returns you to the feedback board
- A row of cards with only one card in it now uses the full width instead of leaving a gap
- The two contact buttons on the help page now sit as a matched pair on desktop
- The Equipment Provided heading on a venue profile now clearly owns its three switches
- Important booking and payment updates now also arrive by email, so nothing slips past while you’re away from the app
- You’re now told the moment someone leaves you a review, when your account is verified, and when a new message is waiting for you
- A cancelled event or open mic night can now be reopened, so a change of plans is no longer final
- Closing a gig now works the same way everywhere, with a proper confirmation, and if a gig can’t be closed yet the app tells you why
- The Explore page’s stats now count all five member types, organisers included, and keep to one tidy row on a phone
- Calendar day tiles are easier on the eyes, with clearer spacing and slightly larger type on every calendar in the app
- The photo viewer now listens to your keyboard the moment it opens: Escape closes it, and the arrow keys move between photos
- In the venue licensing checker, the deadline reminder now spans the full width of the planner
- Edit an event you’ve already sent to Eventbrite and the Eventbrite listing now updates itself, so the two never drift apart
- Events are now edited right on the event page, card by card, instead of in a separate pop-up
- Once an event is published, its public address stays put, so nobody who saved the page can be sent somewhere else
- While you write a Classifieds ad, the profile sections you choose to show appear live below the form, so you see the ad exactly as others will
- You can now remove people from your fan list, and the fan tools got a visual tidy-up
- Importing fans from a file now shows exactly what will happen before you confirm: how many will be added, how many you already have, and how many rows need fixing
- Updates you send your fans now arrive with your photo at the top of the email, so they read as from you
- A sweep restored card borders that had quietly gone missing in odd corners of the app, so every card wears the same frame again
- Posting a Classifieds ad for a player you need? You can now ask for gigging experience, and the ad says so up front
- Connecting a calendar hands over to the secure Google or Microsoft sign-in, then returns you to exactly where you left off
- Photos on a Classifieds ad now zoom neatly inside their frame when you hover them
- Signing in no longer flashes a bright wash before your dashboard settles
- Sign-up and Settings now ask for names the way your act uses them: your stage name out front, with space for your real name, kept private
- Profile views now show who’s been looking, photos included, with an all-time count alongside the recent one
Known issues
- Moving a confirmed booking to a different date is handled by our team for now. Get in touch and we’ll sort it. Proposing and accepting a new date yourself, inside the app, is a follow-up build.
- Classifieds is off until you switch it on, in Settings under Add-ons. Posting is artist-only for now, though anyone can browse the public board.
- Classifieds asks for your postcode when you post your first ad, because artist profiles don’t carry one yet. After that it remembers the last one you used.
- One-click calendar sync covers Google and Outlook calendars for now. Apple Calendar and everything else can still subscribe with your personal calendar feed link.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.6) 27 July 2026
v0.3.6 is out, and the biggest piece is that you can now pay for a booking through GigXchange, with the money held safely until the gig is done. Alongside it, every venue gets its own public What’s On page, a new “Your Links” button gathers every public page you have in one place, artists carry a fair reliability record on their profile, and members can vote for the venues they want to see join.
In this release
Pay for a booking through GigXchange and your money is held safely until the gig is done, with cancellation terms written out plainly and applied for you • Artists carry a fair reliability record on their profile, and cancellations that were not their fault do not count against them • Vote for the grassroots venues you want to see join, and the most-wanted rise to the top • Venues can set their opening times for every day of the week, and split their regular nights and house rules into two cards they can edit separately • If you joined to book live music rather than to be booked, the app now works properly around you, with your own notifications screen and the real cost shown before you propose • 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, each with a scannable QR code • 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
Payments + venue pages release • shipped 27 July 2026
Pay for a booking, safely, in one place
You can now pay for a booking through GigXchange, and the money is held safely until the gig is done rather than going straight to the act. The performer knows the date is genuinely secured, you know your money is not gone into thin air, and it is released to them shortly after the night itself. What happens if plans change is written out plainly and applied for you: cancel well ahead and you are refunded in full, cancel closer to the date and the deposit is split, and very late cancellations leave it with the act for the date they turned away. There is also a grace window if you change your mind straight after paying. The full detail is on our terms page.
Your reliability, shown fairly
An artist’s profile now shows how dependable they have been: how many bookings they have completed and how many they cancelled, over a sensible recent window. It sits beside their reviews, and you can switch between the two in a tap. Crucially it is fair. A cancellation that was not the artist’s fault, a venue pulling the date or a genuine emergency, is reviewed and does not dent your record. Reputation on GigXchange should reflect how you actually behave, not how unlucky you have been.
Vote for the venues you want here
Find Venues now shows the grassroots venues that are not on GigXchange yet, right alongside the members, and you can vote for the ones you would like to see join. The most-wanted appear in a “Wanted on GigXchange” shortlist at the bottom of the page, so the rooms your scene actually cares about rise to the top and we know where to go knocking. If one of them is your venue, there is a “Your venue?” link on the card that takes you straight to claiming it.
Booking an act when you are not in the trade
If you joined to book live music rather than to be booked, the app now works properly around you. You get your own notifications screen, so when an act accepts your offer you can actually read it and act on it. There is a short guided tour when you arrive, pointing at your navigation rather than a performer’s. The exact amount you will pay is shown underneath the fee box before you propose it, not sprung on you at the payment screen. And your Payments tab now shows your bookings and what you have spent.
Opening times, regular nights and house rules
Venues can now set their opening times for each day of the week, and they show on your public page and on your card in the directory, so anyone deciding whether to get in touch can see when you are actually open. Your Regular Nights and your House Rules have also become two separate cards you can edit one at a time, with each night’s day, start time, name and genre laid out clearly instead of crammed together.
A quicker, more honest dashboard
Your dashboard now paints straight away when you come back to it instead of sitting on a blank screen, the activity feed refreshes itself as things happen, and your month ahead shows as an availability strip you can read at a glance. Open mics and rate benchmarks are picked for your city where we have them, and only labelled “near you” when they genuinely are. And if something cannot load, the figure shows as a dash with a quiet note, never a zero or an empty state that would read as bad news about your account.
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.
Also shipped in v0.3.6
- Pay for a booking through GigXchange — the money is held safely until the gig is done, then released to the act shortly after the night
- Clear cancellation terms, applied automatically — cancel well ahead and you’re refunded in full, cancel closer to the date and the deposit is split, cancel very late and it stays with the act; the full detail is on our terms page
- A grace window if you change your mind — cancel within a day of paying, with the gig still a good way off, and you get everything back
- A booking that never gets signed by both sides doesn’t sit in limbo — it expires and the money comes back to you automatically
- Honest Stripe setup states — if your payout details are still being checked you’re told exactly that, instead of being shown a half-finished setup screen, and it re-checks itself every time you open settings
- When you cancel a booking you’re asked why, in a few taps, so the reason is on the record for both sides
- Artists can see and review the promoter on a promoter booking, which previously showed the wrong side of the deal
- Bookings with someone who isn’t on GigXchange are settled between you directly, and the app no longer implies otherwise
- Claiming your venue now works from wherever you start — tap claim on the public directory and the venue you picked is remembered right through signing up, with your setup pre-filled from the listing
- Your claim lands on a status screen that tells you where it’s up to, and if you sign up as the wrong account type you get a plain-English explanation rather than a refusal
- Booking notifications rebuilt — every stage of a booking now notifies both sides consistently, and tapping one takes you straight to that booking rather than the list
- Accepting an offer in chat locks in the fee that was actually agreed, and older offer cards in the thread retire themselves so you can’t act on a stale one by mistake
- Big video uploads now resume where they left off instead of failing on a wobbly connection, and deleting a video no longer leaves the file behind
- Your weekly availability pattern can never be wiped by a save that fails halfway
- Social links now show on public profiles for every account type, and agents can add Instagram alongside Facebook and LinkedIn
- Pages no longer disappear behind a pop-up — open a share or booking modal part-way down a long page and the page stays put behind it
- Tapping play on an artist’s card in Explore now counts as a real listen for them, the same as playing a track on their profile
- Your follower and connection counts show the true total, not a capped one
- Profile edits save what’s on screen when you press save, even if you were still typing
- The welcome message can no longer reappear by refreshing during your first sign-in
- Venue public profiles now link straight to the venue’s What’s On page, so anyone who finds you can jump from who you are to what’s coming up
- Every link in Your Links comes with its own scannable QR code, framed and ready to show or share
- Pages you have not made public yet appear in Your Links with a one-tap route to the tool that publishes them, so it doubles as a checklist for building your presence
- A shareable public link for Gig Rescue — when a date needs filling, share a link into your own WhatsApp groups and socials so any musician can apply in a minute, no account needed
- A live status view in Gig Rescue — see who you invited, who has seen it, who is in and who has passed, so you always know where things stand after you put the word out
- A nudge when a rescue goes quiet — if nobody has said yes, widen the search or raise the fee in a tap to reach more acts
- Book a rescue applicant in one tap — when the right musician applies, take them straight into a booking with the date and details already filled in, ready to send
- Your referral link and code now live on your account page, ready to copy and share in a tap
- Auto-drafted invoices handle deposits properly — if part of the fee was already paid up front, the draft bills the remaining balance, not the full amount
- A switch in invoice settings turns auto-drafts off if you’d rather raise every invoice yourself
- The app now lets us know the moment something goes wrong, so we can find and fix problems quickly, often before you’d notice anything at all
- You’re told the moment a page claim or a new venue page is approved, straight in your notifications, with a link back to your Venue Pages screen
- Creating a venue page starts pre-filled from your GigXchange profile, so most venues only need to add a line or two before publishing
- A polish pass for the music player on artist profiles — the bars beside the playing track now pulse only while it’s actually playing, and a long track name glides gently across so you can always read it in full on a narrow screen
- Explore cards now show each member’s role under their name, colour-coded (artists ice, venues violet, agents pink, promoters teal), so mixed results are easier to scan at a glance
- Artists who haven’t uploaded music yet show a quiet, greyed-out play button on their card — a gentle nudge that adding a track makes your card stand out
Known issues
- Moving a confirmed booking to a different date is handled by our team for now. Get in touch and we’ll sort it. Proposing and accepting a new date yourself, inside the app, is a follow-up build.
- Opening times show as dashes on venue pages where we don’t have the hours yet. They fill in as venues claim their page and as we keep checking listings.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.5) 4 July 2026
v0.3.5 is the release that opens GigXchange to everyone. Until now it was a marketplace for the trade; now anyone can book live music, from a couple planning a wedding to a company booking a staff party. You can find an act, book them, pay securely, and review them afterwards, all in one place. Alongside that, your dashboard gains a notifications bell, bookings and payments are steadier, and there is a wave of polish across the app.
In this release
Anyone can now book a band: GigXchange is open to the public and to businesses • Find, book, pay securely, and review, all in one place • Put your live availability on your own website with a copy-paste widget • A new map view in Explore to find acts and venues near you • Open mics now appear alongside gigs in Explore • A new stage plot builder for artists to map their setup for the venue • A new notifications bell on your dashboard • A new Payments Insights view to see where your money goes • Bring your reviews from elsewhere onto your profile • Hand-pick a “Recommended by” shortlist of acts you vouch for on your public profile • New venue tools for licensing and compliance • Turn your venue calendar into a shareable events poster in one tap • Flyers that fill themselves in from your bookings and events • Run more than one venue from one account • Gig Rescue to re-fill a date when an act drops out • Steadier bookings and payments • Smart Match now visible for agents • A wave of light-mode, tooltip and modal polish
Open-to-everyone release • shipped 4 July 2026
Anyone can book a band now
GigXchange is now open to everyone, not just the music trade. Whether you are a private individual planning a wedding, birthday or party, or a business booking a corporate function, you can create a free account, browse and compare real UK acts, hear their music, and book the right one for your date.
Now on the Apple App Store
GigXchange is a free download on the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, alongside Google Play for Android. It is the same app with one account, so you can find, book and manage live music on whatever you carry, or open it in any browser and add it to your home screen.
Book and pay, all in one place
Once you and the act agree the details, you can pay securely through Stripe and your money is held safely until the gig is done, then released to the performer. If plans change and you cancel in time, you are refunded. No bank transfers to strangers, no chasing.
Reviews, both ways
After a completed booking, both sides can leave each other a review. Reputation is built on real, finished events, so the next person booking an act can see how previous gigs actually went.
A notifications bell on your dashboard
Your dashboard now has a notifications bell with your latest activity at a glance: new messages, booking updates, reviews and more, in a tidy collapsible list with a one-tap way to see everything.
Steadier bookings and payments
We have kept hardening the everyday flow behind the scenes. If two people act on the same booking at the same moment, you get a clear, friendly heads-up instead of a confusing glitch, and a payment confirmation can never be counted twice. You will not see the plumbing; you will feel a more dependable app.
Smart Match, now in view for agents
Smart Match now appears on the agent dashboard too, marked as coming soon, so it is clear it is on the way. Full agent matching, built around how agents actually work across a roster, lands in a future release.
Your availability, on your own website
Put your live GigXchange availability on your own site. Pick a calendar or a compact strip, dark or light, then copy one small snippet into your website editor. Visitors see exactly which dates you have free, it stays up to date by itself, and anyone who wants a date can click straight through to book you.
Find acts and venues on a map
Explore now has a map view. Tap the map icon to see artists and venues across the UK, click a city to see who is there, switch between pins and a heatmap, and jump straight to a profile or a filtered list. A faster way to find who is near you.
See where your money goes
Payments has a new Insights view that turns your bookings into a clear picture: how much you have spent or earned over a period, how that is trending, who you book most often, and your busiest months of the year. Pick a period and every chart updates, so you get answers without a spreadsheet in sight. The wording adapts to your role, so payers see “spent” and performers see “earned”.
Bring your reputation with you
Already have great reviews somewhere else? You can now add reviews from past clients onto your profile. Add a link to the original, or enter the client’s email and they can confirm it with one click, which earns the review a Verified badge. Either way, the reputation you built elsewhere counts here too, and you stay in control to edit or remove a review whenever you like.
Recommend the acts you rate
Booked out for the date? Hand-pick up to ten acts you’d vouch for, fellow GigXchange members or acts that are not here yet, and your public profile shows them as a “Recommended by” shortlist with your name on it. Anyone who finds you unavailable gets a trusted next step instead of a dead end, the way musicians have always passed work to friends. Your picks are yours to change or remove any time.
Open mics, right inside Explore
Looking for stage time? Open mic nights now sit alongside gigs in Explore, with a quick filter to show just open mics. Each one has its own page: the night it runs, where it is and how to get in touch, the backline and PA the room provides, a map, and a way to flag anything that has changed. A simple way to find your next spot to play.
Licensing and compliance, made simple
Two venue tools take the guesswork out of putting on live music properly. The Licensing Checker asks a few questions about your venue and music and tells you which licences you are likely to need, with the right rules for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, a rough idea of the cost, and links to the official sources. The Compliance Checklist is tailored to your venue and prioritised so the important things come first, now covering newer duties like Martyn’s Law, and you can download the whole thing as a clean, branded PDF. Both open from the venue Tools launcher on your dashboard.
Gig Rescue: fill a gap fast
Lost your act at short notice, or suddenly need to fill a date? Re-open the slot and reach suitable performers near you in a few taps, then take the replies and book a replacement, without starting from scratch.
Build your stage plot in minutes
Show every venue exactly how you set up. Drag your instruments, mics, monitors, amps and DI boxes onto a clear stage map, and note the power you need where. Keep up to four different plots, say a full band, an acoustic duo and a solo set, name each one, and switch between them in a tap. Tidy the layout with rotate, resize and grid snapping, then download it to send to the venue or sound engineer ahead of the show, so load-in runs smoothly.
Run more than one venue
If you look after several venues, you can now manage them all from one account. Switch between them in a tap, and invite your team, assigning each person to the sites they look after, so the right people can manage the right rooms.
Your month, on one poster
Venues can turn their calendar into a shareable events poster in one tap. It arrives pre-filled with your upcoming programme, the acts you have booked and the events you have listed together, each night exactly once and automatically sized so every date fits. Refresh it in moments when your line-up changes, publish it to your public profile, and share it wherever your audience is.
Flyers that fill themselves in
Making a flyer no longer starts from a blank page. From any confirmed booking, any of your events, or straight from the venue calendar, pick a style and size with live previews of each look, and you land in the flyer studio with the night already on the page: title, act, venue, date and doors time, with a great background photo chosen for you if your night does not have one. Flyers made from an event even carry a QR code that scans straight to the event’s page, so a poster on a wall becomes a way in.
Also shipped in v0.3.5
- Anyone can book a band — GigXchange is now open to the public and to businesses, not just the trade. Create a free account to find, compare and book live music for any event
- On the Apple App Store now — GigXchange is a free download for iPhone and iPad, alongside Google Play for Android, the same app and one account on every device, or install it straight from any browser
- One signup, two paths — tell us whether you provide live music or want to book an act, and you are taken to the right setup; book-an-act accounts can register as an individual or a company, with an optional VAT number
- Sign in with Google or Microsoft when you join, on the web and the Android app
- A quick guided setup for people booking live music, plus a simple “My Details” mini-profile, so you only fill in what is relevant to you
- Book an act directly, agree the details, then pay securely through Stripe with your money held safely until the gig is complete
- Cancel in time and you are refunded automatically, with clear terms throughout
- Leave a review after a completed booking, and read the reviews others have left, so reputation is built on real, finished events
- People booking live music stay private — they are kept out of the public directory, browse pages, city counts, featured rails and the activity feed, because they are here to book, not to be booked
- A new notifications bell on your dashboard with your latest activity at a glance, a tidy collapsible list, and a one-tap way to see everything
- Embed your availability on your own website — choose calendar or compact strip, dark or light, preview it live, then copy one snippet into your site editor; your free dates stay current automatically and visitors can click through to book you
- More dependable bookings — acting on a booking is protected against two people changing it at the same moment, with a friendly message if it happens, so a booking can never end up in a confused state
- More dependable payments — a payment confirmation can never be counted twice, even if the same confirmation arrives more than once
- A new Insights view in Payments — see how much you have spent or earned over a period, how it is trending, who you book most, and your busiest months, with animated charts and a one-tap period switch
- Supporters can now tip an artist or member straight from their profile — a quick, secure way to say thanks for a great set, with Apple Pay and Google Pay supported
- Import reviews from past clients onto your profile: add a link to the original, or have the client confirm it by email to earn a Client Verified badge, shown alongside the GX Verified badge for reviews from completed bookings, with full control to edit or remove it, so your reputation follows you wherever you built it
- Recommend your friends — pick up to ten acts you’d vouch for from your profile page, including acts not on GigXchange yet, and your public profile shows a “Recommended by” shortlist in place of the usual similar-acts row, so bookers who catch you unavailable still leave with somewhere trusted to go
- Venues get a quick Tools launcher from the dashboard — one tap to the tools they use most, from the public profile and EPK to flyers, event posters and invoices
- Run more than one venue from a single account — switch between your venues in a tap, and invite your team, with each member assigned to the sites they manage
- Turn your calendar into an events poster — one tap on the Events Calendar creates a fresh poster of your upcoming programme, pre-filled with your dates and automatically sized so they all fit
- Your poster shows your whole programme — nights booked through GigXchange and events you have listed yourself appear together, each night exactly once, in date order
- Keep the poster on your public profile current — refresh your dates and republish in moments, with a “last refreshed” stamp so you can see it is up to date at a glance
- Tidier poster management — create new posters and delete old ones, with a clear confirmation before anything is removed
- Plan your month from the calendar — quick actions to post a gig, post an event, create your events poster or make a flyer, right where you can see the gaps
- Create a flyer from any confirmed booking or event — one tap opens the flyer studio with the night’s details already filled in: title, act, venue, date and doors time
- Pick your flyer’s look before you start — choose a style and size with live examples of each, then land straight in the editor, no blank page
- Make a flyer from the calendar too — pick any upcoming night, up to a year ahead, and turn it into a flyer in a few taps
- Flyers made from an event carry a QR code that scans straight to the event’s public page — a printed flyer becomes a doorway to tickets and details
- Prefilled flyers always start looking good — if your night has no cover image, a background photo from the library is picked for you, and you can swap it any time
- Events and Payments are now one tap away from your account page on mobile
- Venues now find their Events Calendar right in the dashboard menu
- Filter chips on Events and Bookings now match, and glide smoothly as you tap through them on mobile
- A new Licensing Checker for venues — answer a few questions about your venue and music and it tells you which licences you are likely to need, with the right rules for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, a rough idea of what each will cost, and links to the official sources
- A new Compliance Checklist for venues — now tailored to your venue and prioritised so the important things come first, covering newer duties like Martyn’s Law, downloadable as a clean, branded PDF, with each step linked to the official gov.uk and industry guidance
- Gig Rescue for venues and bookers — if an act drops out or a date suddenly needs filling, re-open the slot and reach suitable performers near you in a few taps, then book a replacement without starting over
- Tapping a notification now takes you straight to the right screen, and if you need to sign in first you land back where you were headed
- A smoother first run for new members — you go straight into guided setup, with no flash of the wrong screen on the way in
- Open mic nights now appear alongside gigs in Explore, with a filter to show just open mics and a full detail page for each — the night it runs, location and contact, the backline and PA provided, a map, and a one-tap way to flag a change
- Leave a review for any booking, not just gigs, so every completed event can build your reputation
- A refreshed Explore hub — a clearer Browse band that points to every way to discover artists, venues and gigs, with a tidier Standout carousel
- Smart Match now shows on the agent dashboard as “coming soon”, with a clear tooltip, so agents know it is on the way
- Report or block a member straight from their profile — a quick flag icon keeps the community safe and respectful, and our team sees anything that needs looking at
- Invite people you know onto GigXchange — suggest artists, agents and promoters from your contacts in a few taps, so the acts you rate are easier to find here
- A smoother switch between light and dark, with the whole page cross-fading gently instead of flickering
- Consistent, frosted tooltips that never flash on touch screens, plus tidier modals and notification cards
- iPhone photos taken in Apple’s HEIC format now upload correctly as your avatar
- Editing your genres no longer risks wiping them — changes are saved safely
- Clearer number entry across onboarding and profile editing, with sensible limits and no more numeric-input hiccups
- Create Event and Create Booking now use the same polished image picker as the rest of the app
- A round of small fixes and consistency polish — the My Bookings earnings icon, search-filter heights, the What’s New profile link, and more
- A stage plot builder for artists — lay out your instruments, mics, monitors and power needs on a visual stage map, keep up to four named plots for different line-ups such as full band, duo or solo, tidy it with rotate, resize and grid snapping, and download it to send to the venue or engineer before the show
- More mobile polish — fee and budget filters step in sensible amounts, booking cards no longer clip as they lift, the filter dropdowns always open in view, and embedded videos reliably show a tappable preview on iPhone
- A leaner, faster foundation behind the scenes — we merged duplicate building blocks and removed unused code, so the app stays quick and easy to build on as it grows
Known issues
- EPK Builder mobile editing — continuing improvements; full mobile-optimised editing is still in progress.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.4) 19 June 2026
v0.3.4’s headline is the big one: GigXchange Mainstage is now live on Google Play. The native Android app wraps the same experience you already use on the web (same account, same data, same features) in an installable native shell. Alongside the launch, v0.3.4 is a consolidation-focused release: an on-brand tooltip pass across every remaining screen, a ticket-orders desktop-layout fix, a new technical rider for venues, and a deep under-the-hood hardening pass.
In this release
Favourites — your shortlist of the people and places you rate, with availability at a glance • Invite the venues you want to see on the platform • The new Verified badge — see who’s a real, active member at a glance • Venues can publish a full tech rider on their profile, so artists know what a room provides before they book • A rebuilt Payments overview that shows your earnings, held funds and trend at a glance • My Reviews and My Roster as full, fast pages • Availability now lives under your Profile, with a shareable QR • Now on Google Play — the native Android app is live • Sign in with Google or Microsoft (web + Android) • On-brand tooltips across every remaining screen • A personal hello from the founder, right on your dashboard • A friendlier first run, with example cards in empty sections • See who’s recently active on the platform • A new events calendar for venues, your upcoming events on a month view at a glance • A polished light mode, fully redesigned across the whole app • A steadier foundation, so we catch and fix issues fast
Android launch + consolidation release • shipped 19 June 2026
Your shortlist, at a glance
Favourites is your own shortlist: the artists, venues, agents and promoters you want to keep an eye on, all in one place. Search and add anyone, and everyone you already follow is there automatically. Each one shows their availability for the weeks ahead, so you can see who’s free to book without opening a single profile.
Help shape the platform
A marketplace like this only works when the venues you love are on it, so now you can invite them. If there’s a pub, bar or stage you’d like to see on GigXchange, tell us and we’ll reach out on your behalf, and it’s free for them to join. This is your platform as much as ours, and we’re building it together, with rewards on the way for the members who help us grow.
The Verified badge
Profiles now carry a Verified badge: a clean tick that tells you who’s a real, active member before you reach out. You’ll see it across member profiles and the Explore pages, so there’s less second-guessing before you send a message or a booking request. As the community grows, it keeps GigXchange feeling trustworthy and human.
Venue tech riders
Venues can now publish a full technical rider on their profile: PA and mixing desk, stage size, monitors, mics, backline, power, and house sound limits. It sits in its own section with a quick summary at the top, so an artist or band can see what a room provides before they get in touch and know what to bring on the night.
Now on Google Play
GigXchange Mainstage is live on the Google Play Store as a native Android app. It wraps the same experience you use on the web (same account, same data, same features) in an installable native shell, with a branded app icon, a brand-dark launch splash, and proper edge-to-edge handling so the app sits correctly around the phone’s status and gesture bars. Search “GigXchange” on Google Play to install.
A polished light mode
Prefer a brighter look? Light mode has had a full redesign across the entire app, so cards, menus, date and time pickers, modals, payments, profiles and Explore all share one clean, consistent, easy-to-read finish. Switch between dark and light whenever you like, and everything stays on-brand and legible whichever you choose.
Sign in with Google or Microsoft
You can now sign in with your Google or Microsoft account instead of an email and password, on the website and in the native Android app. On Android it opens your system browser and hands you straight back to the app when you’re done, so it feels native. One tap, no new password to remember, and it links to the same GigXchange account either way.
Consistent Tooltips Everywhere
The on-brand tooltip introduced in v0.3.3 now reaches every remaining corner of the app (the EPK builder, ticket orders, payments, invoices, Member Spotlight, setlists, the Tour Poster, footer social links, and the profile Share button), replacing the last default browser tooltips. One consistent style, and it never flashes on touch screens.
Orders on Desktop
Your ticket-orders table now fits its card on desktop, so long email and title cells wrap cleanly instead of forcing a horizontal scrollbar.
Your money, clearer at a glance
The Payments overview is rebuilt into a clear earnings dashboard: a headline band with count-up totals and a month-on-month change, an earnings trend, and rings that show what’s held securely versus released to you, plus a simple breakdown of where your money sits right now. The wording adapts to your role too, so venues, promoters and agents see language that fits how they pay rather than how they get paid.
My Reviews & My Roster, done properly
My Reviews and My Roster are now full, fast pages with the rest of the app’s polish: reviews read cleanly with brand-styled stars, and agents get a clear one-tap Invite Artist action to build out their roster.
More dependable, sorted faster
Every action in the app now runs on one consistent, hardened foundation with error-watching built in. In plain terms: the app behaves more predictably, and if something ever does trip up, we’re alerted and can fix it quickly, often before you’d need to tell us. It also lets us ship improvements faster, and more safely, as more people join.
A hello from the founder
There’s now a personal note from our founder right on your dashboard: why GigXchange exists, what you can expect from us, and how to reach him directly. He reads every message himself, good or bad.
A friendlier first run
When a section is still filling up (your gigs, your bookings, your matches), you’ll now see example cards that preview what it’ll look like once things get going, with a clear, human note rather than a blank space. A brand-new account feels alive from day one.
See the community moving
Your dashboard now surfaces members who’ve recently been active on GigXchange, so you can feel the platform’s momentum and find new people to connect with.
Also shipped in v0.3.4
- Favourites — save the artists, venues, agents and promoters you rate into one shortlist, with their availability shown at a glance so you can spot who’s free to book; everyone you follow is added automatically
- Invite a venue — suggest the pubs, bars and stages you’d love to see on GigXchange and we’ll reach out on your behalf; free for them to join, and a way for members to help shape who’s on the platform
- The Verified badge — member profiles now show a tick once a member has confirmed their account, so you can see at a glance who’s a real, active member across profiles and Explore
- Venue tech riders — venues can publish a full technical rider on their profile (PA and desk, stage size, monitors, mics, backline, power, and house sound limits), shown as a dedicated section with a quick summary, so artists know exactly what a room provides before they enquire
- Sharper discovery on Explore — the standout row now leads with the most complete profiles, and empty placeholder cards no longer clutter the carousels
- Android app published to the Google Play Store — a native shell around the live app, with a branded icon and launch splash, and edge-to-edge insets so the bottom nav clears the phone’s gesture bar on modern Android
- Sign in with Google or Microsoft — on the web and in the native Android app, verified end-to-end on a real device for both providers
- Dashboard “Following” and “Followers” counts now show your true total instead of stopping at 200. They were counting a display-capped list rather than asking the database for the real number
- Every remaining native browser tooltip across the app converted to the on-brand custom tooltip (EPK builder, ticket orders, payments, bookings, invoices, Member Spotlight, setlists, Tour Poster, footer socials, profile Share)
- Ticket-orders table fits its card on desktop — long email / title cells wrap instead of forcing a horizontal scrollbar
- Payments overview rebuilt — a headline earnings band with count-up totals and a month-on-month change, an earnings trend, held-funds rings (held versus released), and a clear breakdown of where your money sits, with the Transactions and Payouts views redesigned to match
- Payments now speak your language — venues, promoters and agents see role-correct wording about how they pay, rather than “getting paid”, and the other party on every transaction is now named correctly whichever role you are
- My Reviews and My Roster are now full, fast pages in keeping with the rest of the app — reviews use brand-styled stars, and agents get a one-tap Invite Artist action
- Availability moved under your Profile (it used to sit under Bookings) and redesigned as a tidy card grid with a shareable profile QR code. Old links redirect automatically so nothing breaks
- Booking offers are back to the full two-step form, with clearer at-a-glance validation when something needs your attention
- Contact an event’s organiser in one tap — event pages now have a Contact Organiser button right on the organiser card, so you can ask about a lineup or booking without hunting for their details
- Events calendar for venues — a month-view calendar of your upcoming events, so you can see what’s on, spot free dates, and plan your lineup at a glance
- A polished light mode — a full redesign of the light theme across the entire app (cards, menus, date and time pickers, modals, payments, profiles and Explore), so it stays clean, consistent and easy to read, and you can switch between dark and light any time
- We’ve started keeping a much closer eye on the moments that matter most (signing up, logging in, and setting up your profile), so if anything ever trips you up, we can spot it and put it right quickly, often before you’d think to report it. You won’t see this directly; you’ll feel it as a smoother, more dependable app that keeps getting better
- The dashboard activity feed looks tidier — every track listen now shows a proper avatar
- Cleaner search across the Explore pages — the search box now finds artists, venues, agents and promoters by name, with genre, city, type and the rest each in their own filter, so it’s clear where to type what and you get the matches you expect
- Significant under-the-hood consolidation — a deep pass to simplify and harden the app’s foundations (including removing a redundant client-side write the database now handles on its own). Your actions are more dependable too: if something doesn’t go through, the app now recovers cleanly instead of leaving a button looking like it worked. Nothing you tap changes, but it makes the app more stable and lets us ship new features and fixes faster, and more safely, as the platform grows
- A personal welcome note from the founder, opened from your dashboard: why GigXchange exists, what to expect, and a direct line to reach him
- Friendlier empty states across the dashboard and Gigs & Events — example cards preview what a section will hold, with a helpful note rather than blank space, so it’s always clear what’s coming
- Recently Active — your dashboard now shows members who’ve been on the platform lately, so it’s easier to discover people to connect with
- Smoother pop-ups — longer panels scroll cleanly with softly faded edges, and menus sit tidily on smaller desktop widths
- A full-screen profile preview — the “View As” preview now fills the whole screen and scales cleanly from desktop down to mobile, so you can see exactly how your public profile looks to everyone else, on any device
- A tidier profile header on smaller screens — the status badges on your profile collapse to compact icons on narrower windows, so they never crowd or overlap your name
- Small visual-consistency polish across the dashboard and insights screens
Known issues
- EPK Builder mobile editing — continuing improvements; full mobile-optimised editing is still in progress.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.3) 10 June 2026
v0.3.3 is the “Safety, Content & Polish” release. It adds a user-report and block system; rebuilds the Member Spotlight submission wizard with role-specific question flows, a Quickfire round, and drag-and-drop photo upload; introduces Smart Match for every role, a guided flow that surfaces the right people to approach and lets you invite your shortlist in one go; rolls out in-app guidance with an info explainer and a consistent back button on every page; fixes the gig-posting flow; ships the Fans composer with a searchable fan-select modal; completes the blog aside-cluster rollout across all 89 migrated posts; and refines the Free Tools hero, desktop scroll model, and blog filter chips.
In this release
Report & block users • Smart Match for every role • In-app guidance — info + back on every page • Member Spotlight wizard overhaul (role flows, Quickfire, drag-and-drop photos) • Fans composer with searchable fan-select • Self-serve account-deletion flow • Profile links in chat • Gig posting fix • Mobile fix pass • Android build hardening
Safety + polish release • shipped 10 June 2026
Report & Block
Members can report a profile or block a user directly from the conversation header. A dedicated safety modal guides the flow with report categories and an optional note. Blocked users cannot message you and are hidden from your listings, enforced for real, not just in the interface.
Member Spotlight Wizard
The spotlight submission flow rebuilt, with role-specific question sets (artist / venue / agent / promoter) with two angles per section, a tongue-in-cheek Quickfire round drawing a random six from a 60-question bank, and a four-photo minimum with animated progress and drag-and-drop upload. An in-app explainer shows how your public profile, EPK and spotlight form a three-way discovery engine, and every published spotlight ships with a press-kit PDF and social sharing cards.
Smart Match — for Everyone
Smart Match now works across the board, not just for venues. Tell it what you’re looking for and it surfaces the right people to approach (venues and promoters find acts, artists find places to play), then you invite your shortlist together in one guided step. It’s now the heart of your For You page.
In-App Guidance & Back Navigation
Every page now explains itself: tap the info icon for a plain-English rundown of what it does and how to get the most from it. And a consistent back button across the app means stepping back is always one obvious tap. Less guesswork, more doing.
Fans Composer
A searchable fan-select modal (Song Bank style) with a sortable table, hero stats, and select-all lets you target specific fans when sending flyers, tour posters, or Compose Update newsletters. Mobile flex-fill polish throughout.
Gig Posting Reliability
Fixed a crash in the gig-posting flow caused by a missing owner column, a genre-sync error, and an artist-guard regression. All three fixed in a single targeted pass.
Light-Mode Modal Borders
Gradient borders on modals, drawers, and cards now render at full opacity in light mode (were incorrectly rendering at ~30% and looked faint against the white background).
Desktop Scroll Model
Smoother, more consistent scrolling on desktop, with no reserved scrollbar gutter and no lost scroll position when you move between pages.
Account Deletion Flow
An email-confirmed delete-account flow, so members can delete their data with a 28-day grace period, in line with GDPR and Google Play requirements.
Profile Links in Chat
A conversation’s avatar and the “View Profile” action now link straight through to the other member’s public profile.
Also shipped in v0.3.3
- Saved flyers now keep their finished image, so they surface correctly in the Fans Compose Update composer
- ShareModal and ComingSoonModal migrated to the shared Modal component
- Profile hero layout reflows correctly via container query on narrow cards
- App topbar profile selector compact on narrow-desktop widths (769–1200px)
- Public EPK cells sweep into visibility (fade, not slide)
- Public profile asides use natural height so they no longer spill over the carousel
- 5 stray <hr> dividers and 4 inline author signoffs removed from blog post bodies
- 3 migrated blog posts wired into the registry (were still linking to production)
- Setup-wizard avatar upload repaired (mirrors in-app path; crop modal removed)
- Setlist Builder Delete/Publish buttons flex-fill on mobile (were overflowing)
- Extra bottom safe-space on mobile browser so content never hides behind the address bar
- 1px breathing room inside bottom-nav SVG buttons on mobile
- Venue cards restored with scroll-reveal slide on hub + city pages
- Rate calculator URL sync preserves SvelteKit history index (back/forward now works correctly)
- Prerender 404s from
/rates/surveymarketing links suppressed - Full-page scroll restored on bare/public pages (EPK, public profile, event)
- GxToggle press-squish no longer pokes right when turning off
- CustomNumberInput accepts a configurable
stepprop (default 1) - Chat avatar + “View Profile” now link through to the other member’s public profile
- Booking card gradient border no longer clipped on the top row on mobile
- Tour Poster mobile pass — page header restored, drawer visibility, add-date from the box, border-clip fix, “Style & Appearance” rename, and handle spacing
- Media Library category pills now lay out 4 per row
- Setlist name chips truncate cleanly and Song Bank add/import buttons flex-fill on mobile
- Mobile tile taps no longer stick mid-scroll (genuine-tap detection via a use:tap action)
- Modal close button sized down on mobile
- Blocked-user avatars use the standard rounded-square shape
- Android build hardening — edge-to-edge insets for the bottom nav, release signing, a versionCode 6 AAB rebuild, and the Play Store feature graphic
- Tour Poster reliably stays published — the Schedule tab reads the server-loaded poster URL, and the debounced autosave no longer overwrites the published copy (only Publish does), so it stops silently unpublishing
- Tour Poster dates auto-order chronologically with undated rows sent to the bottom; a per-size cap (Square 7 / Tall 10 / Story 15) disables “Add date” at 15 with an ice-blue hint to size up
- Date picker opens in a top layer so the calendar never clips inside scrolling lists, with balanced width and a stacked month/year header (no layout shift when paging months)
- Flyer generator modals open in front of the page instead of behind it; the gradient frame now hugs each flyer size on mobile
- Brand “X” dimmed to match muted wordmark text (open-alpha status line, flyer & poster watermarks) so it no longer pops
- Unread message count now clears the instant you open a conversation (authoritative recount on read) instead of waiting for a refresh, and also marks read messages that arrive while you’re viewing the thread
- New mobile unread-message dot on the bottom-tab Messages icon (previously only the desktop topbar showed a count), kept in sync via a shared store, with a light-mode sky variant tuned for the white bar
- Topbar unread badge reworked — absolutely positioned so the count never shifts the nav or misaligns the sliding underline, and it no longer blurs during the page-change text-sweep
- Booking-offer Accept / Amend / Decline actions and the “Load older messages” button restyled (were rendering as bare browser-default buttons); the offer actions now flex-fill the card evenly
- Post a Gig opens for every role instead of redirecting non-posting roles straight back to My Gigs (posting permissions are still enforced securely behind the scenes)
- Mobile app subnav auto-scroll fixed — the active tab settles into the correct slot when paging forward and back, instead of jumping the wrong way or sticking
- Member Spotlight submission wizard overhaul — role-specific question flows (artist / venue / agent / promoter) with two angles per section for richer raw material, a tongue-in-cheek Quickfire round drawing a random six from a 60-question bank, a four-photo minimum with animated left-to-right progress and drag-and-drop upload, a flex-filled role picker, an Explore-style carousel of published spotlights so you can see the finished result, and a submit flow that resets the form behind the confirmation so it’s clear your story went through
- Info explainers and a consistent back button rolled out across the app, so every page tells you what it does and how to step back
- Other members’ profiles now carry a personalised “About” explainer and the same consistent back button
- A single, on-brand tooltip style across the whole app, tuned so it never flashes on touch screens
- The reaction picker now sits exactly where it should — sized to its buttons, kept clear of the composer on the last message, and it closes when you tap away
- Conversations open right at your most recent message
- Your profile completeness meter always reflects your real progress (no longer stuck at zero)
Known issues
- EPK Builder mobile editing — continuing improvements; full mobile-optimised editing is a v0.3.4 target.
- Cross-worker scroll position — navigating between the app and public site cross-fades smoothly but doesn’t preserve scroll position yet.
- Public profile reviews & booking history — verified booking count and review scores are coming in a future release.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.2) 6 June 2026
v0.3.2 is the “Creator Tools, EPK & App-Store-Ready” release. It gives artists a full electronic press kit and gig-ready promo generators (flyers, tour posters, setlist posters), an AI-readable public profile page, and a new public Gig Pay Survey; layers premium polish across the app (a gradual hover-zoom on every card, avatar crop & zoom, smoother media uploads, and a reworked “What’s New” ticker), fixes the Creator-Tools EPK embeds; and adds a self-serve, GDPR-compliant account-deletion flow ahead of the Android / Google Play launch.
In this release
Premium hover-zoom on every card • Avatar crop & zoom • Smoother media uploads + drag-to-reorder • What's New ticker rewrite • Self-serve account deletion (GDPR) • EPK embed fixes • Invoice light/dark preview • Unified gig cards • Android / Play readiness
Refinement + Creator Tools release • shipped 6 June 2026
Premium Hover-Zoom
A gradual, GPU-smooth photo zoom on every card (profiles, gigs, bookings, events, featured media, and the dashboard carousels), with reduced-motion support.
Profile Media Polish
Optimistic photo uploads with instant preview, drag-to-reorder Featured Media, a reliability fix for avatar uploads, and upload success animations.
Avatar Crop & Zoom
Setting a profile photo now opens a crop tool: drag, zoom, and choose to fill the avatar or fit the whole photo with clean black bars instead of cut-off edges. Wide band shots keep their full width, and large photos are compressed automatically on upload.
What's New Ticker
Rewritten as a single battery-friendly animation loop with drag/flick scrubbing, a “New” pill on fresh items, and a smoother iOS wrap.
Account Deletion
Self-serve account deletion with a 28-day grace period (signing back in cancels it), full storage purge, and GDPR data-minimisation, required for the Play launch.
EPK Embed Fixes
Spotify / SoundCloud / Bandcamp widgets now keep an editable URL field and only preview once the link is valid; the builder grid no longer reflows when an embed is added.
Promo Kit “See Example”
Deep-links from the Spotlight and EPK tiles to a live Member Spotlight and a real public EPK, so you can see the finished result before you build.
Invoice Polish
The invoice example now previews in both light and dark themes, and the saved-invoice actions row is cleanly laid out.
Unified Gig Cards
My Gigs now uses the same polished card and 5-up grid as the Explore gig listings, with status badges and quick actions.
Realtime Follow Sync
Follow / unfollow updates instantly across cards, profiles, and the dashboard with no refresh.
GX Index — More Rigorous Rate Model
The UK rate benchmark on /rates moves to a rebuilt, more rigorous model: every figure now carries a confidence range, and rates refresh regularly so they stay current. Debuting June.
Android / Play Readiness
Restored cross-fade page transitions after the native build, bottom-nav breathing room, a branded 404 page, and a privacy policy aligned with the Play Data Safety form.
Also shipped in v0.3.2
- Platform-wide backend hardening, so the app stays fast and secure, and scales smoothly as more people join
- Dashboard unread-message badge made faster and more accurate
- Invoices page loads roughly 3× faster
- Flyer save fix — re-saving a Story / Classic / Minimal flyer no longer overwrites your design with blanks
- Venue profile crash fixed — duplicate photo URLs no longer break the page
- Hard-refresh fix — My Gigs, events, bookings and payments no longer show an empty / skeleton state on a cold refresh
- Realtime follow / unfollow now syncs instantly across cards, profiles and the dashboard
- Venue editability — venues can edit regular nights, house rules, full address + their own map, and a new Getting Here & Access card (transport, parking, load-in, step-free, curfew)
- 9 new venue link types — YouTube, TikTok, X, Songkick, Resident Advisor, DICE, Skiddle, Eventbrite, Fatsoma
- Smoother motion — list grids glide cards into place on filter / sort instead of jumping, with reduced-motion support throughout
- Tour poster “keeps unpublishing” bug fixed — published schedules now stick
- Setlist Poster + Song Bank — square & story formats, multi-sheet smart import, and create-from-bank
- Hardened 2× native-resolution PNG export across every promo generator
- Toasts restyled — fuchsia errors, ice success, frosted-glass icons
Known issues
- EPK Builder mobile editing — the builder is fully functional on desktop; mobile-optimised editing improvements are continuing in v0.3.3.
- Cross-worker scroll position — navigating between the app and public site cross-fades smoothly but doesn’t preserve scroll position yet.
- Public profile reviews & booking history — public profiles show bio, media, genres and engagement badges; verified booking count and review scores are coming next.
- Unread badge counts — the topbar and dashboard unread counters use slightly different definitions and can disagree; a data pass will reconcile them.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What's next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.1) 30 May 2026
v0.3.1 adds creator tools, public profiles, and instant navigation to the Mainstage app. The headline features are the EPK Builder (a full electronic press kit with 16 widgets), a redesigned Flyer Generator with 5 templates, rebuilt Tour Posters, and public profile pages at /profiles/<slug> with engagement badges and scroll-reveal, so your profile shows up properly in search.
What shipped
EPK Builder • Flyer Generator (5 templates) • Tour Poster redesign • Public profiles at /profiles/ • Instant navigation • Promo Kit hub • Platform activity feed
149 new features • 302 fixes • shipped in 4 days
EPK Builder
16 drag-and-drop widgets, inline editing, magazine/stacked layouts, SoundCloud + Bandcamp embeds, waveform player, scroll-reveal animations. Public page at /profiles/<slug>.
Flyer Generator
5 templates (Bold, Neon, Classic, Story, Minimal) with inline editing, mobile bottom-sheet editor, EQ bar visuals, and PNG export.
Tour Poster Redesign
All 4 variants rebuilt. Side-by-side builder/preview, draggable QR + logo, inline editing, mobile card stack, html-to-image export.
Public Profiles
Artist pages at /profiles/<slug> with frosted glass CTA, engagement badges, share section, and scroll-reveal, so your profile shows up properly in search. Old profile URLs redirect automatically.
Instant Navigation
Near-instant cross-fade navigation between every part of the site, with pages prefetched on hover.
Promo Kit Hub
Central hub for flyers, tour posters, EPK, and member spotlight self-serve wizard. Example modals on Creator Tools.
Activity Feed
Platform activity feed rebuilt from real edit signals. Engagement events tracked and surfaced on the dashboard.
Song Bank
Master song library with multi-sheet import, fuzzy column matching, key/notes fields. Create setlists directly from the bank.
Error Handling
Tiered error handling across the app, so failures recover cleanly. Redesigned toasts: fuchsia errors, ice success, frosted glass icons.
Polish
4-state availability cycle, Leave a Review modal, media lightbox, venue map, onboarding tour, light mode throughout, image compression.
Also shipped in v0.3.1
- Tour poster cache-bust via blob fetch for reliable PNG downloads
- Tour poster entry numbering box matches row height on all screen sizes
- Mobile bottom sheet sits above nav bar on all pages
- Carousel 2-column layout on mobile viewports
- Flyer watermark matches canonical GigXchange wordmark
- EQ bars readable at thumbnail size across all flyer templates
- Neon template EQ bleed fix
- Classic template QR colour correction
- Minimal template background image rendering
- EPK upcoming gigs widget shows all published dates (was capped at 10)
- EPK gigs widget centre-aligns “+X more dates” overflow label
- Dashboard platform tab defaults correctly on first load
- Frosted glass effect applied consistently to EPK and profile cards
- CTA split cards with bio line-clamp for long bios
- All share/external URLs updated from /profile/ to /profiles/
- Svelte 5 $derived.by() fix for SSR hydration mismatch
- EPK hero consistent between light and dark mode
- Public EPK links use absolute URLs to gigxchange.app
- Photo placeholder outer-corner rounding on all card types
- Image compression for avatar and media uploads (reduces storage + load time)
- Standardised the remaining sign-up, support, fan import and feedback modals
- Onboarding tour with driver.js after setup wizard completion
- Setup wizard polish: step reorder, genres, mobile spacing
- Light mode 100% opacity borders across all components
- Coachmark slide-in animation with delayed entrance
- Admin drag-to-reposition persists cover image position to DB
Known issues
- EPK Builder mobile editing — the builder is fully functional on desktop. Mobile-optimised editing improvements shipping in v0.3.2.
- Tour poster export quality — high-DPI screens may produce slightly different output from standard displays. Normalisation improvements in progress.
- Mobile flyer editor polish — the new mobile editor works well on most devices. Refinements for smaller screens (<375px) coming next release.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy. Users who installed the PWA before 3 May may need to reinstall once re-enabled.
- Cross-worker scroll position — navigating between the app and public site cross-fades smoothly but doesn’t preserve scroll position yet.
- Public profile reviews & booking history — public profiles show bio, media, genres, and engagement badges. Verified booking count and review scores coming in the next update.
What's next
GIGXCHANGE Mainstage (v0.3.0 — Production) 26 May 2026
GX Mainstage is the members-only side of GigXchange, the app where UK artists, venues, booking agents, and promoters manage their bookings, availability, messages, events, and payments. Version 0.3.0 is a complete rebuild in SvelteKit, replacing the legacy single-page app with a modern component architecture, instant client-side navigation, and a design system that works across dark and light mode on every device. This is the production release, live and available to all GigXchange members.
What shipped
The GigXchange app rebuilt from the ground up in SvelteKit. Instant page navigation, motion design, a unified component library, full light mode, and mobile-first UX across every screen.
47 routes • 30+ modals • <200ms first paint • <100ms page switch
Instant Navigation
Every page switch is instant: View Transitions, dashboard prefetch, hover preloading. No more frozen UI.
Motion & Animations
Stat count-ups, gauge arcs, availability cell waves, spring-physics badges, staggered card cascades.
Design System
30+ standardised modals, custom form inputs, full light mode with gradient borders and breathing glow.
Mobile Experience
Full-screen messages, iOS zoom prevention, 44px touch targets, no card clipping on tap.
Auth & Security
Clean /login URL, signup params from CTAs, password reset flow, session expiry redirect.
Coachmarks
Contextual onboarding hints with slide-up animation, delayed entrance after page load.
Performance
| GIGXCHANGE Mainstage | Before (Legacy App) | |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard first paint | <200ms | 3–5 seconds |
| Page-to-page navigation | <100ms | 1–3 seconds |
| Bookings page load | Instant | 2–3 seconds |
| Explore page load | Instant | 2–3 seconds |
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.7) In development · expected late August 2026
Website v0.3.7 is in development, expected late August 2026, and the first wave is live. There is a proper help centre now, with plain-English answers and real screenshots of the app, plus the July edition of our UK live music rate report and its open dataset, and a press room where our facts and figures are free for anyone to quote. And for anyone weighing us up, there is now an investors page that sets out in plain English what GigXchange is and where it is heading. The musicians’ Classifieds board has come out into the open too: browse who’s looking and who’s available, no account needed. Since then What’s On has gone national, State of the Circuit 2026 is out, and the numbers pages have grown into a full stats desk, pints included. The venue and open mic directories have had a glow-up of their own: a city league of the busiest rooms, and every open mic night laid out on its own timeline.
Shipped so far
A full help centre at /help: twenty-nine plain-English answers, each one opening a real full-screen shot of the app so you can see exactly what we mean • The whole guide is downloadable as one properly laid-out document, and readable on the page without downloading anything • The July 2026 edition of the GX Index is out, with what artists are actually being paid across UK cities • The July dataset behind it is published openly, free for anyone to download, cite and build on • A new press room at /press, with our facts, figures and quotes free for anyone to use with a link • An investors page at /investors: what GigXchange is in plain English, the live numbers behind it, and a library of straight answers to the questions investors actually ask • The musicians’ Classifieds board is now public: every ad has its own shareable page, with a UK map of who’s needed and who’s available, no account required to browse • What’s On now covers the whole UK: the week’s gigs and open mic nights in one fan-friendly view, with a page for every city in the directory • State of the Circuit 2026 is out: our yearly report on the UK grassroots circuit, free to read, download and quote • A stats desk grew out of the numbers pages: the Pint Index, what a gig pays hour by hour, open mic and gig calendar statistics, and a live leaderboard of the UK’s hardest working rooms • A page for organisers, answering the questions private bookers actually ask, licence included • City guides for hiring live entertainment and corporate entertainment across 23 UK cities • Venue and open mic pages grew up: city leagues of the busiest rooms, votes and view counts on the page, proper maps, and an animated timeline of every open mic night
In development • more notes land here as features ship
A help centre worth reading
Our help pages now answer twenty-nine of the questions people genuinely ask, in plain English and without jargon. Every answer is paired with a real, full-screen picture of the app, so instead of describing where a button is we simply show you. You can read the whole guide on the page, or download it as one properly laid-out document to keep or print. It is the same set of answers you get inside the app, so you never get two different stories.
GX Index: July 2026
The July edition of our UK live music rate report is out, covering what artists are actually being paid city by city, so you can price a gig from real numbers instead of guesswork. The full report is on the rates page, and the figures behind it are published openly and free for anyone to download, cite or build on. Journalists, researchers and musicians can all check our working, which is rather the point.
A press room
There is now a press room holding everything anyone needs to write about UK live music: what we are in a paragraph, the numbers behind the platform and the directories, a set of story angles with real data behind them, and quotes they can use as they stand. All of it is free to use with a link back to us, and no permission is needed. The figures on it stay current by themselves, so anything quoted from that page is true on the day it is read. If your local paper ever asks who we are, send them there.
A page for investors
GigXchange now has an investors page: what the platform is in plain English, the live numbers behind it, and a library of thirty-seven straight answers to the questions investors and analysts actually ask, from how the platform works to where the market is heading. Every answer is backed by real figures that keep themselves current, the whole library is searchable, and none of it needs a login. If you’ve ever wondered where GigXchange is going, it’s written down there.
Musicians’ Classifieds, out in the open
The Classifieds board from the app is now public at /profiles/classifieds, so you can browse who needs a player and who’s available to play without signing in. Every ad has its own page, laid out like a public profile, with the poster’s music, photos and links wherever they’ve chosen to share them, so you can hear someone before you reach out. A UK map shows the ads near you, coloured by whether someone is needed or available, and when you’re ready to reply, a free account takes a minute. If you know a band a player short, or a player after a band, send them the ad.
What’s On, nationwide
The What’s On page that piloted in London now covers the whole UK: the week’s gigs and open mic nights in one fan-friendly view, searchable and filterable by day, area and genre. Every city in the gig directory now has a What’s On page of its own, and venue and city pages across the site link straight into it. Going out this week? Start there.
State of the Circuit 2026
Our yearly report on the UK grassroots circuit is out: what’s really happening in the country’s small venues and open mic nights, built from our own count of the circuit rather than anyone else’s estimates. Read it on the report page, flip through it like a magazine, or download it to keep, and browse the rest of the reports library while you’re there. Like everything we publish, it’s free to quote and build on with a link.
A stats desk, pints included
The numbers pages have grown into a proper stats desk. UK live music statistics now leads a cluster built entirely from our published data: the Pint Index (gig pay, measured in pints of lager), what a gig actually pays once you count the hours, open mic statistics, and gig calendar statistics, home of The Hardest Working Rooms: a rolling thirty-day leaderboard of the UK’s busiest grassroots venues. A live ticker runs across the cluster, and every figure traces back to data you can download and check.
A page for organisers (and one for fans)
Booking a band for a wedding, a birthday or the village hall doesn’t make you a promoter, so a page for organisers now speaks plain English to people arranging their own event: what it costs, how booking works, and the licence question answered properly. The role row on the homepage runs to six, with organisers and fans taking their place alongside artists, venues, agents and promoters, and the fans badge leads straight to What’s On.
City guides for hiring entertainment
Two new families of city guides cover the way people actually search: live entertainment for parties and events, and corporate entertainment, each written city by city across twenty-three UK cities with local knowledge, real artists to browse, and fee guidance from the GX Index. And if it’s a band you’re after, a new find-a-band guide is rolling out city by city, Birmingham first.
Venue and open mic pages, worth lingering on
Every page in the venue directory now earns its keep: a proper map of exactly where the room is, the venue’s own website a tap away, a count of how many people have viewed the page, and the votes members have cast for that venue shown right on it. A new Venue City League sits on every city’s venue pages, ranking its busiest rooms and showing who’s climbed, slipped or just arrived each week. Open mic pages get the same polish, plus Night at a Glance: the night’s key times laid out on one animated timeline, from sign-up to kick-off, so you know exactly when to turn up.
Also shipped so far in Website v0.3.7
- The terms now match the new payments model — the flat 5% booking fee on the full agreed fee, paying in two parts (deposit at booking, balance before the gig), and how billing works when an agent handles the money
- When your money is released is now stated the same way everywhere on the site: five days after the gig date
- Cancellation windows and what happens to the booking fee are written out plainly, so there are no surprises if plans change
- The July 2026 rate report is also written up as a blog post, if you would rather read the story than the numbers
- The free-tool previews have been re-shot from the live documents, so what you see on the page is exactly what the tool produces
- Every document preview now turns pages properly, including the longer licensing and compliance ones
- Hovering a photo in the band strips on our pages now highlights it cleanly
- The ticket card’s barcode sits in the same corner on every card
- Pop-up panels no longer let the page behind them scroll on a phone
- Press and media has its own place in the menu now, under Contact, and in the footer alongside the rest of our reading
- Our venue, open mic and gig totals now read the same on every page they appear on
- Every help answer now reads in full; a formatting quirk was hiding the occasional paragraph
- Genre pages in the gig directory now show ampersands and apostrophes properly, instead of the occasional stray code where a symbol should be
- A new read on the blog: the £1 grassroots ticket levy in 2026, who pays it, where the money goes, and what it means for artists, venues and promoters
- The blog’s topic filters now pack into two tidy rows on a phone
- Cards across the site now share the same border and gentle glow, so every page feels like one site
- Picture panels on the UK market statistics page now show their artwork uncropped
- A new What’s On page for London gathers the week’s gigs and open mics into one fan-friendly view, with filters for day, area and genre — more cities to follow
- Two new reads on the blog: why midweek open mics are the smart play for pubs, and a fan’s guide to supporting grassroots venues
- The homepage’s section intros now properly explain the platform to someone seeing it for the first time
- The press room now shows where our facts and figures have been cited
- Open mic nights that run monthly or fortnightly now say so on their pages, instead of reading as weekly
- Dozens of venues that were filed under London in the directory now appear under their real home towns
- Leaving the site mailing list is one click from any email we send, no login needed
- The small confirmation messages that pop up across the site now match the site’s look wherever they appear
- Pages now keep their styling even if one file fails to load on a flaky connection
- Wondering whether you were paid fairly? Enter your fee on the rates page and see where it sits against the going rate for your city and act type
- The rate tables can now be sliced your own way, with per-hour figures alongside per-gig ones, and the submit-a-rate form finds your city as you type
- The press room now takes questions: ask anything about UK live music, and if our data can answer it, a sourced answer joins the archive for everyone
- A Who to Follow section on the press room gathers the UK grassroots scene on Bluesky: curated packs of venues and musicians worth following, plus a live feed of the scene
- The homepage gives grassroots venues a section of their own, second on the page
- On desktop, the homepage now opens on a film of the live scene; phones keep the quick-loading still
- Two new reads on the blog: the state of UK live music in 2026, and a good week for UK grassroots venues
- The contact form keeps its styling when your browser or password manager fills it in, instead of flashing white boxes
- City pickers across the site now run alphabetically, so the big cities are no longer buried mid-list
- Save the site to your home screen and the icon now matches the app’s
- Email sign-up boxes no longer zoom the page on iPhones
- Gig cards on phones show their full titles and one consistent venue line
- Venue and open mic pages have moved to cleaner web addresses that read city first, then venue; every old link still lands in the right place
- Share an open mic page and the link preview now shows a proper picture card for that night, not a plain logo
- A venue that has claimed its page now wears a Claimed badge, and the page stops asking anyone to claim it
- The Hardest Working Rooms leaderboard now shows each room’s movement since last week: up, down, or newly arrived
- Gig pages in the directory now chart how the city’s week shapes up night by night, with more of what’s on nearby
- Phones get a smoother ride across the site: drawers open as tidy accordions, pop-ups glide, and the busiest pages no longer stutter mid-scroll
Known issues
- Opening times are blank on venue and open mic pages where we don’t have the hours yet. They fill in as venues claim their pages and as we keep checking listings.
- What’s On shows what’s listed in our directory, so a smaller venue’s nights appear once we find its listings. Quieter city pages fill in over time.
- View counts on venue and open mic pages only started counting in August 2026, so they show recent interest, not all-time.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.6) 27 July 2026
Website v0.3.6 landed in two waves. First, every free tool got its own page: fifteen new pages showing each tool doing its real job, with genuine previews, a plain-English guide and answers to common questions. Second, the site has a new look. The homepage now walks you through a real booking beat by beat, and every page has moved to one consistent style.
In this release
The homepage walks you through a real booking, beat by beat, from first message to money released • A new look right across the site, with every page opening the same consistent way • Venue directory cards rebuilt around what you actually need: real opening times, what backline the room provides, and a full description • Our terms now spell out exactly what happens to your money if a booking is cancelled • Member Spotlight issue 6 is out, featuring Shiversa • The status page shows 90 days of uptime alongside the live checks • Fifteen 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
Free tools + new-look release • shipped 27 July 2026
See a booking happen, beat by beat
The homepage now walks you through a real booking one beat at a time: the first message, the offer, the counter-offer, signing the contract, the money going in and being held safely, the night itself, and the payout landing. Step through it at your own pace and you can see exactly what GigXchange does at every stage, and what it costs, before you sign up for anything.
A new look, right across the site
Every page has moved to one consistent style: a rail of quick links down the side, a dock of live figures and shortcuts under the heading, and the same card treatment throughout. About, Contact, the blog, the directories, the tools, the rates pages, the guides and the legal pages all now open the same way, so wherever you land you already know where to look.
Venue directory cards, rebuilt
Every card in the venue directory now tells you what you actually need to know before getting in touch: the real opening times for all seven days, a straight tick-or-cross list of what backline and PA the room provides, a rating, and a full sentence about the place rather than a description chopped off mid-word. On a phone the times and backline tuck into tidy summaries you can open. And if the venue is yours, the link to claim it sits right on the card.
Our terms now spell out the money
Our terms have been rewritten around paying through GigXchange, in language you can actually follow: when a deposit comes back in full, when it is split down the middle, and when the act keeps it, with the notice periods written out. There is a grace window if you change your mind straight after paying, and a booking that never gets signed by both sides is refunded automatically rather than sitting in limbo.
Member Spotlight: Shiversa
Issue 6 of Member Spotlight is out, featuring Shiversa. Like every issue it is a proper interview with a band about how they actually work, and it comes as a magazine-style PDF you can download, read offline or pass on. The whole format has had a design pass this month, with a new cover treatment and a cleaner layout.
The status page tells you more
Our status page now shows 90 days of uptime alongside the live service checks, with a chart per service broken down by day, so you can see at a glance whether anything has been wobbling rather than just whether it is up right now.
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.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.6
- Fifteen new tool pages — every free tool now has its own home, each showing the tool at work with real previews, a plain-English guide and answers to common questions
- The artist toolkit — press kit builder, tour poster maker, gig flyer maker, stage plot maker, invoice generator, fans & mailing list, gig rate calculator, AI matches and the Booking Manager
- The venue toolkit — licensing checker, compliance checklist, Martyn’s Law readiness, events poster, find an artist, post a gig and Gig Rescue
- Martyn’s Law readiness (5 July) — a free readiness check for the new venue-safety law arriving around 2027: your tier, your duties as a tickable list, and a first-draft written-procedures document with a sign-off line, plus a plain-English guide to the whole law
- Compliance that remembers you (5 July) — the Licence Checker and Compliance Checklist save to your venue and come back on any device; the checker names your local licensing authority from your postcode and counts down key filing deadlines with a nudge before they bite; the checklist takes reminder dates per item
- Verdicts you can file (5 July) — both checkers export polished, dated PDF reports, and the licence checker can be tried right on its own page with the verdict emailed to you as a PDF, no account needed
- The Free Tools hub opens with a wall of photo cards covering every tool, flipping between the artist and venue toolkits
- The booking widget page has grown into the Booking Manager, with the real widget running live on the page so you can try it before you add it to your own site
- Tap any tool-page preview to view it full screen, including scrolling through a full press-kit page on the EPK Builder
- The invoice generator page shows finished example invoices in both dark and light looks
- The new tool pages are in the site menu under Free Tools, on desktop and on your phone
- The menu on your phone now mirrors the desktop menu’s groups and opens and closes crisply on iPhone
- Listen before you enquire — on the profiles directory and homepage, artists with uploaded music now carry a play button on their card; their top track plays right there with a live waveform and the song name, no account needed
- The homepage booking walkthrough covers the whole journey, from the first message through the offer, the counter, signing, paying, the gig and the payout, with the real screens you’d see
- Venue and open mic pages now show real opening times for every day of the week, on the page and on the card
- Claim your venue straight from the directory — tap claim on a card or a venue page and the venue you picked is carried right through signing up, so you land on the claim screen with it already chosen
- The directory, venue, open mic and gig hubs let you switch which figures the header shows, and point you to nearby cities worth a look
- 90 days of uptime on the status page, with an animated day-by-day chart per service
- Faster on phones — the homepage now ships far smaller images and animates more smoothly, so it loads quicker and scrolls without stutter on a mid-range handset
- Every page family now has a proper share preview image, so a link to any part of the site unfurls as a branded card rather than a plain grey box
- The contact form and the data-request forms now tell you honestly if a message fails to send, instead of showing a success screen regardless
- Member Spotlight has had a full design pass — a redesigned magazine PDF with a new cover treatment, plus two extra share cards so a featured member can post the news as well as a quote
- The GX Index and reports pages gained a browsable carousel of report covers, so you can see what’s available at a glance
- The platform fee is stated correctly as 5% everywhere on the site
Known issues
- Opening times are blank on venue and open mic pages where we don’t have the hours yet. They fill in as venues claim their pages and as we keep checking listings.
- The new look is still rolling out. A handful of the deeper pages haven’t moved across yet, so you may notice one opening in the older style.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.5) 4 July 2026
Website v0.3.5 carries the same theme as the app: GigXchange is now open to everyone. The public site, and our guidance for AI assistants, now say clearly that anyone can book live music, while the public member directory stays focused on the artists, venues, agents and promoters you can actually discover and book.
In this release
An interactive map to find live music near you • Guided, screen-by-screen walkthroughs of every key feature • A smarter help search that opens the exact answer • GigXchange is now open to everyone, said clearly across the site • Up-to-date local rate benchmarks and a free rate calculator in the GX Index • A bigger Open Mic Finder and a cleaner Gig Directory • Confirm a review in one click to earn a Verified badge
Open-to-everyone release • shipped 4 July 2026
Find live music near you on a map
Browse grass-roots gigs, venues and open mics on an interactive UK map. Zoom into your city, tap an area to see what’s on there, then jump straight to the local list. The same map now lives on the Gig Directory, venue and open mic pages, and on member profiles, where you can see the artists, venues, agents and promoters in any UK city.
Open to everyone, said out loud
The public site now makes it clear that GigXchange is for anyone booking live music, not just the trade. The Learn hub speaks to private individuals and businesses planning weddings, parties and corporate events, with a new answer on how to book a band for your own event.
A directory focused on who you can book
People who join purely to book live music stay private. The public member directory and browse pages stay focused on the artists, venues, agents and promoters you can actually discover and approach.
Clearer answers from AI assistants
Our machine-readable guidance has been updated so that when someone asks an AI assistant about GigXchange, it knows the platform is now open to everyone and can point private and business bookers to the right place.
Up-to-date local rate benchmarks
The GX Index now shows what live acts are really paid in your part of the UK, with live median fees and a clearer split between take-home pay and agency commission. Whether you are pricing your own gig or working out a fair offer, you can start from real, current numbers for your area instead of guesswork.
A free rate calculator
A new rate calculator on the free tools page, also built into the GX Index, helps you work out a sensible fee in seconds. Choose your act type and area and it suggests a realistic range, so artists can quote with confidence and bookers know what to expect.
Confirm a review in one click
When a member adds a past review to their profile, the client they credit gets a clean, branded page to confirm it in a single click, which earns the review a Verified badge, so the reputation people built elsewhere can be trusted here too.
Guided walkthroughs of every key feature
New on User Guides: guided walkthroughs that show real app screens one step at a time, with where to tap, what you should see next, and quick fixes if something looks off. Seven journeys cover everything from building your press kit to getting paid.
Ask a question, get the exact answer
Search on User Guides and the Help Centre now understands questions like “how do I get paid?” and opens the exact guide step, walkthrough screen or FAQ you need, instead of leaving you to scroll.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.5
- An interactive UK map across the Gig Directory, venue and open mic pages, and on member profiles, so you can zoom into any city, see what is around you, and tap through to the local list
- The Learn hub now welcomes anyone booking live music, private individuals and businesses alike, with a new FAQ on how to book a band for a wedding, party or corporate event
- Updated machine-readable guidance (the files AI assistants read) so tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity know GigXchange is now open to everyone
- People who join only to book live music are kept out of the public member directory, browse surfaces and featured rail, because they book rather than get booked
- The GX Index now shows up-to-date rate benchmarks for your part of the UK, with live median fees and a clearer split between take-home pay and agency commission
- A free rate calculator on the free tools page and inside the GX Index, so you can work out a fair fee for any act type and area in seconds
- A cleaner Gig Directory, with duplicate listings of the same event merged automatically so you see each gig once
- A bigger Open Mic Finder, with more verified open mics and venue pages added across underserved UK towns, each one checked and photographed
- Two new guides for the open-to-everyone era — how to book live music for any event and how UK venues run live music on GigXchange
- A new review confirmation page — when a member adds a past client’s review to their profile, that client gets a clean, branded page to confirm it in one click and earn the review a Verified badge
- Clearer, consistent next steps across our guide, city, genre and gig pages, so it is always obvious how to get started
- City and genre pages now show their live-music scene score instantly, with no draw-in flicker
- Refreshed role and guide pages, with clearer cards, quick summaries and live platform stats
- A rewritten privacy policy — clearer and more complete, so you know exactly what data we hold and how it is used
- A fresh gig-ticket look for feature cards across the site — homepage, role pages, About, Free Tools, Member Spotlight and the Help Centre
- The Help Centre now opens with how GigXchange works in three steps, one-tap shortcuts to the most-asked questions, and the same smart search as User Guides
- Walkthrough links can point at an exact step, so a shared link opens the right screen instantly
- Refreshed legal pages with image-tile headers and a quick cookie-settings link in the footer, so the important pages are easier to read and navigate
Known issues
- Nothing logged for this release yet.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.4) 19 June 2026
Website v0.3.4 is a polish-and-discoverability release. The headline additions are a new Platform page in the main menu and the Google Play launch surfaced across the site. Alongside them, the blog and guides are easier to explore, your public profile and EPK are now discoverable in search, pages load faster with sharper imagery, and unsubscribing is a simple one-tap page.
In this release
A new Platform page in the main menu • The Google Play launch surfaced across the site • A more browsable blog and guides • Faster pages with sharper imagery • Your public profile & EPK now discoverable in search • A steadier foundation, so we catch and fix issues fast • A one-tap unsubscribe • Now on TikTok
UX polish, discoverability & consistency • shipped 19 June 2026
One home for the platform
A new Platform page in the main menu walks you through how GigXchange fits together (the website, the app, and the data behind your bookings), so it’s clear what the platform does and where to begin.
Easier to explore
The blog and our guides are easier to browse: popular and related reads glide past with eye-catching artwork, and each guide points you to what to read next, so you spend less time hunting and more time reading.
Easier to be found
Your public profile and EPK now show up properly in Google and look right when shared on social, so the venues, agents and fans looking for someone like you can actually find you.
Faster and sharper
The whole site is quicker and the imagery crisper: pages load faster and artwork stays sharp on every screen, from phone to desktop.
Steadier, and sorted faster
Every page now runs on one consistent, hardened foundation with error-watching built in, so the site behaves more predictably, and when something slips we spot it and put it right fast, often before you’d ever run into it. Quietly, it also means we keep improving the site quicker and more safely as we grow.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.4
- New Platform page is now live in the public nav (it was previously “coming soon”) — a guided walkthrough of how the website, the app and the data layer fit together, with a paginated screenshot viewer
- Google Play launch surfaced across the site — a “GigXchange on Google Play” blog post and a reusable “Get the app” card (Play badge plus iPhone / add-to-home-screen instructions) on the home, about, user-guides and platform pages
- Directory finder polish on /profiles — searching a category with no matches now shows a clear empty state instead of a frozen grid, the finder opens on “All profiles” by default, and results paginate cleanly (25 per page) instead of an endless “show more”
- Browse by city on /profiles — a city picker now drives the member directory, with an International option, so you can jump straight to the artists, venues, agents and promoters near you
- The Verified badge now shows on member cards across /profiles and the directory, so you can spot a real, active member before you click through
- Easier reading on the blog — the related-reads rail now stays with you as you scroll and tucks away neatly at the author card at the end of a post
- You’ll now find us on YouTube too, linked from the footer alongside TikTok and our other channels
- Stats now count up as they scroll into view — across the GX Index reports, UK Market Statistics, the user-guides and about heroes, and the “at a glance” rails on blog, open-mic, and venue pages
- Consistent on-brand tooltips across the public site — footer social icons, profile grids, and city / open-mic tiles now use the same branded tooltip as the app, replacing the default browser ones
- The blog is easier to explore — the most-read and related articles now glide past in a browsable carousel with eye-catching artwork, and it flicks through smoothly on a phone
- More to explore next — our city, “bands for hire”, performer-hire, seasonal, how-it-works and how-to guides now end with a browsable strip of related guides with rich artwork, instead of a plain list of links
- Your public profile and EPK now show up properly in Google and when shared on social, so more of the right people can discover you
- Faster pages and sharper imagery — smarter caching now serves the parts of the site that rarely change almost instantly, and artwork stays crisp on every screen
- Unsubscribing from our emails is now a single, simple page — one tap, no login and no hoops
- You’ll now find us on TikTok, linked from the footer alongside our other channels
- A friendlier page when a link goes astray — the new not-found page keeps the brand and points you straight back to the useful stuff
- Open-mic and venue listings stay fresher — a dependable re-checking cycle keeps the directory’s details accurate and up to date
- Smoother page-to-page transitions — we ironed out a brief flicker on the hero when moving between longer pages
- We’ve started keeping a closer eye on the site itself, so if a page ever misbehaves, we can spot it and put it right fast, often before you’d notice
- Plenty of small visual polish across the site — smoother hover effects, tidier headings, and snappier in-page navigation
- Significant under-the-hood consolidation — we streamlined and hardened the site’s foundations behind the scenes. You won’t see it directly, but it means a faster, more reliable site and quicker improvements as we grow
Known issues
- Nothing logged for this release yet.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.3) 10 June 2026
v0.3.3 is the “Modals, UX & Content” release. Every user-facing modal on the public website has been rebuilt on the app’s shared Modal component: consistent headers, breathing gradient borders, focus-trap, and a proper 70% dark backdrop. The big form flows (List a Gig, Submit an Open Mic, Submit a Rate) are redesigned as multi-step modals with custom pickers, YES/NO toggles, and a post-submit signup prompt. All 89 blog posts get relevance-ordered aside rails and scroll-reveal cascades. The Free Tools hub gets an image-tile hero. Role-page mobile hero cards are aligned. Gig Directory map tooltip, custom scrollbars, search bar improvements (autocomplete off, UK → all records), and straddle-gap mobile heroes are also polished.
In this release
Full modal system rebuild • 2-step List a Gig • 4-step Open Mic Submit with backline toggles • Shared Rate Submit modal • Self-serve account deletion • Privacy policy refreshed for Android • New User Guides hub • Related reads on every blog post • Search bar improvements
Modals + UX + content release • shipped 10 June 2026
Unified Modal System
Every public-site modal rebuilt for one consistent feel: breathing gradient border, translucent backdrop, focus-trap, Escape to dismiss, proper mobile scroll, and autofill-safe fields.
List a Gig — 2-Step Modal
The Gig Directory “List your gig” form is now a 2-step modal (Act & Date → Details & Description) with custom date/time pickers, a custom number stepper for entry fee, autofill-safe gradient fields, pagination dots, and a post-submit signup prompt.
Submit an Open Mic — 4-Step
The Open Mic Finder submission flow gains a dedicated backline step with YES/NO toggles for all 8 backline items (PA, drums, guitar amp, bass amp, keys, vocal mics, full backline, in-house engineer), capturing structured data that maps directly onto the live listing.
Submit a Rate — Shared Component
The “Submit a rate” modal on /rates and /free-tools is now a single shared component with a self-contained city list, live plausibility hints, £25 fee stepper, custom date picker, and a post-submit signup prompt on both pages.
Share Your Story
The “Share Your Story” CTA on the home page now opens a 2-step testimonial submission modal (with a sign-in gate for anonymous visitors) instead of navigating to /contact.
Open Mic Correction Modal
The “Send a correction” flow on open-mic detail pages is extracted into a proper component with gradient-border fields, fuchsia error badges, and ice success state.
Post-Submit Signup Prompt
After submitting a gig, open mic, or rate, a branded signup prompt invites you to create a free account. Ice tick, ice headline, role badges, and an ice-on-hover “Maybe later” link.
Role-Page Mobile Hero Cards
The guide cards and email-capture panel in the role-page hero (/for-artists, /for-venues, etc.) were inset 48px from the screen edge on mobile (double-guttered). Now aligned to the standard 24px margin matching every other section.
Related Reads on Every Post
Every blog post now suggests the most relevant related reads, with a smooth left-to-right reveal on hub and city pages for gigs, venues, and member spotlights.
Blog Hero Filter Chips
The blog hub filter chips flex-fill to full content width on desktop (single row of 6), with a 2-row mobile layout, replacing the cramped overflow on narrow screens.
Free-Tools Hero
The Free Tools hub hero gains a 2×2 image-tile grid (mirroring the genre hubs) with 6 genre images and a 3-button CTA row.
Smarter Directory Search
Search bars across the Gig Directory, Open Mic Finder, Venue Directory, and Profiles are now autocomplete-off (no browser fill), and typing “UK” or “United Kingdom” returns all records instead of no results.
Self-Serve Account Deletion
A public /delete-account page lets anyone request deletion of their GigXchange data without logging in, verified by an email-confirmation link, with report-style explainer cards and trust badges. Linked from the footer and the privacy policy.
Privacy Policy — Android-Ready
The privacy policy is refreshed ahead of the Google Play launch: every sub-processor name now links to its own privacy policy, a device-permissions row documents photo & media access, and a new Children’s Privacy section sets an 18+ policy.
User Guides Hub
A new /user-guides hub with step-by-step guides grouped by role, scenario, and feature, with glyph step-icons and colour-coded filter chips.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.3
- Gig Directory map tooltip wired — was silently missing a data attribute so pin tooltips never appeared on the hub map
- Map tooltip styled with muted background, Rajdhani font, and ice accent to match the brand
- Custom scrollbars restored after a build regression stripped them from the website stylesheet
- 100vw full-bleed horizontal overflow clipped — eliminated the phantom horizontal scrollbar on some pages
- Straddle-gap heroes made mobile-only on venues-[city], gigs cities, and rates report pages (were incorrectly applying on desktop)
- Gig Directory section-1 badges aligned to match the venue/open-mic hub badge style
- Meta-strip badges on the gig directory resized to match the CTA badge scale
- Rate calculator “How the Index works” step-number cards centred correctly on narrow widths
- Form fields on all modals: fuchsia error panels (bg + text + 1px border), ice success panels (same structure), pagination dots sit above the footer divider with symmetric spacing
- Chrome autofill: fields now keep their gradient borders and dark background when the browser autofills (box-shadow inset + wrapper div approach)
- In-article FAQs now link to the most relevant rates, city, venue and guide pages, so every blog post points you to the best related reads
- Genre-hub hero tile images swapped to local assets on the Free Tools page (faster first paint)
- Member Spotlight issue 04 — Nicola De Sensi published (editorial profile + press kit)
- Footer gains a “Delete account” link in the Connect section
- Hub hero can skip a weak cover image via a hide-from-hero flag, so only strong artwork leads a page
- Fullscreen lightbox controls standardised — the close “X” now matches the pagination arrows in size, ice border, and right gutter, and the page counter aligns to the same edge across the Setlist, Contract, and Rates-report viewers
- Two more Member Spotlights published — issue 03, Cheri McQueen, and issue 05, Yxung Cxrney (editorial profiles + press kits)
- User Guides library expanded with new “by feature” step-by-step guides and tidier, equal-height filter grids
- Public event pages now open straight in the app
Known issues
- Autofill borders — autofill can still slightly pale a gradient border on a few submission forms; a fix is planned.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What’s next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.2) 6 June 2026
v0.3.2 is a content, discovery and reliability release. The headline is the new GX Index rates reference (a UK gig & band rates hub), alongside a richer home, about and blog experience with live aside rails, a virtual-book hero across the booking guides, Open Mic Finder upgrades, a platform-wide security & privacy review, and a cleanup of legacy URL redirects.
In this release
GX Index rates reference • Reports, Yearbook & Musician Earnings • Live aside rails on home/about/blog/contact • Virtual-book guide hero • Open Mic Finder upgrades • UK Gig Pay Survey • Sharper guide FAQs • Security & privacy review • Legacy redirect cleanup
Content + discovery release • shipped 6 June 2026
GX Index Rates Pillar
A new UK gig & band rates reference: real market fee ranges by city, role and act type, refreshed regularly. The clearest public answer to “how much do gigs pay in the UK”.
Reports & References
A growing library of dated, citable reads beyond the live rates: the monthly GX Index issues (latest May 2026), the UK Live Music Yearbook 2026, the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report, and a UK Market Statistics page, all gathered in the Reports Hub.
Live Aside Rails
Home, About, Blog and Contact heroes now carry relevance-ordered quick-link rails with live member-profile cards, featured-profile cycling, and Open Mic Finder shortcuts, flanking the hero, not buried below it.
Virtual-Book Guide Hero
Booking guides (bands-for-hire, how-to-get-gigs, how-to-book, performer, seasonal) open with an interactive page-turning “book” hero, rolled out across every city guide.
Open Mic Finder Upgrades
Every listing is checked against the venue’s own details, closed nights stay visible, and listings without a venue page are flagged, so the directory stays accurate.
UK Gig Pay Survey
A quick, anonymous way for performers to benchmark their gig fees against the market, at /rates/survey.
Sharper Answers
Clearer, better-answered FAQs on the key gig-pay and booking guides, so visitors (and AI assistants) get a straight answer fast.
Performance
Faster image loading across heroes and hubs, and snappier data-heavy pages.
Security & Privacy Review
A platform-wide security and privacy pass: tighter data-access controls and updated privacy disclosures.
Legacy Redirect Cleanup
Old /guides article URLs now redirect to their /blog home, /showcase-integrated → /profiles, and the 2024 hire guide consolidates into the 2026 version.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.2
- GX Index April 2026 issue published (Issue 01)
- Branded share cards for the GX Index pillar + monthly issues
- GX Index pillar hero layout fixed across laptop screen widths
- Fixed a loading error on the GX Index April issue
- ‘We’re on it’ placeholder cards in the open-mic About grid for facts still being verified
- Guide-hero carousel polish on narrow-desktop widths
- Refreshed AI / LLM discoverability files (llms.txt)
- Privacy policy: cancel-by-sign-in, shared-file deletion + sent-message handling disclosed
Known issues
- Redirect hops — a few legacy URL patterns still involve an extra redirect hop; being cleaned up to improve load speed.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy.
What's next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.1) 30 May 2026
v0.3.1 brings public profiles and EPK pages to the website, adds a new /how-it-works explainer, upgrades SEO across guides and comparison pages, and makes the site easier to find via Google and AI assistants, with refreshed open datasets across HuggingFace, Kaggle, and Zenodo.
What shipped
Public Profiles • Public EPK pages • /how-it-works explainer • /guides → /learn rebrand • Easier to find via AI assistants • Open datasets
15 new features • 30 fixes • 6 datasets upgraded
Public Profiles
Shareable public profile pages at /profiles/
Public EPK Pages
Shareable electronic press kits at /epk/
/how-it-works
A new 12-section explainer answering the most common questions about how GigXchange works, linked from across the blog.
SEO Upgrades
/guides rebranded to /learn with a cleaner layout, plus clearer page titles and richer open-mic listings.
LLM Discoverability
Your pages show up properly in Google and in AI assistant answers.
Open Datasets
Updated open datasets for researchers and AI tools, published on HuggingFace, Kaggle and Zenodo.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.1
- Instant cross-fade navigation between every part of the site
- Pages prefetched on hover for instant navigation
- Frosted glass effect on role page guide cards
- /gigs/guides upgraded with auto guide count and improved navigation
- Venue detail carousel fill + JSON-LD enrichment + carousel speed normalisation
- Grassroots venues added to sitemap + regenerated
- OMF modal cleanup + BFH/city/directory/profile page fixes
- Internal linking improvements across public pages
- Browse all guides section width corrected to 1200px
- All Astro /profile/ links updated to /profiles/
- Open mic template: datePublished, dateModified, HowTo, Dataset schema added
- Open mic backline enrichment — 50 venues researched, 19 with evidence-based updates
- guide-index.html refreshed with live DB numbers + Mainstage product section
- Dataset cover images generated with unique backgrounds per dataset
- Gebru et al. datasheets added to both directory datasets across 3 platforms
- Release notes page: dynamic stats from live DB, version toggle, tab pills
Known issues
- Template migration ongoing — some public pages are being progressively migrated to the component architecture. Functionality is identical during the transition.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy. Re-enable targeted for a future release.
- Public EPK shell refinement — the EPK page uses the website header and footer inside the app. Minor visual inconsistencies between the two shells are being polished.
- Open mic backline verification — some newer open mic listings have default equipment data pending direct venue verification. We’re contacting venues to confirm.
What's next
GIGXCHANGE Website (v0.3.0) 18 May 2026
The GigXchange public website is the front door to the platform, everything a visitor sees before signing up. It was rebuilt from 480 hand-written HTML files into a fully server-rendered Astro SSR application deployed on Cloudflare Workers. The site includes the Profiles showcase, Gig Directory with 8,891 UK listings, Open Mic Finder covering 1,249 verified venues, the GX Index rate benchmarks, free booking tools, 86+ blog posts on the UK live music industry, and Member Spotlight editorial profiles. Every page is server-rendered, SEO-optimised with structured data, and navigates instantly via Astro View Transitions.
What shipped
The entire public website rebuilt from scratch in Astro SSR, replacing 480 legacy HTML files with a component-based architecture, server-rendered pages, and instant client-side navigation.
68+ pages • 86+ blog posts • 480 files archived • <200ms navigation
Astro SSR
68+ pages rendered server-side on Cloudflare Workers. View Transitions for SPA-like navigation, hover prefetch for zero-latency clicks.
Design & Motion
ScrollReveal, TextScramble headings, HeroSparkles particles, frosted glass cards with breathing glow, infinite member carousel.
SEO & Performance
Structured data on every page, custom OG images, canonical URLs, font preloading, and a comprehensive sitemap covering 12,000+ pages.
Open Mic Finder
1,249 verified venues with city radar scores and server-rendered search. The UK’s largest free open mic directory.
Gig Directory
8,891 live music listings by city, date, and genre. Grassroots filter for independent venues.
Free Tools
Rate Calculator, Setlist Builder, Booking Contract Generator, all free, no account required.
Also shipped in Website v0.3.0
- 68 Astro pages migrated from legacy HTML templates
- 20 templated page types converted across the site (cities, venues, open mics, genres, directory, and more)
- Stylesheet split into lean per-page bundles
- Public CSS stack reduced from 627 KB to 123–152 KB per page (80% savings)
- Custom OG images generated for all blog posts, sales pages, and city pages
- Sitemap covering 12,000+ pages across the site
- Email capture ribbon with validation
- Breadcrumb component with JSON-LD on every page
- Visible FAQ sections that also power rich search results
- GX Rate Calculator embedded on /free-tools as a shared module
- Profile comparison tool: up to 4 profiles side-by-side
- Member Spotlight editorial profiles with press-kit PDF downloads
- Booking Contract Generator with 8 clauses and dual e-signatures
- Venue Outreach Templates with auto-fill and copy-to-Gmail
- Setlist Builder with drag-reorder, poster export, and Song Bank import
- Knowledge Graph page for AI assistants
- llms.txt and llms-full.txt for LLM discoverability
Known issues
- Template migration ongoing — some public pages are being progressively migrated to the component architecture. Functionality is identical during the transition.
- Blog cleanup — all posts are live in the new system with automatic redirects. Legacy file cleanup in progress.
- Redirect optimisation — some legacy URL patterns involve an extra redirect hop. Being cleaned up to improve load speed.
- PWA offline support — temporarily disabled while we rebuild the caching strategy. Re-enable targeted for a future release.
- Hub page search — the blog and gig directory hub pages don’t yet have client-side search. Users navigate via city and tag links.
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.
Join the Community
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