Free setlist builder for UK gigging musicians

Open strong, never with a ballad

The first 90 seconds of your set is the only window you get to convert a half-distracted pub crowd into a captive audience. Lead with a familiar, mid-to-up-tempo cover at 110–130 BPM, in a comfortable key for your singer. UK working bands consistently report a 30–40% drop in audience attention when sets open with a slow original or a deep cut, so save those for tracks 3 or 4 once the room is anchored. (Browsing for a pub residency? See the city-by-city venue directory for active live-music rooms near you.)

Hit the slot length, exactly

Most UK pub residencies are 2 x 45-minute sets with a 20-minute interval, festival opener slots are 25–30 minutes, and a standard wedding evening is 2 x 60-minute sets. Run over and you eat into the next act's stagetime; run under and you've shortchanged the booker. The setlist builder's auto-totalled duration is built for exactly this — type each song's length in mm:ss and the running total updates live, so you land within ±30 seconds of the slot every time. Pair that with the UK Gig Rate Calculator to know what your slot is actually worth before you confirm.

Plan the dynamic arc

• Tracks 1–3: recognisable openers, mid-tempo, instant payoff.
• Tracks 4–6: raise the energy, peak before the mid-set drop.
• Tracks 7–9: one ballad or stripped-back reset to give vocals a breather.
• Tracks 10–13: rebuild, layer the biggest crowd-pleasers.
• Closer: the most-shouted-back-at song you have. Always.

Once your arc is locked, lock in the gig itself — pitch the venue with one of the free venue outreach email templates, then negotiate the fee using percentile data from the GX Index.

Keys, BPMs and segues

Sequencing two songs in clashing keys (e.g. F# straight into Eb) drains energy, even if the audience can't articulate why. Note each track's key on the setlist; group keys in fifths where you can. Drum-counted segues between two compatible-tempo tracks (within 8 BPM of each other) save 5–10 seconds of dead air per change — over a 90-minute set that's a full song's worth of momentum recovered. For more on what UK working musicians actually earn per set, see the UK Musician Earnings 2026 report.

Print one for every position on stage

Tape a copy to the monitor wedge of every player, plus one for the sound engineer at front-of-house. The PDF export from this builder is A4 portrait at 300dpi, designed to read in low stage light at 2 metres — the typical distance from drum kit to floor wedge. Don't rely on a phone; screens dim, lockscreens trigger, and gaffer-taping a phone to a wedge is how setlists get lost. Once you're set, publish the setlist on your GigXchange artist profile so every venue, agent and promoter browsing for an act sees exactly what you bring to the stage.