As an independent artist, getting paid music gigs can sometimes be a challenge, especially if you don’t know where to look. There are countless online platforms to add your music to in order to get exposure, but which platforms are legitimate? Which platforms can you trust? There are some platforms whose business model lends for them to easily make a profit without ever having to guarantee paid gigs. These sites are not on the top of our list. But there are lots of other online platforms musicians can use to book paid gigs that do a wonderful job of matching people in need of live entertainment with artists. We’ve outlined those sites in this article. We recommend either adding your profile or frequenting everyone of them. You never know where your next paid gig will come from so it makes good business sense to cast a wide net.
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Your own website
You might be surprised to find your own website at the top of a list of online platforms to book paid gigs, but here it is!!! Your online hub can absolutely be one of the main sources you use to get paid gigs. If you can effectively set up your website to funnel gig leads to you, you could have a constant stream of new paid gig opportunities without ever having to pay commissions or finder’s fees to anyone. There are two things you should do in order to set your website up in this way.
Create a way to capture leads on your site
You’ll need to set up a few key elements on your website such as booking and contact forms. Make sure your forms are easy to find and easy to use. Also, don’t waste any time contacting a lead once you get it. Often times, the first person to respond gets the gig.
You’ll also need an awesome sales page. A sales page is meant to convert page visitors into customers. So you’ll need to create some hard-hitting copy to get them to reach out to book you. What’s great about our business is that as independent musicians, your product is easy to showcase and the features and benefits are clear and upfront. So you don’t have to write fancy sales copy to sell your music. Either they like your style or they don’t. But you can boost your conversions if you sell your personality on top of your music! We’ve seen a lot of musician web pages in our line of work, but few go the extra mile to showcase their unique personality. I was hired for a private show recently, and the guy who hired me said he looked at many different artists, but he chose me because he connected with my personality. It was a confirmation for me not to be afraid to share my personal thoughts, hobbies, and overall style on my website. Be sure to include your personal thoughts, links to thought-provoking blog posts, and a personal flair on your sales page in addition to reviews, live performance footage, photos, and accolades.
Attract leads to your site with SEO.
You’ll also need a way to attract leads and that involves a little bit of search engine optimization strategy. Have you written any blogs on your website geared to attract people searching for entertainment in your area? If not, it’s time to get on that. People are having private events in your town and a lot of them are looking for affordable entertainment. If you wrote a few good articles on how to find affordable entertainment in (insert your city here), you could get free search engine traffic to your website. When doing this strategy make sure to include as many keywords and keyword phrases you think people would use in a search engine to find local entertainment. Also, there are little SEO technical things you can do such as properly titling your pages and URLs, including meta tags, image alt tags, captions and descriptions, and infusing location-specific keywords into your content. You can do this easily with including an FAQ section. The other thing you can do is get a physical mailing address (not a PO Box) and signing up for Google My Business. Call it something like (Insert Your Town) Entertainment Services and set up a profile with Google. Your website will show up on the maps and be among the first listed on the first page when someone goes to search for entertainment in your area.
GigSalad
I came across GigSalad by doing a search for live entertainment in my local town. Their website showed up at the top of search results. Out of curiosity, I clicked the link to visit their page and saw that you can set up a profile for free and get gig offers automatically. That was in 2012 and I’ve had a profile on there ever since. This is a platform that matches entertainment providers (you and me) with people looking for entertainment. They do a great job of advertising their platform to would-be event hosts, so you can get a lot of traffic with a profile on their platform. GigSalad is cool because all you have to do is include a few details about your music and you’re ready to book gigs in minutes. As I mentioned, the website is free to join, but there are some premium services they offer that allow you to advertise your profile a bit more and utilize extended features such as reduced booking fees, access to customer contact information, etc. For free members, GigSalad takes a 5% commission from gigs you book on their platform. I hate to pay other people for shows that I perform, but the client may not have found me otherwise, so it’s worth it. I have gotten lots of great offers on GigSalad.
Indie On the Move
Indie on the Move is one of the most tried and true websites for booking gigs. While they do offer a couple of paid plans, there is still quite a bit you can do for free. First of all, they have a couple of tools in their Availabilities section that can be effective. Using their Show Availabilities feature, you can search open show listings and reply to the ones you’re interested in. These tend to be a mix of venues looking to fill open spots, as well as touring bands looking for local support. If it’s the latter, you’ll most likely need a guaranteed draw, as they’re looking for you to bring the crowd for them. If you’re looking to fill specific dates in a given city, you can use the Band Availabilities feature and create your own listing, hoping that a venue will reply to your post.
What makes IOTM so valuable though is the fact that they have the most extensive venue database available online, hands down. And it’s FREE! Just choose a location (City and/or State) and you’ll get a list of venues that host live music in that given area. When you select one, you’re taken to their profile page where you’re given lots of useful information including the genres of music they prefer, their capacity, the days of the week they host live music, and most importantly, the talent buyer’s contact info. For the most part these are active and legit bookers, so as long as your music act is tight and your web presence is strong, you should be able to land some gigs this way. They also have a free Festival database that can be helpful, which essentially gives you links to lots of festival submission pages and beats having to find each one individually, but their list is limited.
If you’re dying to spend money on booking with no guarantees you’ll land a gig, then they’ve got some options for you too. They have a College database you can tap into with their $9.99/month Premium Plan. If you really want to get into the college circuit, which can be very profitable, we recommend getting connected with a booking agent that specializes in college shows. It is extremely difficult to get the attention of someone in the student activities department without one.
Related: The Musician’s Guide to Booking House Concerts
ShowSlinger
ShowSlinger is essentially a 3rd party booking site that was founded by a fellow musician out of Atlanta. Once you create a free Artist Account, you might start getting show offers e-mailed to you by ShowSlinger, in which you simply reply to accept or decline. After completing a gig, Showslinger compensates you via PayPal the next day. It’s really as simple as that. We ourselves use ShowSlinger and can attest that it does indeed work, as we’ve gotten about a dozen shows with them over the past year and a half.
Obviously you can’t just sit around and wait for show offers to appear in your inbox alone. With that said, they also have a Browse tool where you can search their venue database and submit to them with a simple click. We have not used this tool yet but from playing with it a little, their directory looks pretty slim. Also, you’re limited in how many submissions you can make with a free account.
Festival Net
If you’re hoping to get on the festival circuit, Festival Net is a database you can use to find any festival in any part of the United States. They have tons and tons of festivals listed. There’s also a fairly advanced search tool available on the site where you can search for specific festivals and music series events. You can also perform a search based on compensation, type of music presented, and more. Contact information is not available with the free version. But if you have a few minutes, you can do an outside search based on the information available and find the contact information yourself. With just a little time on your hands and a great booking pitch, this database offers valuable information you can use to book shows for yourself.
Related: You Can Generate Your Own Gig Leads…Here’s How
Do DIY
DoDIY.org is a platform dedicated to like-minded artists who host DIY style shows in various places such as radio stations, homes, record stores, etc. Spaces are listed by country and state. You can find contact information for each space for free right there on the site just by clicking on the various locations. It’s up to you to then send out an inquiry. If you can’t find anything there, someone in this community will probably know how to help you find what you’re looking for.
*MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT* Excerpt: The platforms in this lineup are some of the most popular on the market right now for booking paid music gigs. I’ve personally used most of these platforms and know people who have used the others. Out of all of these platforms, there are two I most definitely recommend. And there are a few of these that I’d personally stay away from... (This content is for Crafty Community Members Only. To unlock this content either login below or become a member. Memberships start at only $5 a monh)
BeatGig
BeatGig is a US-based platform that allows colleges, festivals, and music venues to see musician profiles and engage artists for paid performances. It is essentially a booking app intended to streamline the booking process for artists and for normal audiences. The company’s application discovers artists and provides their profiles with information, photos, music, videos, reviews, rates, and calendar on their platform thus eliminating the scheduling and negotiating process and helping secure payment transactions, helping artists and audiences with a place to connect easily find and book artists from all around the country.
ACE Music Booking Agency
ACE Music Booking Agency is another 3rd party booking site that helps people find musicians for their events i.e. parties, weddings, corporate functions, etc. It’s a lot like a dating site for event planners and music acts. Artists can sign-up for free to join their musician network, while event planners submit requests for certain types of acts. An ACE agent then reaches out to artists in their network that fit the event’s requirements with the opportunity for them to apply for the gig. Finally, the event planner picks from all the artists that applied and then together they can finalize an agreement. For $4/month, they’ll make you a Direct Member, allowing you to get first dibs on gigs, featuring you on their site, and so on.
Related: Use These Tricks to Book Follow-up Gigs at Every Show
ReverbNation
If you’re an active musician, a former musician, or have thought about becoming a musician, you most likely have already created a ReverbNation account. While most acts just use the site as a secondary artist page or EPK, they do also have a couple of features. There is one free plan and one paid plan that you can use to try and book shows. How effective they are is another question.
Their free feature is called the ‘Gig Finder’ tool, which can be a little misleading as it’s really just a venue database, similar to that of Indie on the Move, but with some major flaws. When you select a venue to contact, you are not given any of the useful information IOTM supplies like preferred genres, capacity, days they host music, and most importantly, who the talent booker is. Secondly, if you do send a message to a venue, our guess is that it doesn’t go directly to the venue’s talent buyer but instead to the mailbox in their ReverbNation account. So unless they are logging in every day, it’s quite possible your message could sit idle for a while.
They also have the Opportunities feature where you can search listings for all kinds of things, including live shows. The catch here is that in order to submit to any of these opportunities, you have to have their Basic Plan, which costs $12.95 a month.
SonicBids
When it comes to gig booking sites, SonicBids has probably been around the longest. They also seem to be the most infamous. While anyone can hop on their site and view a list of show opportunities using their ‘Find gigs’ feature, that’s about as far as you can go for free. If you want to actually apply to any of these shows, you have to have their ‘Gig Seeker Pro’ plan, which costs $19.99/month. On top of that, some of their gigs have an additional cost of up to $55, just to apply. We’re going to keep it moving but if for some reason you’re still considering them, this may give you some pause.
Your Social Media Platforms
Don’t be afraid to schedule posts that promote your live entertainment services. Be specific about what you offer and provide a link back to your booking page. Here are some examples of post themes you could try:
- Book us for your next event
- Did you know that we (insert special feature) at live shows?
- Do you know of any venues that we’d be a good fit for? Tell us in the comments.
- Reviews from people who have hired you previously.
- Create special sets for specific observance days (valentine’s, holidays, black history, etc.) and promote that you are available.
- Post about the types of gigs that you do.
- Post throwback pics of you performing at gigs and remind your audience that you are available.
Set up a routine of posting these once per month and you have at least six months worth of material. Double up on these and now you have a year of monthly posts you can schedule to promote your live entertainment services. You could also consider boosting these posts with paid advertising.
Surreal
Surreal is a booking management platform that offers musicians an easy way to consolidate their booking operations from EPKs, and calendars, to payments, and getting discovered by venues and talent buyers. Surreal, formerly known as Muso, offers a centralized system for venues and entertainers to communicate and work together. The upside for musicians is that there is potential to get discovered by venues through their public profile feature. Artists can set up public profiles that have the potential to expand networking reach and be seen by venues. The cost is free for artists to set up a profile. However, if you do end up booking a gig through Surreal, there may be a 15% ‘finders fee’.
The Bash
Previously known as GigMasters, The Bash is a platform specifically built for booking entertainment. Since 1997, GigMasters has been serving both the United States and Canada. GigMasters has over 20 years of experience and industry expertise. You can set up a profile and get gig leads automatically sent to you. Their platform is pretty simple and easy to use. The Bash is a paid platform. You have to pay an annual premium to be listed on their site. In addition, they charge a 5% booking fee for every gig you book.
Thumbtack
Thumbtack is not a music platform. It’s actually a platform to hire professionals in your local area to do random stuff. It could be anything like lawn care, massage therapy, house cleaning, and moving. It’s also quite handy for musicians too! As a musician, you can set up a profile on Thumbtack for free and wait for customers to contact you. Thumbtack’s platform is set up a bit differently than what you might expect. It’s a lead generation service. This means you have to pay a certain amount each week in order to get customer leads. Once contacted, it’s up to you to close the deal and get the gig. One of the cons of using Thumbtack is that you have no idea how many other artists are competing with you. Therefore, you could be paying for the same leads that other artists are getting as well. You can’t control the cost of a lead. In fact, as of July 2018, Thumbtack increased their lead prices which became a huge turnoff for a lot of their professionals using the service. Also, there’s no guarantee you’ll get the gig. On the other hand, the benefit of this approach is that you’ll get qualified leads – people who are looking to book entertainment for their upcoming event. They are private gigs, so your fees can be significantly higher compared to what you would be paid at a public venue. Should you use it? That’s your call. In my opinion, anyone who makes money on a marketplace platform such as this even if I don’t is suspect to me.
Craigslist
Most of us are familiar with Craigslist when it comes to buying and selling used products, but you can also use it to book gigs. People do post gig opportunities on there from time to time, the trick is finding them. The best places to look are under the Musicians page in the Community section. This section tends to cater to musicians looking for other musicians, but there may be some gig opportunities there. You can also look under the Gigs section in Creative, Event, and Talent, and under Art/Media/Design, etc./misc., and TV/Film/Video in the Jobs section. You’ll still have to weed through a lot of other stuff, but you might find something in there. You can also create your own posting for a ‘musician to hire for your next show or event’ and see if anyone contacts you. If anything you might get someone looking for live entertainment for their party. It can also be a good way to try and fill open dates on a tour.
Whether you’re looking for a festival gig, a DIY gig, or a traditional gig in a venue, the internet is a vast database you can use to find a gig. There are all sorts of databases, marketplaces, and search tools you can use to find gigs. We don’t recommend putting all your hope in this approach to generate gigs, but it can be a great supplement to any existing approaches you might already have. Be careful not to fall into any money traps. Some sites are simply out to make money whether you do or not. It’s up to you to decide which ones will work for you. Use the platforms on this list as a starting point. If you find more, let us know and we may just add them!
If you found this post helpful, you might also like…
+5 Elements of a Strong Booking Pitch to Get More Music Gigs
+5 Tricks to Boost Your Booking Efforts This Year
+Transform a Dead-End Pitch into a Winning One
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The Crafty Musician has a pulse on today’s music industry!
-Todd Barrow
Thanks Todd. I appreciate you being a part of our community!
I’ve had good experiences with Gigride
Thanks for the feedback Malcolm. That’s good to know. Where are you based?
Awesome post! Thanks for sharing and keep posting interesting ideas.
Hey Brian. Thanks for reading! We will do our best!
Ace Music Booking Agency – A total scam
They charge musician or band a nice nominal monthly fee, but then over 15% to the client who books them and tries to control every situation. They have no reviews that I can find and they do a great job of suppressing them to where only their ‘5 star’ reviews come up on their own website.
Customer service scolds you if you question them, constantly referring to their Terms and Conditions. Lots of lip service and they lose gigs more than book them it seems to me. A $950 gig for me is pretty big, but they do not seem to care. I must be small and ignorant because they are Very controlling and condescending. They enjoy scolding and bullying rather than booking gigs and resolving problems.
Hey Charles. Thanks for sharing. So it sounds like you’ve worked with them personally? Can you share some specifics? How are they condescending and scolding? What was your experience? Were you able to book a show with them? How did that go?
They only charge a little over $4 a month to have access to quotes. That’s nice so I decided to give them a try after getting some leads from them over the past couple years through their free sign-up. I have been paying and quoting since November with no bites.
There are two types of leads, ones you can contact directly via email, others are where they have a complicated system to quote by answering all of these questions. On the one hand it is good because they cover all the bases like, do you provide a mic for the client to use, charge or no charge AND do you take requests, beforehand or the day of, etc. HOWEVER, they leave no places to put notes for gray areas. I finally get my first bite. The client is interested and asking questions, like if I’d be able to play violin at their ceremony too. YES, I offer a discounted rate if you book me for the reception. HOWEVER, Ace has no way to relay that or they refuse, so you have to quote many different ways.
When you send messages through their system, they do not allow contact information, which is somewhat understandable. But when I quoted $850 and the client responds “The quote for 1,105$ includes both you and the female vocalist, time/travel and four hours of performance time?”
How do I respond to that? Ace has to get involved. It is a HOT MESS !
When I questioned this and how they do payouts and cancellations, they only refer you to their “terms and conditions” page. I am not a lawyer and they have so many scenarios that it makes your head spin where I only got to section 3 of 8. After several emails back and forth, where they were scolding me for not thoroughly reading ALL their “terms and conditions” they sent me the section that answered my question.
Keep in mind that I have NEVER booked a gig through them yet. If you were working somewhere and were asked a questions about something, would you not refer the person directly to the section in the first place?
ACE Very bad. I do not recommend them, but all the power to you. If you have better luck, let me know.
I used to use Thumbtack before they got crazy expensive and complicated. Then GigMasters(now the Bash) and they are okay, but kind of an antiquated system. Now I use GigSalad exclusively. They allow you to converse with potential clients without deleting and censoring your communications. GigSalad also has lower commission rates if you are a member. Only 2.5% They are very helpful and work on the honor system if you book a gig yourself and not through them, you pay the fee, but more bookings gets you better searches. It is worth it for only 2.5%
Good luck.
Thanks Charles for sharing your story. It sounds like their communication system is very complex which can lead to difficulties when booking. I personally have not had any experience with them, but I do use GigSalad and their system is very easy to use and modernized. So sorry you had that issue with Ace though.
Hi Anitra, Would like to provide a response to the comments regarding ACE Music Booking Agency. We are not a scam and yes, we do show like most agency websites, 5 star reviews from the musicians and clients that have booked live music with us.
Clients and musicians are able to communicate (simply and easily btw!) about the specifics of a booking before completion. We did refer the musician to our terms due to the nature of the response he gave to us and the client. We also provided simplified highlights of only the terms which related to his issue.
The various scenarios mentioned are actually the ways in which we protect musicians in the event of cancellation by the client even up to the point of the musicians receiving 100% payment!
We continued to try and help the musician (without being condescending and scolding) even after being told to “stick your terms and conditions where the sun don’t shine.” We really tried and we do care about every musician, client and booking.
Keep it crafty Anitra!
Hi Alice. Thanks for sharing your side of this situation. I’m sorry it went left for you both.