How do you put on your own gig?

Why put on your own gig at all?

Because you control the things that make a night work: who's on, what it feels like, when it happens and who gets the names at the end. When you wait to be booked, you often end up on a mixed bill where nobody shares an audience, and those nights do very little.

Across our community, running your own night has been a route of its own, especially for artists who find it hard to get booked: electronic acts, alt-pop and anything niche. The nights that worked were small and specific: a women-led electronic night a few times a year, an alcohol-free rave, a listening party for a new release, a feedback session where artists played new songs to each other. One themed night sold out because it matched something its audience already loved doing.

What kind of night should you put on?

Start with the people, then the venue. Who already likes your music, and what would make them leave the house on a weeknight?

• A theme or a format that's easy to explain in one line: a launch, a listening night, an early show that ends by ten, an acoustic night in a café.
• A scene you belong to, run with other artists from it, so everyone on the bill brings their own people.
• A regular slot if you can, such as the first Thursday of the month, so people learn to expect it.

If you can't say who it's for in a sentence, the poster won't be able to either.

How do you find a room and agree the deal?

Pick a room smaller than you think. Fifty people in a room for sixty feels like a great night; fifty in a room for two hundred feels empty. Pubs with a back room, cafés, bars, arts centres and small venues all hire rooms out.

Ask the room what the deal is, and get it in writing. Most fall into a few shapes:

• Room hire: you pay a fixed fee and keep the ticket money. The most risk for you, and the most upside.
• Bar guarantee: no hire fee, but the venue expects a minimum amount of drinks to be sold, and you pay the difference if it isn't.
• Ticket split: the venue takes a share of the ticket money instead of a fee.
• Free room: some bars give a quiet night away to anyone who brings people in. Ask what happens if you don't.

Whichever it is, ask what's included: the sound system, a sound engineer, someone taking tickets, the time you can get in and the curfew. The Musicians' Union's advice applies here too: make sure there are no hidden deductions for things like the PA, lights or promotion. A short email that both sides reply to with "agreed" is enough. Our booking email tool can help you write the first one.

Do you need a licence to put on a gig?

Usually not, if you use an ordinary licensed venue. In England and Wales, the government's guidance says you don't need a licence for live music between 8am and 11pm, at premises licensed to sell alcohol, for an audience of up to 500. Unamplified live music between those hours doesn't need one anywhere. Outside those limits, the venue needs the right licence, so check with them, and check your local council's rules if you're in Scotland or Northern Ireland, or using somewhere that isn't a licensed venue.

The venue normally holds the licence to play music, so you don't need your own. If you write your own songs, report your setlist to PRS for Music after the show. As the person putting the night on, you share the job of making sure setlists get sent in, so remind the other acts to report theirs too.

How do you make sure you don't lose money?

Write the numbers down before you agree anything. One page is enough:

> The night on one page (copy this) > Costs: room or guarantee £___ · sound engineer £___ · ticket desk £___ · posters and printing £___ · any fee you've promised the other acts £___ > Ticket price: £___ > Break-even = total costs ÷ ticket price = ___ tickets > Who's bringing people: you ___ · act 2 ___ · act 3 ___ · regulars ___ > If "who's bringing people" adds up to less than the break-even number, change something now: a smaller room, a cheaper deal, another act, or a later date.

Agree with the other acts how any money left over is shared before the night. Keep a little back for the sound engineer if they're not covered by the venue. They make or break the night.

How do you build the bill and fill the room?

Choose acts whose fans would like each other, and who'll actively ask their own people to come. That matters more than how big they are. Two or three acts is usually plenty for a small room.

Then treat ticket sales as a job everyone on the bill shares. In our experience, most tickets for small nights are sold person to person in the last ten days, and our gig promotion guide covers that part in full: who buys, what to post, and the one message that sells more than any post.

What do you do on the night?

• Arrive early with a list: the running order, the set times, the ticket price and who's on the guest list.
• Start on time and finish on time. Curfews are real, and running late is the fastest way to lose a room.
• Take names. Lists only grow where someone collects them in the room. Put a sign-up sheet or a code by the entrance and by the merch, and say it from the stage. Our email list guide has the wording.
• Thank the venue and settle up the same night, in writing, so the next booking is easy.

Then put the date of the next one on sale while people still remember this one.

Where this fits

Running your own night is part of the live stage of artist development, and for some artists it's the quickest way in. If you'd rather be booked, how to get gigs as an independent artist covers finding promoters. How to promote a gig covers the three weeks of selling tickets. Your email list guide covers what to do with the names you collect.

• Artist development: what it is, what it costs, and how to tell it's working
• How do you promote a gig and sell the tickets?
• How to get gigs as an independent artist: the first rooms
• How do you build an email list as a musician?
• How to get your first 1,000 fans (not streams)
• How do independent artists make money?
• Artist development for bands
• Booking email builderfree tool

Questions artists ask