Book gigs online — find venues, apply, negotiate, and get paid in one place
Find venues, apply for gig opportunities, negotiate fees, and track payments — all in one platform. TYFRA Live has 500+ venues and 10,000+ gigs booked. Start free.
Booking gigs has always required the same things: knowing which venues are right for your sound, getting in front of the right person, agreeing a fair fee, and making sure what was agreed actually happens on the night. What has changed is the infrastructure around those steps — and the gap between musicians who use it and those who don't.
Most gigging musicians still manage their bookings from a combination of Instagram DMs, email threads, PDF attachments, and a spreadsheet nobody updates consistently. That works until it doesn't — until the rider gets lost, the deposit never arrives, or two shows end up on the same date.
This page covers how to book gigs properly: finding the right venues, making a strong application, negotiating a fair fee, and managing the booking through to payment. TYFRA Live handles the full workflow in one place. The 10,000+ gigs already booked on the platform are what that looks like in practice.
Finding the right venues
The first challenge of booking gigs is not getting a yes — it's identifying the right venues to approach. Pitching the wrong room wastes your time and the venue's. Pitching the right room at the right moment is straightforward.
What makes a venue right for you
Genre fit is the most obvious factor — a venue known for electronic music is unlikely to book an acoustic folk act regardless of how well the pitch is written. Capacity is the second: a venue that holds 500 people and sells tickets does not want an act that currently draws 40. The right room is one where your audience fits the venue's audience and your draw matches the room's expectations.
Location matters less than most artists assume in the early stages. A strong show at a small venue in a city you have never played is worth more than a mediocre show at a bigger room you are not ready for. Start where the fit is right, not where the room is prestigious.
Using TYFRA's venue directory
TYFRA Live's venue directory lists 500+ venues with enriched profiles — capacity, amenities, operating hours, photos, and reviews. You can filter by genre, location, and capacity. Each venue profile shows upcoming opportunities, so you can see whether a venue is actively booking before you approach. Follow venues to receive alerts when new opportunities are posted.
Verified venue badges confirm that the listing has been validated. Artist and venue reviews build a real reputation layer on both sides: venues build track records based on how they treat artists, and artists build performance histories that venues can check before booking.
How the gig opportunity and application process works
Venues on TYFRA Live post gig opportunities specifying what they are looking for: genre, date, capacity, payment structure, and any specific requirements. Artists browse opportunities, filter by what suits them, and apply with a proposed fee and message.
What a strong application looks like
The application is a pitch. Venues receive many. The ones that get responses quickly are the ones that make a venue's decision easy.
That means: a clear, specific message (not a generic template), a proposed fee that reflects the room and the market rate, a professional artist profile that gives the venue everything they need without them having to ask — genres, location, social links, performance history, and auto-enriched Spotify and Apple Music data that shows your streaming presence in context.
What venues are looking for varies by room. A small grassroots venue wants to know you will draw some kind of crowd and play well. A larger venue with a booking team wants to see a track record, professional documentation, and evidence that the logistical side of working with you will be straightforward.
Negotiation — how counter-offers work
After you apply, the venue can accept, reject, or counter-offer. TYFRA Live tracks the full negotiation history — every offer and counter-offer is recorded, so both parties have a clear record of how the agreed fee was reached. Once both sides agree, the application converts to a confirmed booking with all details locked in.
Venues can also send direct booking proposals to artists — bypassing the application process entirely for artists they want to approach proactively. You receive a notification, review the proposal, and accept, negotiate, or decline.
Managing the confirmed booking
A confirmed booking is not the end of the process — it is the beginning of the management phase. Everything between the confirmation and the show needs to be handled: riders, contracts, logistics, and the financial tracking.
The contract
TYFRA Live auto-generates a contract from the booking details using your customisable template. Both the venue and the artist sign digitally. Version control tracks any changes. Contract status is visible at all times: Draft, Pending Signatures, Signed, or Void. The signed contract and all associated booking documentation live inside the booking record — not in an email thread.
The rider
Your technical and hospitality rider templates are attached to the booking. The venue receives them digitally, reviews, and confirms acceptance or flags anything they cannot provide. All of this happens inside TYFRA Live — no separate email, no attachment, no "did you get the rider I sent?" conversation. See the gig rider template for a practical starting point.
Travel and logistics
For any show that requires travel, TYFRA Live lets you build a detailed itinerary: flights, trains, or car bookings; accommodation with check-in and check-out times and room assignments; crew logistics; and a document store for tickets, confirmations, visas, and insurance. Full timezone support so schedules are accurate for all parties regardless of location. Planning multiple dates across different cities? See the independent artist touring guide.
Day sheets and schedules
The day sheet is generated automatically from the booking details — load-in, setup, soundcheck, doors, performance, changeover, and load-out, all with start and end times. Both the venue and the artist have their own view of the schedule. No more "what time did we say soundcheck was" on the morning of the show.
Tracking payment from deposit to settlement
The money side of a confirmed booking has three stages: the deposit, the balance, and the settlement. TYFRA Live tracks all three.
Deposit
The deposit is the financial commitment that confirms the date. Record it in TYFRA Live when it is received — payment method, amount, date — and upload proof of payment. Your booking record shows immediately whether the deposit is paid, partial, or outstanding. Across multiple active bookings, you can see your entire deposit status at a glance.
Balance payment
The balance — the remainder of the agreed fee after the deposit — is tracked the same way. Paid on the night, paid within 30 days, or paid via invoice through TYFRA Finance. The payment method and date are recorded. The booking is not financially closed until the balance is marked received.
Settlement
The settlement confirms what was paid, when, and in what form. TYFRA Live's audit trail provides this automatically — every payment action is logged with a timestamp. If there is ever a question about whether the correct amount was paid and when, the record is unambiguous.
Financial summary per show
Every confirmed booking has a financial summary: projected revenue (the agreed fee), actual income (what was received), expenses by category (travel, accommodation, crew, equipment, marketing), and profit/loss calculated automatically. Export for accounting and tax purposes. Over a year of consistent shows, this data becomes a clear picture of which types of bookings are genuinely profitable and which are not.
What TYFRA Live is and what it is not
TYFRA Live is a booking management platform. It handles the discovery, application, negotiation, documentation, scheduling, and financial tracking for live bookings. It is not a ticketing platform — it does not sell tickets to audiences. It is not an agency — it does not negotiate on your behalf. It is the operational infrastructure that makes a live career manageable at scale.
For artists with a booking agent, TYFRA Live is where the confirmed bookings your agent secures are managed — contracts, riders, logistics, and payments all in one place. For artists booking themselves, it is the entire workflow from first contact to final payment.
How TYFRA Live connects to the rest of your music career
A gig booked through TYFRA Live is connected to the rest of the platform. Income from the show flows into Finance alongside your Marketplace sales and streaming royalties. The audience at the show can follow you on Social. The tracks you played live are stored in Vault. Promo analytics can show you which cities your music is resonating in before you route a tour — play where the data already shows an audience.
Every part of your music career should inform every other part. A gig is not just a gig. It is a data point, an audience interaction, a financial record, and a content opportunity — all at the same time.
Related on TYFRA
Common questions
Browse the venue directory to find venues that fit your genre and capacity level. Follow venues to receive alerts when they post new opportunities. On the opportunities feed, filter by genre, location, date, and payment to find shows that match where you are in your career. Apply directly with your proposed fee and a message — the venue receives it immediately and can accept, counter-offer, or decline.
No. TYFRA Live is designed for artists booking themselves as well as those working with agents. If you have a booking agent, they can manage confirmed bookings through TYFRA Live on your behalf. If you are self-booking, the full workflow — finding opportunities, applying, negotiating, managing documentation and payments — is in one place.
Yes. Venues can send direct booking proposals to artists, bypassing the application process. You receive a notification, review the proposal terms, and accept, negotiate, or decline. Building a strong artist profile and performance history on TYFRA increases the likelihood of receiving inbound proposals.
After you apply with a proposed fee, the venue can accept your terms, reject the application, or make a counter-offer with a different fee or conditions. You can then accept or counter again. The full negotiation history is recorded — every offer from both sides with timestamps — so there is no ambiguity about how the final agreed terms were reached.
Gigmit and Sonicbids focus on the booking and opportunity discovery side — finding shows and managing applications. TYFRA Live covers those areas and adds the full booking management workflow: contract generation, rider management, travel logistics, per-show financial tracking, guest list management, and integration with your music catalog, promotion, and finances. It is a complete booking management system rather than a discovery and application tool.
The booking record stays permanently — contract, rider, financial summary, payment proof, guest list, setlist, and performance notes. This builds your performance history on TYFRA, which is visible to venues considering booking you. The financial data exports for accounting and tax purposes. If a payment dispute ever arises, the audit trail provides the documentation.
There is a free tier available. The full platform — Live, Vault, Promo, Contracts, Finance, Social — is £9.99/mo. See pricing for current plan details.
Your data flows with you across TYFRA
These aren't separate apps. Your tracks, metadata, splits, contacts, and conversations stay connected—so every tool in the TYFRA suite can work from the same source of truth.