The median UK gig fee is £484. A pint is £4.83. So one gig is worth exactly 100 pints.

Paid work for emerging artists is rare enough to be worth passing on: showcase slots across Folkestone's grassroots venues, applications open until 17 August. #KentMusic #UKMusic #LiveMusic

Camden Records@camdenrecords.bsky.social · 2w ago

🎸 KENT & SOUTH COAST ARTISTS, DON’T MISS THIS! Play a paid showcase alongside the region’s best emerging artists and perform in front of new audiences at Folkestone’s grassroots venues. ⏰ Deadline: 17 August Apply 👉 https://www.compass-music.com/apply #UKMusic #LiveMusic

The Night Owl is exactly the kind of room the Midlands can't afford to lose, and it's now asking for public support to stay open. Venues like this rarely come back once they're gone. Worth a minute of your time. #Birmingham #LiveMusic #GrassrootsMusic

Birmingham Music Network@birminghammn.bsky.social · last wk.

The Night Owl says plans to expand the Bordesley Viaduct would 'put us at risk for closure' as it asks for public support. Digbeth music venue 'immensely shocked and stressed' as 'imminent danger' looms www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/mus... #grassroots #music #venue #music #musicians

134 gigs listed across the UK tonight. London 29, Glasgow 15, Liverpool 9, Manchester 8, Birmingham 7, Belfast 6. gigxchange.app/whats-on #MusicSky #LiveMusic #GrassrootsMusic

Made a starter pack for UK grassroots live music: venues, the unions and bodies, and the writers covering it. 45 accounts, all checked as still posting. Lots of venues signed up here in 2024 and never came back. Those are left out. https://bsky.app/starter-pack/naumaan.gigxchange.app/223msja2plzsc

My website started answering journalists' questions on its own this week. There's a standing promise on the /press page now: ask any UK live-music data question, get an answer the same working day, free to use, just credit us.

The Pipeline is a 60-cap room. That's the size where basically everyone starts, and the size with the least protection when the lease turns. Ten venues now community-owned. Good to see.

Music Venue Trust@musicvenuetrust.bsky.social · 2w ago

Since this conversation, The Pipeline has been secured by Music Venue Properties and is now the tenth grassroots music venue protected for generations to come. Because great music needs great venues.

Every act playing arenas this summer learned their craft in a room with 60 people in it. The grassroots levy asks that end of the industry to send £1 a ticket back down. 8.8% of shows signed up last year. Meanwhile the state is cutting venue rates 20% to keep those rooms alive.

Worth reading. One dimension the drinking data can't see: pubs are also the venue estate for grassroots live music. We list 1,100+ UK open mic nights, and checking them one by one we've found around 650 that had quietly stopped. Often the pub is still trading. The music just isn't on anymore.

Colin Angus@victimofmaths.bsky.social · 2w ago

My colleagues and I have some thoughts about Andy Burnham's proposals to save Britain's pubs as well as his suggestion to fund this through increased business rates on vape shops and bookies. (My alternative title 'Andy Burnham: Pub Messiah?' was sadly vetoed)

Shipped something I’ve wanted for months: you can now drive GigXchange from your AI assistant. Connect Claude or ChatGPT once, no keys or codes, then ask it to check your bookings, counter an offer or send an invoice. Off by default, and every action lands in your activity log.

Every cloud product is a convenience layer: repackage what’s underneath, add a margin. Agents have run the same model on musicians for decades, at 25-35%. GigXchange is that layer without the extraction: a stadium act’s back office for a solo act, at 5% or free.

Music should be fair. Love what Music Venue Trust are doing, and we're building GigXchange by the same ethos: no hidden algorithmic advantages, no one extracting an unfair cut from working musicians or the rooms they play. Let's look after the rooms that raised us.

Music Venue Trust@musicvenuetrust.bsky.social · 3w ago

Long after the posters have come down and the room looks different, there's always one venue that stays with them. The place where they first felt like a band. The same is true for the rest of us.

I'm a gigging guitarist and software engineer. For the past year I've been building GigXchange, a live music marketplace for the UK, around the day job. Most of the code is written by AI agents now, I review it and write the rules they work to. Going to post about what that's actually like.