How To Book Live Musicians…
A bit unsure about what to expect when booking musicians for an event? Maybe this is your first time and you’re not sure where to start? Worry not! Here is everything you can expect, a FULL run-down of your booking with Music Students for Hire…
First things first…
Do you already have an idea of the kind of musicians / genre of music you want at your event? Have a listen to our samples pages here to get a feel for the different possible line-ups and styles available.
Our most common bookings are for string ensembles, usually either quartets or trios (have a read of our top tips here). Because of this, we are able to offer a vast list of options care of our extensive strings library.
MSH string trio
MSH string quartet
Next most popular after strings are jazz and soloist bookings…
Jana jazz
Ed
Fancy something a bit more individual / bespoke to create your unique vibe? We take enquiries for our singers and bands on an individual basis as they really come down to individual personal taste. Have a listen to our singers here and bands here and get an idea for which acts you particularly like. If possible, let us know the exact timings in the day you would need them so we can get you as accurate a quote and availability as we can.
The Bears - party band
Seb - singer guitarist
Next stop, ENQUIRE
If you click here, you will be taken to our enquiry form. To give you an accurate quote, we will need to know: the type of musician you have in mind, any ideas / preferences around repertoire, your confirmed date and location of venue, how long you will need the musician for, and an idea of your budget is always useful for us to have – then we can make relevant suggestions that would fit.
It is useful to keep in mind that the bookings include the total amount of time the musicians is needed, rather than just playing time. So even if the sets will have a break in between them, the timings that really count are the start time (after setting up) and finish and pack down time.
Now you’ve done all the work you need to do, sit back with a cup of tea and put your feet up while our quote will quickly appear in your inbox…
The Quote
Our quote will give you the total fee needed for your preferred line-up, splitting out the live music fee and the musicians’ travel expenses, including VAT and with no hidden / surprise fees. Let us know how it fits into your budget! We are always happy to explore different options if you’d like to discuss them.
Do you have any specific repertoire in mind? Let us know if you have any special pieces you know you really want at this point – we can go away and have a look for the sheet music.
Even if we can’t find it you are covered – we have an amazing in-house composer who can arrange the sheet music specially for you, usually at an additional £40 - £60 depending on the piece in mind, line-up and how close the event date is.
Confirmation
Great! You’ve worked out exactly what you want and the price fits into your budget. The next step is the deposit.
We ask for 50% of the fee as a deposit to secure the booking. Let us know if you want to go ahead and we can send all of the payment information and invoice over to you – whether by credit card payment (via Stripe) or bank transfer, whatever is most convenient for you.
Once received, we will class your booking as confirmed and send you over the confirmation details, including the extra information we need from you.
Reminders / Details
Closer to the date (depending on how far away it is) we will send you a form for all of the details we need from you: contacts to pass onto the musicians, parking availability, refreshments availability, your repertoire choices, and any other information the musician would find useful.
21 days before your booking, an automated reminder will arrive in your inbox, including all the data we currently have and most importantly your musicians’ point of contact details. You will also receive an out of office hours contact number for us, just in case of the unlikely circumstance that you can’t get in touch with your musicians on the day.
The reminder simultaneously goes out to your musician – thus everything is sewn up several weeks in advance! So you can sit back and put all the organisation out of your mind, we have it all in hand.
The musicians will also get another reminder of the booking details 3 days beforehand, so they will be very clear on all of the specific requirements and information needed.
After you have had the best musical experience of your life at your event, we ask for the balance payment 1 business day afterwards. Of course it can be settled beforehand if more convenient for you, just let us know and we can sort that out for you.
What if my musician pulls out?
Worry not! The beauty of booking with agency such as us is that if the unlikely circumstance of a musician having to cancel ever happens, we can find you another, equally as fabulous, replacement with no change to your booking details, merely some different point of contact details which we will send over to you as soon as possible.
Now you know exactly what you can expect from our booking process, DROP US AN ENQUIRY! We are prepped and so ready to get that booking in. the. bag.