How can we help you?

Visit gignvenue.com and click "Sign up free" — browsing venues is completely free. Beyond browsing, you can create an artist/booker account to request real-time bookings, or a host account to list your venue. Each account type has its own dedicated dashboard with the tools relevant to your role.

Beyond free browsing, an artist account lets you submit real-time booking requests, message hosts, and manage your bookings from the artist dashboard. A host account lets you list venues, manage availability calendars, receive and review booking requests, and track earnings. You can have both types of accounts — just create separate accounts with different email addresses.

No. Anyone can browse the full venue catalog, filter by location and capacity, and view venue profiles without creating an account. An account is only required when you want to submit a booking request or message a venue host.

Search for venues on the main page, open the venue profile for any listing that looks right, and click "Request to book." You'll fill in your event details — type, date, expected attendance (up to the venue's capacity), and any notes — verify that you've reviewed the venue's terms, and check the numbers related to the nightly rental rate, including the 20% deposit and 5% booking fee — and submit! The host reviews your request and you'll receive a notification once they respond, usually within 1–2 business days.

Yes. You can send requests to multiple venues for the same date simultaneously — there's no penalty for doing so while you're still deciding. If a venue approves your request and you complete payment, any other pending requests you have for that same date are automatically cancelled and noted in your booking history — so you can revisit those venues for next time! You'll also see a heads-up about this inside the payment screen before you confirm.

Hosts are strongly encouraged to respond within 1–2 business days. If a host hasn't responded in that time, you're completely free, as always, to request other venues — and you can cancel a request at any time with no penalty to your account and no obligation to wait indefinitely.

Go to the Requests section in your artist dashboard and click Cancel next to any pending request. Pending requests can be cancelled at any time before approval with no charge. The request will move to your Cancelled tab — a handy record of venues that caught your eye, so you can always come back and request them for a future date. If a booking has already been approved and payment confirmed, cancellation terms depend on the venue's posted cancellation policy.

You'll receive a notification that your booking has been approved. You then have 48 hours to complete payment — a 20% venue deposit plus a 5% booking fee. Once payment is received, your date is locked and confirmed. If payment isn't completed within 48 hours, the approval expires and the date becomes available again on the venue's calendar.

Yes. When filling out your booking request, there's an optional file upload field for attaching your rider or tech spec as a PDF. The venue host can see it in their booking details panel. It's a great way to set expectations upfront and give the host a clearer picture of what you need on the night — before they even respond.

Yes. Click the heart icon on any venue card or inside a venue profile to save it to your Saved Venues. Access them anytime from the Saved Venues section in your artist dashboard. It's a great way to build a shortlist before you're ready to commit to a date.

Saving a venue also keeps you in the loop — when a venue you've saved posts a Featured Night (a proactively promoted date, sometimes at a special rate), you'll see an alert on your dashboard Overview so you can browse and request before the date is gone.

Your reliability score reflects how consistently you complete payment after a booking is approved. It's calculated as the percentage of your approved bookings that resulted in a confirmed payment. Venue hosts can see this score on your booking request — a strong score helps you stand out when a host is choosing between multiple artists requesting the same date.

Voluntarily declining a booking (through the Decline button in your dashboard) does not hurt your score — it simply shows an approval that didn't convert. Only letting an approval window expire without any action will reduce it.

If the 48-hour payment window expires without action, the booking is automatically cancelled and the date is released back to the venue. This affects your reliability score and triggers a warning on your account. A second missed window results in a 7-day pause on new booking requests. A third results in your account being flagged for review.

If you know you won't be proceeding, use the "Decline this booking" button in your Requests section to let the venue know right away — this frees their date immediately, notifies them with your reason, and does not trigger a strike on your account.

Yes — and it's always the right move if you've decided not to proceed. In your Requests section, approved-but-unpaid bookings show a "Decline this booking" button alongside the payment option. Click it, select a reason (funding fell through, booked elsewhere, tour cancelled, etc.), and confirm. The venue host is notified immediately with your reason, their date is freed up, and no strike is added to your account. It's a much better outcome for everyone than a silent expiry.

Coming soon. Tour Planner is one of our most requested features and it's in active development. It will let you add multiple stops (city + date) for an upcoming tour, browse available venues for each stop, and submit booking requests for all of them in one flow. When it's ready, it will appear in your artist dashboard. In the meantime, you can browse venues city by city and submit individual requests — and use "Suggest a venue" to nominate a venue in any market you're headed to.

Yes. After a booking is completed, you'll be prompted to rate your experience at the venue on three questions: was it as described, was the host communicative and professional, and would you book here again? You can add an optional short note. Your rating is published on the venue's public profile — helping future artists make informed decisions. You have 48 hours to revise it before it locks, and can leave a one-time written response to anything the venue adds.

Yes. Once your booking is confirmed and payment is complete, a "Download Agreement" button appears on that booking in your dashboard. It generates a printable document with both parties' details, the event date, nightly rate, deposit terms, and the venue's cancellation policy reference. It's a starting point — review it with your own counsel before treating it as a legally binding contract.

GigNVenue uses a split fee model. Artists pay a 5% booking fee on the listed nightly rate when they book — non-refundable, covering payment processing, platform infrastructure, and customer support. Venues pay their own 5% only after a show successfully plays off — no upfront cost, ever. That 5% is just a quarter of the deposit; the venue's 80% nightly rate is negotiated and collected on their own terms, entirely outside GigNVenue. Neither side pays until the platform delivers.

The deposit is 20% of the venue's listed nightly rate. It's collected by GigNVenue when you book and held securely until after your event. Within 24 hours of the show playing off, the deposit is released to the venue — GigNVenue's 5% platform fee (calculated on the nightly rate) is earned at that point, with the remainder going to the venue. The deposit is not GigNVenue's income; it acts as a security hold that protects both the artist and the venue.

When your booking is approved, you'll see a "Complete payment" button appear on that request in your dashboard. Clicking it opens a secure payment window showing your exact cost breakdown — deposit plus booking fee — right there in the page. Payment is processed securely via Stripe. You have 48 hours to complete payment before the approval expires.

Yes. Every venue profile has a "Message venue" button. You'll need to be logged in to use it. Pre-request messages appear in your message center with a "Pre-request" label so both you and the host can easily identify them. It's a great way to ask questions before committing to a formal request. Once a booking request is submitted, that label updates to reflect its current status — showing the request date, event type, and whether it's pending, approved, or confirmed — so the full context of your conversation is always visible alongside it.

From the moment a request or message is received, venue hosts can see your name, band name, and profile photo — and can click through to your full artist profile at any time. That means the work you put into your profile matters from the very first interaction. Think of it as your first impression before the host even responds. Your contact details — email and phone — are only shared after payment is completed, keeping your personal information protected until the booking is fully secured.

Head to the host portal and create a free account. From your host dashboard, click "Add new venue" and fill in your venue's details — name, location, photos, capacity, amenities, and nightly rate. Your listing goes live immediately. It takes about 10 minutes and listing is completely free.

All incoming requests appear in the Pending tab of your host dashboard's Bookings section. New requests are flagged with a "New" badge. Click "Details" on any request to open a full booking panel — including the artist's event type, expected attendance, notes, payment breakdown, and booking timeline. Use the status dropdown to move the request to Confirmed or Cancelled. When you confirm, the artist is notified and given 48 hours to complete payment.

The day after a GigNVenue-booked show, a green ✓ Confirm show played button becomes available in four places: your Overview (as a direct action item), the Confirmed tab in Bookings, the date cell on your Availability Calendar, and the Deposits in Escrow table in your Earnings section. Tap it once from any of these — your deposit is released and funds transfer to your account within 24 hours.

The button only appears for shows booked through GigNVenue. Shows you've added manually to your calendar don't involve a deposit held by us, so they don't need confirmation.

Yes. One host account can manage any number of venue listings. Each listing has its own profile, calendar, and booking history, all visible from your single host dashboard.

Every artist has a pay rate score — the percentage of times they completed payment after being approved. You'll see it as a small badge on each pending request card in your Bookings section. A green badge means they have a strong track record. Amber means there have been some missed windows. Red means a pattern of approvals expiring without payment or notice — worth factoring in when you're choosing between competing requests for the same date.

Artists who proactively decline a booking (rather than letting it expire) send their reason to you via the Messages section, which also reflects better on their score than a silent no-show.

Featured Night lets you proactively promote a specific open date — with an optional special rate and a short pitch to artists. Open your Availability Calendar, click any available future date, and select "Feature this night." You can set a reduced rate or keep your standard rate, and add a note up to 100 characters. Once posted, artists who have saved your venue will see an alert on their dashboard Overview. Your featured night runs for up to 14 days — until it's booked or you remove it early, whichever comes first.

Yes. Click any date in your Availability Calendar and select "Blocked" from the date options panel. Blocked dates are marked as unavailable and won't accept new booking requests. You can also set a recurring weekly block — for example, every Monday for the next 12 weeks — using the repeat option that appears when you block a date.

After you mark a show as played off, you'll be prompted to rate the artist on three questions: did they arrive and perform as expected, were they professional and respectful of the space, and would you book them again? You can add an optional short note. You have 48 hours to revise your rating before it locks. After that, you can add a one-time written response to any rating you receive from an artist. Artist ratings are visible to you when reviewing new booking requests — helping you make better, more informed decisions over time.

Coming soon. A full Analytics section is built and coming to your host dashboard. It will cover total requests received, confirmed bookings, conversion rate, total revenue, average nightly rate, top event types requesting your space, and monthly booking volume over the last six months. It will appear as a dedicated tab in your dashboard once it's enabled at launch.

Yes. Open any confirmed, paid booking from your Bookings section and click "Download performance agreement" at the bottom of the booking details panel. It generates a printable document covering both parties' details, the event date, the nightly rate, deposit breakdown, and a reference to your venue's cancellation policy. Have your legal counsel review it before signing.

Log in to your dashboard and navigate to the Profile section using the sidebar. From there you can update your name, artist or band name, bio, social links, and profile photo. Changes are saved immediately.

On the login page, click "Forgot password" and enter your email address. You'll receive a password reset link. If you're already logged in, you can change your password from the Profile section of your dashboard.