GigSalad

I am extremely disappointed with this service. I asked for a musician/instrumentalist and was given a magician, fire juggler, cirque de solei and a robot type acts. Why did they ask what I wanted if they were going to ignore it.

After many wonderful experiences working with Gigsalad, I wanted to take this opportunity to share how professional and artist-friendly their service is. Their technology is superb and works incredibly well both in terms of helping clients book artist services to how they support individual artists. As a jazz guitarist who is both an individual performer and jazz trio, I could not be more pleased by my association with Gigsalad and certainly plan to continue this rewarding relationship as their web presence and design provides excellent leads and bookings.

I have used Gig Salad twice. The first time was a pleasure. The second time I had to cancel a few days after I booked the singer due to one of the guests being in the hospital for COVID. I in no way inconvenienced the performer, but they kept the whole $405 deposit. Be careful when booking if they ask for all of the money upfront. If you need to cancel, you WILL lose all of it.

Very easy to use, I'm on the free plan and still get quite a bit of leads. Tech support is also very helpful and courteous. Recommended!

This is my second year using GigSalad for Santa jobs. I highly recommend this site for job leads. The jobs were high quality and were truly inspiring.

Gig Salad is a platform that cares about us artists. Thank you for your valuable help in promoting and respecting our profession.

As an independent event entertainer, I use this site for booking leads, but I'm quickly learning that their fees are really, really high. Example: someone booked me for a gig where my total fee was $150. After GigSalad took their portion and deducted another fee for PayPal, my total was only $124.50 and they still charged the client an additional fee as well!
--And this isn't even their subscription service (I don't live in an area with clientele that could support the event fees required to make GigSalad's subscription anywhere near affordable.)

You also have to pay a fee to list other events on the site calendar, leading to booking leads you can't use because the time is already blocked (last check, that fee was between $5-8).

I either have to raise my prices to use this service (which will impact the number of clients I can help) or find another way to get my name out there.

If you're just starting out, it's a helpful way to find leads, but I wouldn't recommend this as a long-term plan.

Its a great site to find gigs. You only pay if the client accepts your quote.
It's user friendly and the customer service is great

Don't purchase the upgrade packages. They promise you will be at the top of searches and you will get more leads but you're not at the top and your leads are the same as a free account. They do not give refunds (even if you ask within 24 hours of purchasing) and there is no free trial. It's just a waste of money and I feel scammed. The free version is fine.

I honestly didn't expect much when I signed on for GigSalad. But I have been blown away by not only the amount of gigs I have landed, but also the service I have received from GigSalad. They are always extremely helpful and friendly any time I run into an issue. I started out with the FREE account and within a week or two had already received multiple leads. In January I decided to go ahead and pay for the highest level of booking. Less than 6 months in and I have 19 bookings with venues I would not have had otherwise. Thanks GigSalad. An incredible service for performers!

I didn't give it much thought and hope when I registered for a free account on GigSalad, thinking that it might be another platform like Thumbtack that will only get you leads (and fake leads) if you pay a lot of money. I was wrong, they actually much more user-friendly and vendor centric than Thumbtack! My experience with GigSalad has been good so far and I got booked four times within just two months. (Considering how busy I am with teaching).

When advertising as a paid pro, leads were adequate. Now I have a free listing, things are nonexistent.

As a professional Santa, this is the first year I have used any kind of booking service besides myself. GigSalad was highly recommended by many of my "Brothers in Red" It made it easier to reach beyond my local area without spending a lot of money on untested advertising.The online calendar made it much easier to stay organized and allows blocking out unavailable times as well as letting one add in self done bookings. GigSalad provides leads but doesn't commit to a booking. That is up to me entirely. I stay in control.

I have been an entertainer in the private events industry for over 12 years. My experience with the platform and its technicians has been nothing short of stellar! They really care about the artists that use their website for booking private events. I only wish I would have signed up with GigSalad sooner than just a few years ago. I greatly appreciate this group of people and will continue to highly recommend GigSalad to my peers and friends!

GigSalad is by far my biggest source of new leads every holiday season. They make it easy to message clients without committing to a booking, and if you pay to list with them, they do not even require that you book via their platform. I don't like that they don't provide the client's email address, EVER, at any stage of the booking process. I don't like the amount of the fees they will slap on top of quotes that I send to clients - it is extremely jarring and confusing to clients when they have negotiated a rate with me to then find out they are going to pay about 8% more (the amount/percentage is not consistent and they are not transparent about how much the fees will be, either). And finally, I don't like that there are no ways to send multiple options in GigSalad quotes.

That being said, they definitely deliver leads if you are paying for their highest listing level. Their SEO is very good and it makes a lot more sense for me financially to list with GigSalad than to try and keep up with changing SEO standards on my own website (I'm not a marketing or web design expert, I'm a musician!). Their customer service is pretty good although they don't really respond to suggestions, since I've made the "give us multiple options for quotes" suggestion many times, but they take care of transaction-related concerns right away.

Hired David Byrd and his band for a 4th of July house party. Showed up early to set up and started on time.
Music was VERY good
Breaks were tight and my guests were dancing all night
High quality and will have the band back

Paid for a singing telegram but they never showed up yet still said they did so Gigsalad refused a refund. Had to do a charge back instead. DO NOT RECOMMEND!

UPDATE: DO NOT TRUST THEIR REVIEW SYSTEM, they remove any unwanted legitimate reviews like mine.

The platform of gigsalad is great, but most requests from potential clients don't want to pay what you quote them. They are mostly looking for 2 to 300 dollar bands and they're event could be 200 miles away.

You will locate most any type, category, or style of entertainment for most any event need on Gigsalad. Musicians, Dancers, Artists, Comedians, etc. You will find options fitting most budgets. Thier online Artist -Client Agreement is simple, efficient and complete. Artist or Performer Payment process is convenient and safe.

I moved to Austin, TX 3 years ago. The music scene was genuinely intimidating to a newcomer. Gigsalad was recommended by a friend and I hopped on. Excellent idea. My band and I almost immediately began pulling bookings for private parties, corporate events, weddings and a lot of opportunities to even perform our own music.

The fact that you control your own quotes directly with the client makes it easy to grow and thrive at your own pace. In our case we started with a small PA and lighting system that was appropriate for backyard parties and small events. Thanks to the continued work we got from our gigsalad events we were able to reinvest in our infrastructure to include trailers, stage modules, PA and lighting systems and even a band vehicle leading to bigger, better paying opportunities.

I'm very grateful to the gigsalad platform. Their rates are quite reasonable, considering the potential and I keep food on my table largely because of this terrific service.

- Anders Drerup
Austin, TX

I've only just started (within the last week) my membership with GigSalad. To check them out, I went with the Free Membership option although I'm already considering one of their Paid Memberships for the near future. Setting up my Profile was easy and painless. One thing I really like is the ability to request, and have posted, reviews from previous Event Coordinators (even those not booked through GigSalad). Though I have not yet received a booking through GigSalad I'm looking forward to a long, lasting and successful partnership with them.

I had recently hired an company that advertised themselves on Gigsalad as a event services company. They promised me 2 wait staff and 1 bartender with specifics to whom would be attending with names and custom uniform sizes for my branded clothing to wear at my event. At the time of the event, the staff that I was promised did not show up except for one and that person had to change roles from wait staff to bartender last minute and didn't have any tool to do the job. The 2 fill-in wait staff came late and under dressed for the event and I had to purchase them plain uniforms last minute due to the event company "About Last Night" not communicating with them clearly. ALN had told the fill-in staff that uniforms would be provided at the event space, which was a lie since the uniforms as previously discussed were custom to the original staff they had promised and could not be used. During this time, "About Last Night" had not bothered to reach out to me to inform me of the situation so I was left to sort out everything during the event which affected the event negatively. They came ungroomed and didn't have the basic understanding of how to serve or prepare the food. I had to plate everything myself and the food was under cooked. When speaking to them afterwards, they had told me that "About Last Night" had called them the morning of and that it was their first day and they had no experience at all. "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" said they only received the last minute change 1 hour before the event which is also a LIE since the time to find new staff, New staff having time to clean up and get ready, and the travel time it took the new staff to get to the event location by public transit would take them at least 2hr 30min approx. Throughout the evening they had to be walked through every step and still made massive mistakes. Realizing afterwards that "About Last Night" tried to avoid Gigsalad's "Worry-Free Guarantee" by sending 2 able bodies to fill-in just so they can say they provided 2 servers and 1 bartender as agreed. BEWARE!
When emailing Gigsalad the details of the issues and that "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" did NOT provide what was agreed upon, they completely disregarded all of it and took the vendors side saying, "However, we do not manage, endorse, or sanction the vendors on GigSalad. Our Worry-Free Guarantee only covers refunds in the event of a no-show or a vendor cancellation; we do not consider the quality of service during disputes."
Since "About Last Night" had promised me that the staff would have their FOOD HANDLERS LICENCE, I had requested that the funds that they have held at the time that I had paid the invoice prior to the event to be held until the supervisor was back in the office and available to speak with me regarding this PENDING dispute. They then pushed the availability date of the supervisor, saying they would be out of the office until Dec. 4th which is a contradiction to the previous employee telling me that they are away and will be back on Monday Nov. 27th. Another person in the Gigsalad disputes team reached out and told me that they paid "About Last Night" the remaining balance that they held this morning (Nov. 27th). Totally avoiding any responsibility nor accountability for the the valid issues presented to them, Gigsalad supervisor avoids you, and their "WORRY FREE GUARANTEE" is a joke and there is a MASSIVE GREY AREA which "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" and "GIGSALAD" seem so take advantage of and condone. On top of that "About Last Night" messaged me several hours after the event telling me that I owe more money. They completely avoided providing me with the FOOD HANDLER LICENCE for the fill-in wait staff and in my opinion "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" has breached the agreed contract, and GIGSALAD stands behind them.

If you do hire a service off this platform and you have any issues, Gigsalad will tell you that you can leave a REVIEW! What a joke...

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND GIGSALAD TO ANYONE! BUYER BEWARE!

Also, I believe that since they are based in the States they are not a good fit to supply Canadians.

My big beef with Gig Salad is they charge either a commission per gig or a yearly advertising fee, but then they publish reviews, at times erroneous bad reviews, and leave them up there even when you have evidence that the customer is gaming their system to get a refund or discount. So you pay to be "promoted" and then have to tolerate being bad mouthed from scammy customers who damage your reputation and you have no recourse. Second beef is they pit vendors against each other for bids. This practice attracts a lot of cheapskates, time wasters and looky-loos, only looking for a cheap price. "Leads" but very poor quality leads. Gig Salad condemns itself with its own stats - on my profile, since 2011, it says I have had over 5600 profile views and over 2000 inquiries but only 15 bookings. This company seems to be comprised of techies that are good at Google algorithms so their site ranks high in the search results. For that reason I leave my free profile up and pay the commission on the infrequent gig I do get from them. But their policies are NOT vendor friendly... you waste a lot of time with inquiries looking to spend amateur money on professional services. The irony is, when you have a problem, the 'help' screen says to write to a member of their 'customer happiness team.' Customer happiness my rear end. The help desk responses are patronizing and do not address the issue you ask about. I have gone back and forth with a 'customer happiness' team-let that just repeatedly sends canned responses but does not answer my question.