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Arrive Gigging Guidelines

Category: Articles, Performer Guides Tags: Communication, guidelines

So, you’ve received your first booking through ARRIVE. You’ve discussed the details with the client and you’re ready to go. 

How can you make sure your booking goes smoothly and you get that all-important 5-star review after the gig? We use four criteria to help you earn great reviews for your performances. You can see how you’re doing by checking these star ratings on your profile.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro, or just starting out, we strongly suggest that you read these guidelines before taking your first booking on Arrive.

Satisfaction

  • Keep your profile up-to-date. When a client books you for a gig, they want to know that the talent they are booking matches the performance they see and hear on your profile.
  • Stick to the brief. You might be the greatest concerto soloist on earth, but if the client has asked for background music for their restaurant then you should probably reign in the Rachmaninov for now. The best professionals are those who are able to adapt to the needs of their clients.
  • Exceed expectations. People book musicians and other performers for some of the most important events in their lives. This may be just another gig for you, but for them, it’s a day they’ve spent months – maybe years –planning. Here are a few ideas for how you can go the extra mile to ensure the musical side of their event is as perfect as possible.
  1. Ask for song requests or their favourite artists in advance
  2. If appropriate, consider getting the audience involved
  3. Be considerate if it’s clear the event organizer is stressed

Professionalism

Behind every great talent is a work ethic of the utmost professionalism. Allow yourself plenty of time before your gig to prepare and practice. 

  • Preparation. Do you need to source any sheet music or equipment prior to the booking? Do you know the dress code for the event? Have you made travel and eating arrangements? In the words of Scar from The Lion King: “be prepared”.
  • Practice. While all musicians are busy people, the best professionals make time to thoroughly practice the music they perform before a booking, regardless of its difficulty. Your focus should be on delighting your audience with a brilliant performance, not on reading the notes.
  • Work ethic. Even though everyone around you may be letting their hair down, you’ve been booked and paid to provide a professional service, so be punctual with your breaks and remember that even during setups and breaks you’re on show.

Communication

Responding quickly and politely to your clients shows them that you are an attentive and considerate performer. 

  • Timely responses. Your average time taken to respond to client messages is recorded as your response time. This is shown to clients when you apply for jobs. Clients using Arrive tend to expect fast responses, so talents with lower response times are typically booked more frequently than others.
  • Confirm everything in writing. If you take a phone call with a client, help both of you keep accurate records by sending a follow-up message summarizing what has been discussed.
  • Keep your client updated. If you need to make a change to your booking, such as an alteration of the line-up or set timings, let the client know as soon as possible. 
  • Keep your client updated. If you need to make a change to your booking, such as an alteration of the line-up or set timings, let the client know as soon as possible. 
  • Be courteous. Make sure you maintain a polite and courteous tone of voice throughout your communications with a client. It might sound obvious, but just being nice makes a big difference.
  • Download the Arrive app. Download the Arrive app on Android or iOS so that you can respond to messages anywhere.

Keep in mind: If your response time is too high, your profile may be not be displayed to clients.

Punctuality

Make sure your client never has a reason to suspect you’ll not arrive on time. As Woody Allen once said, “80% of life is just showing up”. 

  • Always aim to arrive early. Everyone knows a musician who is always early for gigs and rehearsals – they’re instantly memorable as being reliable and trustworthy. Make sure you’re one of them. 
  • Stick to your setup and performance times. Make sure you begin and end your performance on time and allow plenty of time to set up.
  • Overtime. Unless agreed with the client beforehand, you are under no obligation to continue performing longer than specified in your Arrive booking. If your client asks you to extend your performance by more than 10 minutes beyond the originally agreed finishing time, you are entitled to organize additional payment from the Client at their discretion. (See Clause 9 of our Musician Terms for the full details.)
  • Late arrival. If for some unavoidable reason you know that you will be late, you should call the client to let them know immediately.

Keep in mind:

If you arrive more than 15 minutes after the agreed arrival time for a booking and no acceptable reason such as injury or car breakdown is given, this is counted as a No Show (see Clause 7 of our Musician Terms for the full details). Your fee will be refunded in full to the client, and you may be charged up to 50% of the value of your performance fee as compensation. Your account may also be suspended or removed from the Arrive platform. 

Overall review score

This is an average of all four criteria and is displayed next to each review message on your profile. An average of your Overall review scores is the star rating which appears at the top of your profile and in search results. 

Keep in mind:

If you repeatedly receive low overall review scores, then your account may be disabled or removed from the Arrive platform.

Bonus tips

  • Point of contact. Make sure that you have a phone number for a point of contact at the event itself who you can contact at any time. Note: often this is not the client themselves.
  • Food and drink. Communicate with the client in advance to check if you will be provided with food or refreshments. 
  • Venue requirements. Check in advance if you require anything at the venue such as a nearby parking, music stands, lightings, or access to plug sockets. 
  • Code of Conduct. By accepting a booking you are agreeing to the Arrive Code of Conduct, a document outlining the very minimum level of conduct Arrive must adhere to when carrying out a booking.

10 Top Tips for a Successful Performer Booking

Category: Articles, Hiring Musicians – Booking Guides Tags: sound, top 10

So, you’ve got your a performer booked for your event. You’ve made your payment so you don’t have to worry about cash on the day, you’ve confirmed when and how they’ll get there and depart, and they know exactly what style of music to perform. But what about the day itself?

10 Top Tips for a Successful Performer Booking

Here’s our guide to making sure you have a perfect working relationship with your performers.

1. Single point of contact:
If you’re likely to be busy on the day of the event, make sure that the performers have a single point of contact on the day who they can talk to if they have any problems.

2. Food and drink:
Particularly if they are performing for a long time, performers will expect to have access to drinking water nearby. If it is a large event, a nice touch is often to provide performers with some food or drink. Arrive performers are discouraged from accepting alcohol for the duration of their booking.

3. Toilet facilities:
This one is common sense. No one wants a gap in the music because they weren’t told where the toilets were beforehand…

4. Requests and sing-alongs:
Though some musicians will be happy to take requests on the day, most prefer to receive some notice so that they can plan the song or piece as part of their set. We would recommend that requests are made in advance if possible.

5. Venue equipment and facilities:
To allow the event to run smoothly, make sure the performer know if the details of the venue’s sound equipment beforehand (if it has any). For example, a piano or PA system. If your musicians are performing outside, ensure the area is sheltered from rain and sun.

6. Breaks:
Make sure you’ve discussed when your performers would like to take a break. Most performers will not want to play longer than an hour at a time without a 15 minutes break but they will be open to discussion.

7. Performance space:
Make sure the performers are aware of where they will be performing beforehand, particularly if it is outdoors or indoors.

8. Sound limits:
Make sure you check if your venue has a sound limit and relay this to the musicians beforehand.

9. Leave a review:
Reviews are essential for performers and help them secure bookings in future. Please help keep Arrive booking community trustworthy and transparent by reviewing you performers.

10. Tips:
These are not typically expected but may be accepted at the discretion of the performer

Arrive Guide to Booking a Performer

Category: Articles, Hiring Musicians – Booking Guides, Wedding Planning

Once you have submitted your inquiry, you’re ready to begin managing your booking. Here’s how it works:

Guide to Booking a Performer

1. Receive applications

  • Once you’ve submitted your inquiry, you’ll be taken to your inquiry page – this is your unique webpage from which you’ll be able to manage the booking from start to finish. 
  • You’ll then shortly begin receiving applications from available performers.
  • You can then compare your applicants by:
  • Listening to their recordings.
  • Viewing their profiles.
  • Creating a shortlist of your favourites.

2. Communicate with your performers

  • Though recordings and performers profiles do help when you’re deciding who to book, you’ll want to get in touch with your favourites before making your final decision.
  • On your Enquiry page, you can send messages or request phone calls with performers.
  • Sometimes after negotiating with a performer, their original quote might need to be changed.

3. Book your favourite

  • Once you know which artist(s) you’d like to book, click the green “Book now” button on their application card and complete the form which pops up by entering your payment details. This will send a message to the artist asking them to confirm that they are able to commit to this booking. Learn more about sending a Booking request here. 
  • Please note: no booking is secured until you have sent a Booking request.
  • If you would like to book more than one artist, simply click the “Book now” button on your chosen a performer’s application cards.

4. The performer makes the next move…

  • The performer will then be prompted to accept or decline your booking request.
  • Once the performer has accepted your booking request, your payment will be taken and held securely by our industry-standard payment provider, PayPal. This payment will then be released to the performer three working days after your event. 
  • If you book more than a month in advance of your event, we take 35% of your total fee as a deposit and transfer the remaining 65% closer to the time of the event.
  • If you book less than a month in advance of your event, we take your full fee upfront.
  • At this point, the contact details of you and your booked performers will be automatically exchanged, so you can keep in close contact right up until the gig.
  • You’ll also automatically receive an invoice. 

5. Enjoy the performance!

  • Make sure you stay in close contact with your booked performer right up until the event. You can find our guidelines on how to manage performers at your event here.
  • Sit back and relax – all payment will be transferred automatically by Arrive after the gig so you don’t need to worry about cash in hand or writing cheques.

6. Review your performer(s)

  • You’ll receive an email prompting you to review the performers you booked. 
  • Please review them at your earliest convenience by leaving star ratings and a short note describing your experience of their performance.
  • Note: reviews are very important to our performers and help ensure that the Arrive platform remains a trusted and transparent service for booking performers.

That’s it – if you follow these six simple steps you should have no problem at all booking performers through Arrive!

To book again, simply head back to Arrive.Live We hope to see you again soon!

5 Tips to Ensure Your Profile is ready

Category: Articles, Performer Guides Tags: photos, songs, Testimonials

1. Request for reviews

In this era of information sharing, clients will look to see what your former clients had to say about your performance. Through verified Arrive reviews, you will be steps closer to landing a customer. Of course, you have to complete bookings via the Arrive platform if you are to get a review. For this reason, if you completed a booking on the Arrive platform and the client didn’t leave a review, reach out to them to have them write one.

2. Videos of your performances

Most performers will hire a video shooting crew to shoot a promo video. They then stop at this. Oblivious to many, customers are actually after live videos to guide them in making the decision to hire you. They realize that promo videos are in most cases shot and edited in a studio so it might not be a fair representation of what you can offer when live. For this reason, ensure that you add any live videos you may have (especially those not on Arrive). Additionally, in your next performance, invest in a good camera and a portable mic for good sound or you can do it on a phone. However, ensure you have permission from the event’s organizer before you ensue

3. Testimonials from outside clients

Testimonials are the quotes that you get from existing clients or customers who you booked outside the Arrive platform. They are further proof of what you can offer. However, ensure that you have recent testimonials as these will show customers that you’re active

4. Song lists of songs you perform

You probably play a wide range of events including weddings, private events among other functions. Customers will want to see your group’s Song List to determine your style and to also see if you play their favorite songs. For this reason, having a big song lost will give a potential customer more choice and increase your chances of getting hired.

5. Photos

Photos also work towards helping the customer understand your style when performing. For this reason, include as many photos as possible on your Arrive profile, especially recent ones to guide the customers into selecting you for their next event.By having a fresh profile on Arrive, you actually improve your ranking plus your customers see that you are active. If you are yet to join Arrive, register and have your group’s site promoted to venues and the general public in North America

Guide to Hiring Wedding Musicians

Category: Articles, Wedding Planning Tags: booking musicians, wedding, wedding muscians

Weddings are a combination of different activities jam-packed together. While they signify a new phase in your life, they are also a social event for your guests. As such, music is always an integral part of it. At Arrive Booking Agency, we enable you to amp the experience by hiring wedding musicians. Nothing screams fun like having live music at the ceremony, reception or at the party. If you are pondering on having live music at your wedding, how about we take you through some of the steps? Sounds good? Here we go:

Hiring Wedding Musicians

Establish whether to have live music

This is the first thing to determine. To some people, music has a special place in their lives because it has had a significant part of their lives. It is natural for such people to want to have live music on their big day. On the other hand, one may be working on a tight budget for a small wedding. Live music might not be top on the list and this is understandable too. If you are torn between the two, one, look back to the weddings you’ve attended recently. Did they have live music and how did it make you feel? Two, ask recently wedded friends who had live music at their wedding on the effect of music at their event. All this will help you make an informed decision.

When to have live music

Weddings comprise of different points throughout the day such as the ceremony, reception, the dinner or the party. You have to decide on which of these points you want to have live music. You can also hire different musicians to ensure there’s music throughout the day.

Your budget

Being able to balance the wedding budget is a challenging task but the good thing is that you can find live musicians that suit your budget. For instance, if you are working on a budget that is under $200, you can have an instrumental soloist such as a pianist, violinist, bagpiper or cellist. Depending on your budget, you can have a single instrumentalist to several bands playing at different points of your day.

Type of music to have

Finally, you have to settle on the type of music you want played on your wedding. Music may differ depending on the point during the day. For instance, you may want a bridal entry song in the ceremony while have some cool instrumental music at the reception. The type of music will also determine whether you’ll hire a band or a DJ

Hiring wedding musicians for your wedding might be time-consuming which is why we advise you to entrust us with helping you find the perfect pied pipers for your event.