List of Online Gigs Marketplaces for Booking Entertainers and Artists

Introduction

With the origin of online gigs marketplace, artists and event planners can find each other easily. These marketplaces wipe out numerous difficulties involved in a conventional event booking process. Online gigs marketplace proved to be business friendly for both event planners and entertainers.

As the overall gig economy is rising, it is a profitable idea to start online marketplace for performers. But before starting a new business, it’s important to analyze competitors.

So without further ado, we present a list of most profitable gigs booking marketplaces that are dominating the gig industry.

GigSalad

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Founded: 2007

Founders: Mark Steiner (CEO) & Steve Tetrault (President)

Operates in: USA & Canada

Estimated annual revenue: $7.3 million

GigSalad is a listing platform where performers can connect with event planners easily.

·  The cost for featuring performers depends upon three categories:

• In the free listing, performers are allowed for inclusion in up two categories with a display of 3 photos.
• In Pro listing, performers can enjoy benefits of high visibility and inclusion in up to 15 categories. Further, they can upload 50 photos, audio, video, and link to their website.
• A featured listing offers the highest visibility with inclusion in up to 20 categories. A performer can upload 100 high-resolution photos, video, audio and link to their website.
• Every month GigSalad award “Top Performer” status to the performer who got booked the highest number of times and has positive reviews.

GigMasters

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Founded: 1997

Founders: Michael Caldwell (CEO) & Kevin Kenyon (President)

Operates in: USA & Canada

Estimated annual revenue: $47 million

Event planners can hire top-rated musicians, bands, photographers, DJs, etc.

• In 2013, about half of the GigMasters’s booking was wedding-related.
• In 2014, Inc. Magazine featured GigMasters as one of the nation’s 5000 fastest growing companies.
• Here’s the cost structure for featuring performers:

• The revenue stream of GigMasters: Memberships and commissions.

Gigmor

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Founder: David Baird

Operates in: More than 30 countries

Estimated annual revenue: $7.5 million

On this music marketplace, event planners can easily hire musicians and bands.

• In the section named “Avail”, musicians and bands can describe the kind of gigs and opportunities they are looking for.
• The famous American singing competition television series, America Idol has partnered with Gigmor this year.
• The USP of Gigmor is that artists can feature themselves without any fee.
• David Baird, who is the founder of Gigmor has also released a novel named, “Living Inside My Head”. It is based on struggles of a rock band called The Dregs.

Gigstart

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Founders: Atit Jain & Madhulika Pandey

Operates in: India

Estimated annual revenue: $4.4 million

It is a marketplace that connects party planners with entertainers (dancer, magician, musician, clowns, anchor, fire jugglers, etc).

• The registration is free for all entertainers.
• The company charges a nominal 10% convenience fee for every successful booking.
• Gigstart is currently operating in more than 120 cities in India.
• Co-founder Madhulika is also an Indian classical singer.

Gigstarter

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Founder: Donal Scannell

Operates in: United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium.

Estimated annual revenue: $4.4 million

On Gigstarter, there is a wide range of bands, DJs, and musicians. Party planners can choose according to their choice and at the best prices.

• Gigstarter runs its operations in 8 different countries with a separate website of each. Further, the language of the website depends upon the country where it is operating.
• Here’s the pricing plan for featuring performers:

• Till now more than 800 artists (from cover bands to classical ensembles) are featured on Gigstarter.
• Gigstarter generates more than 10,000 booking requests a year.

EVAmore

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Founded: 2015

Founders: Channing Moreland and Makenzie Stokel

Operates in: USA

EVAmore, an online platform automates the process of booking entertainers for events.

• EVAmore is the first platform to provide algorithm-based matching.
• The company first evaluates musicians who apply to join the platform before allowing them to sign up.
• Event planners can create free listings which include location, time, budget, and genres of music.
• The company collects 10% commission from the musician’s payment and an additional 10% fee from the host.

Conclusion

It is the need of the hour to have a platform which is totally dedicated to search and hire entertainers. The current market scenario clearly depicts that this business model has huge potential. So, if you want to start gigs marketplace for booking performers, you need a reliable solution to build it.

Currently, there are a number of readymade solutions in the market but the one that has gained huge acclaimed over the years is VivoGigs.

It is a system that many business owners are using to start gigs marketplace similar to EvaMore, Gigstart, Gigmor, and GigMasters.

The system comes with features such as social media integration, review and ratings, inbuilt messaging system and location mapping.