National expansion for gig management platform

GigPig, the live music marketplace, has announced plans to roll out its platform to 10 cities across the UK.

Following a pre-seed investment in June, GigPig has been piloting its new platform in Manchester where more than 100 of the cities restaurants, bars, pubs and clubs including Mission Mars, Arc Inspirations, and Crazy Pedros, have signed up the platform.

GigPig helps venues manage the entire process of booking live musicians and DJs while also allowing free use to artists to help them book gigs and get paid.

In Manchester, more than 50 DJs, bands, musicians and live music workers are signing up every month, with hundreds of local artists earning £250,000 on the platform to date.

In response to demand, GigPig is accelerating its and will launch in 10 new cities across the country, including Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Nottingham.

It expects the nationwide expansion to rapidly attract more than 1,000 venues, 3,000 artists and generate over 1,000 gigs a week in the coming months.

It said this could help deliver £2m in cost savings for hospitality venues and generate over £10m in earnings for artists.

Micheal Forster, co-founder and CEO, GigPig said: “Every year Manchester’s hospitality sector is forced to pay millions to access the live music market, while artists are forced to give away a large portion of their earnings to third party agents.

“We built GigPig to put control of Manchester’s live music scene back in the hands of local venues and artists, allowing any venue to offer live music in just a few clicks and creating new work opportunities for artists.

“By removing barriers to entry, GigPig will help democratise and grow our live music scene, providing venues with a cost effective way to increase revenue and giving artists a reliable way to earn a good living gigging.”

Mark Austin, Head of Operations, Arc Inspirations, said: “GigPig has been a revolution for our business, a simple and intuitive system that has allowed us to streamline and make significant cost savings on our ever growing entertainment offerings.

“Given the cost pressures our sector is facing, GigPig’s platform is helping us navigate the increasing headwinds and providing a much needed boost to our bottom line.”