Wedding band needed and going rates.

floeighty2

My friend is getting married and of course needs a band.  

However, he has no idea about rates etc and is struggling to find a band that he’s happy with. ‘Lacklustre’ is the current opinion.  

So if you’re in a band please dm me and I can hopefully pass on all your details to him. If you have links to YouTube of performances even better.  He’s getting married in Manchester so I guess bands that cover that or North West based? 

Genre is pop and the wedding favourites! 

If anyone has ideas on going rates as well that would be helpful.  

Apologies if I’ve posted this in the wrong section. 

Thanks in advance 

Danny1969

I think in general rate will vary quite wildly. In the South the bands I work with generally charge as little as £1250 for a basic 4 piece with no FOH mix or light engineer, to £3200 for a bit of travelling for a 5 piece with FOH and lights engineer. 

There's other stuff as well. Sometimes you can turn up, wait for the speeches to end and then when everyone gets out of the room you can have an hour to set up and soundcheck. Other times you need to get there at 10:30 in morning, setup and soundcheck then go home, then go back suited up at 8 to do the gig. It's a long day. 

Swap muso for cheap plumber and that's a fair yardstick. How much to get 4 or 5 cheap plumbers to work on a Sat night

Roland

By coincidence I was talking to a wedding band this evening. They had booked the rehearsal room after us, and we talked as we were handing over. They are based in Nottingham, and go for £300 per person, plus a supplement for long distance travel. London rates are higher.

pintspiller

Depends on set up time for the band sometimes. Sometimes they charge extra to learn a special "first dance" song etc. If they from your region it's anything from £1k+. Last band I was in did two weddings through agent. I think he charged £1.5k including his fee.

AntonHunter

Roland said:

By coincidence I was talking to a wedding band this evening. They had booked the rehearsal room after us, and we talked as we were handing over. They are based in Nottingham, and go for £300 per person, plus a supplement for long distance travel. London rates are higher.

This is a good ballpark in my experience. Plus travel expenses, plus agent fees if you're going through one.

shufflebeat

Danny1969 said:

How much to get 4 or 5 cheap plumbers to work on a Sat night

Possibly the same guys.

thecolourbox

shufflebeat said:

Danny1969 said:

How much to get 4 or 5 cheap plumbers to work on a Sat night

Possibly the same guys.

I bet the singer will have an impressive set of pipes on him

floeighty2

Roland said:

By coincidence I was talking to a wedding band this evening. They had booked the rehearsal room after us, and we talked as we were handing over. They are based in Nottingham, and go for £300 per person, plus a supplement for long distance travel. London rates are higher.

Thanks for all this information.  When you say £300 per person, I assume you don’t mean per guest!??

Blueingreen

I'm playing in a band with a bassist who plays in a well-established local wedding band and I think they charge around £1,200-£1,500.  I must admit I was surprised when he told me they charged so little, they are very professional and usually play prestigious venues.  Nowhere near Manchester though.

floeighty2

Anymore recommendations?  The date is Sat 30th May 2026 at the Whitworth if that helps anyone! 

vasselmeyer

Although we're mainly a (four piece) pub band playing around the Manchester area, we were asked to play for an hour at a wedding reception in the centre of the city.

There was no messing around, we could have just turned up, set up, played and then moved on, just shorter than a normal gig of 2x45 minute sets. For other reasons, it never happened, but because it was such an easy gig, we quoted three times what we would have been paid for a pub gig and the client didn't blink at it.

It's the hanging around and other stuff that doesn't happen at a normal gig that adds to the cost.