Most people won't need to hire a band more than once in their lifetime in fact, many people won't ever need to hire a band at all, so, the process of booking a band will be completely new and often daunting to most people.
Finding the ideal and best-suited band for your event can be a long-winded and very frustrating process if you don't know what you are doing, and making a final decision without professional help can be very difficult and sressful!
What metrics do you have to measure against? How can you tell the good from the not-so-good?
Let’s start to ease your pain and make the process of choosing and hiring a band much easier for you.
Start by reading this blog post....
For many people a live music band will be their preferred choice for entertainment when organising their wedding, birthday party or event, and it’s true to say that a live band will always add tremendously to the party atmosphere and will entertain your guests leaving them with great memories, but where do you start?
How To Hire A Band? - A Google search Maybe!
You could simply start by typing Bands For Hire into a search engine and start to trawl through the 217-million results that are returned for your consideration! Humm, good luck with that!
Of course whilst browsing, you will have absolutely no idea at all whether or not any of the bands you see are any good! And to confuse you even more, they will virtually all say that they are the ‘#1 Best Band’, so who and what should you believe? Who can you trust? And, who and where can you get reliable help from?
If you chance it, and book a band directly via their website, what guarantee will you have, and what recourse is there should something go wrong? If something should happen that would prevent the band from performing for you on the day, where would you turn to, and what recourse to a back-up would they have in place to support your event?
Anything can happen that may prevent a band from performing at your event, they may be sick, or they may break down on-route! What would you do if that happened to you? How would you deal with the problem? Where would you turn to?
The worst scenario would be that the band may not even be genuine, their publicity and website may be fake and they may simply take your money and not turn up at all! How do you know if they are genuine and not just scammers?
The best place to hire a band is via a reputable and experienced Music Band Booking Agency.
Placing your trust in an experienced, well established, and knowledgable agency like UK Live Entertainment is by far the safest and best way to hire a band for an event.
Music & Entertainment agents like K Live Entertainment provide a professional service backed up by years of experience, they represent tried and tested professional bands and a full package of reliable customer support services. Agents are well sourced to fully support wedding couples and event organisers with booking Function Bands and other types of bands and entertainment for events. A reputable agent’s websites will support everything that you need to make the right choices and decisions, and their staff will be well trained and knowledgable, too.
Negotiating with and hiring a band can be a complex task and whilst you could take a stab at it yourself, an experienced band booking agent will almost always get you a better deal, more value, and will also make sure that absolutely everything is covered, included in the price, and in place to ensure the success of the band’s performance at your event. Including, but not limited to proper contracting, suitable insurance and electrical safety certification, negotiating the performance times and band breaks, the arrival times and get-in, and get out of the band's equipment. Sound volume limiters, staging, and liaising with the venue personnel, amongst an ocean of other responsibilities and tasks.
Reputable agents like UK Live Entertainment will also support a proper and reliable emergency out-of-hours service, should anything go wrong there will be a competent person available to help any time of the day or night, and at weekends. A reputable agency will also have recourse to a selection of back-up bands and musicians, should the situation be serious and a replacement be needed.
Directing your enquiry via a reputable agency shouldn’t cost you any more than hiring a band direct, as bands will factor in Agency charges to their fees, UK Live Entertainment charge the bands a small commission, not you the customer.
The difference between booking direct or via UK Live Entertainment will be the service you will receive, and the peace-of-mind our involvement will provide for you. Our Agents' knowledge is invaluable and their ability to negotiate and secure you the very best fee, together with all of the advice, support, and contracting formalities, will mean that you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the party!
How do you know which agency to book with?
Which are the most reputable and offer the best service?
We'll we're bound to say UK Live Entertainment, but let us explain a few good reasons why you should book a band through us.
One of the major differences between UK Live Entertainment and many other music agencies and entertainment agencies is that we are a very well established business. Our on-line presence extends back more than 10-years, and our Managing Director: Grant Wadey, has been operating businesses in the Agency, Leisure and Entertainment Industry for almost 40 years. We have a history of delivering successful events and many thousands of successful performances and satisfied customers to our credit.
First: When evaluating an agency's suitability is to check that they are real and genuine. Check that they have a real office, a landline telephone number (not just a mobile) check they are VAT registered, that their website supports Terms of Business, and do a little research via their social media pages.
Second: Make contact with the agency you feel comfortable with, you need a friendly but professional company that will work with your requirements and you need to feel safe and happy.
Third: Many other agencies ..... once you have select a band you like on their website you have to ring or email to find out how much they charge, or if they are available on your chosen date. This wastes your time when the band you like is unavailable or over-priced. If you can't see prices online, consider that many unscrupulous agents will charge you whatever they think they can get away with, based on how you sound and whether they think you can or should afford to pay more, quite often an unscrupulous agency will charge you up to double the band's actual fee and will pocket the difference.
UK Live Entertainment, publishes guide prices so that you are immediately aware of the price approximation. We then refine the fee once your requirements and timings are known, and confirm everything agreed in writing and in a confirmation contract. We support an instant chat facility on our website where you can enquire regarding any band or entertainers availability for a particular date or range of dates, or you can call us, or ask us to call you. You can ask any questions you want to, aand receive immediate responses. Furthermore, our offices are open until 8 pm every day, including weekends and bank holidays, so there are always team members available to support your enquiry. We also support a 24/7 reliable emergeny support service so you can always speak with a capable ad competent member of our team at any time.
Fourthly, with our transparent service, you will have the peace of mind and guarantee that you will pay the same price as everyone else for the same band, and our commission is always the same low rate built into the prices you see. there will be no surprises.
We support our clients with first-class friendly Customer Service - With much of our business having been built on recommendation and repeat business we work hard to maintain our standing in the industry and our reputation.
The main reason you'll need an agency like UK Live Entertainment help will be to save you valuable time. We provide a fast efficient service, supported by approachable, knowledgeable advisers. We're proud of our team, their knowledge, and their skills, and we are completely confident in their ability to service our customers efficiently, and to provide a first-class service. at all times. Our staff are the very reason why we’ve grown to be one of Europe’s leading agencies - our customer service is second to none.
Finally, the main and most important reasons you need UK Live Entertainment's help is so that you can be certain that the choice that you make will be perfect for your event, that the price is right and meets your budget, and that you can have the peace of mind of knowing that your even entertainment is supported by a world-class professional event entertainment agency.
Whilst many people prefer to browse our website and shortlist their favorite function bands, don't forget that we are always here to help and that there is no extra charge to use our assisted service. We are just a phone call or a chat message away, and our service is FREE to use – it’s all part of our Customer Service Guarantee.
When browsing through the profile pages of our wedding music bands, function bands, or cover bands, don't worry if you don't recognise the band's names. All of our bands are very busy hard-working function bands that are performing and entertaining every week – it’s their job!
Furthermore, all of our band members are professional musicians, many of them play studio sessions for current chart acts and other music projects. They are too busy for The X Factor, and too good to perform in your local pub – they are the standard of musicians that take their work extremely responsibly, and that get booked time and time again for major functions and events throughout the UK, continental Europe and further afield.
Once you’ve chosen a band that you like, or have shortlisted a selection, we will review the band’s suitability for your event, advise regarding their line-up and performance options, their availability, and negotiate the very best price for you. Then, when you are happy, we will confirm and contract the band so that they are secured for your wedding, party, or alternative event.
UK Live Entertainment does all the hard work for you in terms of ensuring quality, standards, and reliability. We work constantly, the year-round auditioning, vetting, selecting, and developing our roster of bands to be the best available anywhere in the UK.
This is why some of the UK's very best function bands are signed exclusively to UK Live Entertainment, and why our bands are often the first of choice for many of the UK's leading event planners and corporate function organisers.
Don't leave your wedding or event band choice to chance, contact UK Live Entertainment today, and be assured of first-class professional agency service that you can depend on. We hire bands for events every day!
