Getting booked

Someone scanning the directory looks at pictures before they read anything. A profile with one blurry photo loses to a profile with five good ones almost regardless of who is the better performer, which is unfair and also completely predictable.

• Show yourself performing, in front of people, not posed against a wall.
• Include video if you have any. A short clip of a real set is worth more than a long showreel nobody finishes.
• Pick a lead image that reads at thumbnail size — that is the size it will first be seen at.
• Vary the settings. A planner is trying to imagine you at their event, and five photos of the same night make that harder.

The useful bio answers the questions a planner is actually holding: what do you play, how long have you been doing it, what size of event suits you, what do you bring with you, and what languages do you work in.

Adjectives do not survive comparison — every profile claims to be professional and energetic. Specifics do. “Five-piece, two 45-minute sets, we bring our own PA for rooms up to 200” tells a planner more than a paragraph of enthusiasm.

It is tempting to tick everything adjacent to what you do on the theory that it widens your reach. It mostly widens the number of enquiries you have to turn down, and turning down enquiries is how you end up further down the list of people worth contacting.

Tick what you are genuinely good at. The directory is searched by category, and being the obvious answer in one is better than being a marginal answer in six.

Planners filter by availability, and blocked dates remove you from those results. The failure mode is not being filtered out — it is being contacted about a date you cannot do, twice, after which that planner stops asking.

Blocking dates takes seconds and is the highest-return habit on this page.

Events get planned to a deadline. A reply the next day is often simply too late, because the planner has already had three answers and started a conversation with one of them.

When you reply, confirm the date, confirm the fee for that specific event, and say what is included. The performer who removes the most uncertainty in the first reply usually gets the booking, even at a slightly higher price than someone vaguer.

Your deposit and cancellation policy show on your profile at every tier, including to people who have not subscribed. They are read as a signal of how you work, so make them terms you will actually apply — a policy you waive whenever asked is worse than a softer one you keep.

There is more on the number itself in pricing your work.