Close Up: GigSalad

GigSalad CU2

Booking Something Awesome Since 2007: As owner of a prolific booking agency, Mark Steiner saw many excellent artists hoping for gigs, and many lucrative artist opportunities. Yet it was a challenge to connect all the players. To change this and spread the “Peace, Love & Gigs,” Steiner joined forces with web designer Steve Tetrault to create GigSalad.com. It began as a simple online directory and evolved into a game-changing platform where performers and event planners meet. GigSalad has grown to be the largest, most user-friendly platform online, and is designed to make booking performers, bands, speakers and event services straightforward and frictionless. With a booking platform that allows for easy connection between almost a million event planners, artists and skilled professionals, Steiner, Tetrault and their growing team “get to help both sides get the gig.”

GigSalad CU1

Solid Growth: Currently, GigSalad.com has 60k performer/vendors for hire across the U.S. and Canada, ranging from all genres of musical acts to acrobats, comedians, jugglers, clowns, magicians and ventriloquists. The roster includes 584 different categories. Event planner accounts are approaching 700,000, with 40,000 new accounts created monthly and more than half a million new events planned annually. GigSalad is positioned to exceed one million event planner accounts well before the end of 2015. With their “freemium” membership model, performers can select a plan that suits their professional goals. A basic listing is free, but users can upgrade to professional accounts offering more tools and opportunities for more prominent exposure—and more gigs.

Best-Fit, High-Quality Music: The “Musical Acts” portion of the GigSalad site allows event vendors to browse and book the best bands, singers, musicians and DJs in their area. Many GigSalad users are leaders in their genre and use the platform because it attracts diverse bookers. To aid event planners in their search for the right fit, GigSalad offers more than 30 band categories, eight types of DJs, nine kinds of ensembles, 43 solo musician categories, a wide variety of solo vocalists and singing groups, as well as numerous specialty World and Cultural music categories. These categories help planners find exactly what they need, and performers present themselves in easy-to-find ways.

For more information, visit GigSalad.com.

-Jonathan Widran