Musician booking guides and templates
Updated
These booking guides, copy-paste templates, and stage plots are built for working musicians who route their own shows. Every rule and benchmark comes from the No Stairs Please directory, which tracks 16,612 open live music venues, 5,152 towns, and 4,267 dedicated talent-booking routes as of November 2026.
Which guide or template do you need?
Each resource below pairs copy-paste production assets with measured booking rules from venue submission pages across all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and British Columbia.
- EPK template
- A copy-paste electronic press kit and band one-sheet built from 766 published venue submission policies across 4,267 booking routes. Includes Markdown and HTML templates for solo acts and full bands.
- Stage plot
- Printable studio-hardware stage plot diagrams and numbered XLR input lists for a solo or duo act, a 3-piece trio, and a 4-piece band, grounded in 2,017 published venue equipment lists.
- How to get gigs
- Outreach playbooks broken down by room category across 3,383 bars and pubs, 1,633 dedicated music venues, 1,498 breweries and taprooms, 1,447 restaurants, 1,197 wineries, and 410 coffee shops.
- Book a music tour
- How to route a regional run across 363 drive-time clusters, sequence anchor weekends before weekday fills, and use the No Stairs Please MCP server in ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
- Booking emails
- Four plain-text booking inquiry and follow-up email templates tailored to club talent buyers, brewery taproom managers, support-slot pitches, and 10-day hold follow-ups across 3,330 booking email addresses.
- Venue pay data
- Flat guarantees, door splits, bar percentages, and tip-jar models measured across 393 reviewed performer compensation records in the directory.
- Compare directories
- A factual comparison of No Stairs Please, Indie on the Move, Sonicbids, and ReverbNation across state coverage, contact verification, 90-day show activity meters, and one-time pricing.
What does the No Stairs Please dataset measure?
Every guide cites counts measured directly from public venue websites, calendars, and social feeds as of November 2026.
| Directory metric | Measured count | What it means for booking |
|---|---|---|
| Open live music venues | 16,612 | Active rooms with verified live musician evidence across 50 states, DC, and British Columbia |
| Towns and cities | 5,152 | Grouped into 363 drive-time areas for corridor routing between stops |
| Dedicated booking routes | 4,267 | Talent-booking emails, forms, and booker names kept separate from general or private-event contacts |
| Direct booking email addresses | 3,330 | Venues that accept direct email pitches to a dedicated talent buyer or booking inbox |
| Booking web forms and portals | 1,066 | Venues that route submissions through a structured booking page or inquiry form |
| Weekly music schedules | 9,858 | Rooms with announced or observed recurring music days of the week |
| Dated show histories | 11,687 | Venues with 121,954 dated show listings and 10,848 rooms with named past and upcoming acts |
| Published room capacities | 5,007 | Includes 3,596 rooms at or under 500 capacity and 2,261 intimate rooms at or under 200 capacity |
| Stage and PA equipment records | 2,017 | Rooms that publish stage dimensions, PA specs, monitor counts, or lighting details |
| Reviewed performer pay records | 393 | 171 published paid guarantees, 74 conditional door or bar splits, and 116 tips-only rooms |
How do you browse venues by room type and city?
Use the national category hubs and state directories below to move directly from a booking template to real rooms that fit your lineup.
- By room type
- Browse 3,383 bars with live music, 1,633 small music venues, 1,498 breweries with live music, 1,197 wineries with live music, 112 listening rooms, or open mic nights.
- By state hub
- Explore high-density touring states including California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Utah, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Idaho, and Montana.
- By touring town
- Open pre-filtered city directories for Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, Denver, CO, Asheville, NC, Boise, ID, Bend, OR, Missoula, MT, and Austin, TX.
- Full access
- Open the interactive venue map for free, connect the MCP server to your AI assistant, or unlock every booking contact and artist tour history with All Access for $25 for one month.
Common questions about these booking guides
Where do the numbers in these booking guides come from?
Every statistic comes directly from the No Stairs Please venue directory. As of November 2026, the dataset tracks 16,612 open live music venues across 5,152 towns, 4,267 dedicated booking contact routes, 9,858 recurring weekly music schedules, 2,017 published stage equipment lists, and 393 reviewed performer pay records.
What documents does a band need before pitching venues?
A working band or solo performer needs three items before sending booking emails. Prepare a single-page electronic press kit with one live video and local draw history, a one-page stage plot and numbered input list for the house sound engineer, and a plain-text booking inquiry email tailored to the room type.