Receive booking requests from performers

Verified venues can let performers pitch themselves directly from the venue's public page. Requests land in a Bookings inbox in your venue's admin area, where you accept or decline them.

Before you start

Your venue must be verified. Until it is, the booking toggle is disabled with "Verify your venue to accept booking requests."

Enable booking requests

1. In your dashboard, open the venue's page settings.
2. Switch on Accept booking requests — "Let performers send you booking requests from your venue page."
3. Make sure your venue page includes the Request to Play block — add and position it in the page editor if it isn't there yet.

The block only appears to the public while your venue is verified and accepting requests; otherwise it's hidden automatically. That means you can position it in the editor ahead of time, and switching Accept booking requests off later removes it from your public page immediately.

The Bookings inbox

Open the Bookings tab on your venue to see Booking requests — performers who want to play at your venue. Two tabs filter the list:

• Open — requests still waiting on you (Pending or Viewed), with a count
• All — everything, including accepted, declined, withdrawn, and expired requests

Each row shows who it's From (solo performer or group), their Genre, Preferred dates, expected Draw, Status, and when it was Received. Click a row to expand the full message and any links the performer attached.

Opening a new request marks it Viewed — the performer sees that status change, so an untouched inbox is visible to them too.

Accept or decline

Expanded open requests show two buttons:

• Accept — after a confirmation, this creates a draft agreement with the performer. The request then shows an Open agreement button that takes you straight to the agreement editor.
• Decline — you must give a Reason (at least 3 characters), which is shared with the performer.

Negotiate the agreement

Accepting a request starts a negotiation, not a finished deal:

1. Draft — both parties can shape the terms: title, proposed dates, an optional Guarantee, notes, and payout lines (who gets what share when the event settles).
2. Send for review — when the terms look right, send the agreement to the other party. Under review, either side can Accept, Decline (with a reason shared with the other party), or Pull back to edit to return it to draft.
3. Confirm payout lines — any third-party payees on the deal (a sound engineer with a cut, say) respond to their own line individually: Confirm your line, Counter (propose a different share with a note explaining the ask), or Decline. A counter doesn't change the line by itself — it's an ask, visible to everyone on the agreement. While the agreement is a draft you can adopt it with Apply counter in the line editor, or edit the line's terms, which restarts that payee's confirmation.
4. Finalize onto event — once accepted and every payee line is confirmed, pick one of your events and the agreement's payout terms are stamped onto it, so settlement pays out per the agreed lines. A countered or declined line blocks finalizing until it's resolved — use Reopen draft on the accepted agreement to adjust the terms (it then has to be sent for review and accepted again).

Statuses

What can go wrong

• "This request was already handled or expired." — the request changed state while you had it open (the performer withdrew it, a colleague responded, or it expired). The inbox refreshes to the current state.
• Empty inbox? Performers can only send requests once your venue is verified, Accept booking requests is on, and the Request to Play block is on your page.

Curious what the performer's side looks like? See performer mode and booking requests.