Questions To Ask Your Wedding Band Before You Book

Gecko Live are spe­cial­ist at pro­vid­ing live bands for wed­dings, and we get asked a lot of ques­tions from clients like you want­i­ng to learn a lit­tle more about the per­form­ers and how it all works. There are no sil­ly ques­tions and we total­ly get that you prob­a­bly haven’t done this before. Here are our hon­est answers straight from our wed­ding and events team about our top asked ques­tions for our wed­ding bands.

THE BASICS

Is My Wed­ding Date Available?

To check avail­abil­i­ty and give you an accu­rate quote, we’ll need to know your wed­ding date and the venue location. 

Most cou­ples book their venue before reach­ing out so we can tai­lor our pric­ing and logis­tics to the space. If you’re still explor­ing venue options we can pro­vide a guide price, how­ev­er please be aware this may flex once your venue and date are con­firmed.
Have your heart set on a spe­cif­ic band? If you’re flex­i­ble on dates we can explore their availability. 

How Many Wed­dings Have You Played?

With over 15 years in the music and events indus­try between us, we’ve been lucky enough to per­form at and organ­ise count­less events. From inti­mate gath­er­ings to large scale events at Good­wood & Sil­ver­stone Circuit. 

We vet all of our bands and per­form­ers to ensure we offer you the best pos­si­ble music and enter­tain­ment. We are always scout­ing for new tal­ent to ensure our clients find exact­ly what they’re look­ing for or what’s trend­ing. You can feel safe that if a per­former is on our books they’re high qual­i­ty and reliable. 

Do You Per­form At More Than One Event Per Day?

It may be the case that per­form­ers are booked for more than one event per day. It’s our job to ensure that the logis­tics are in place so that the per­form­ers you’ve booked are on time and ready to enter­tain you and your guests. 

If you’d pre­fer to book your per­form­ers for exclu­sive use for your date, just let us know and we can pro­vide a quote. Please note this will incur an addi­tion­al fee, often a dou­ble day rate, but will ensure exclu­siv­i­ty for your cho­sen date.

Can We Speak To A Pre­vi­ous Client Who Has Booked You?

To pro­tect the pri­va­cy and per­son­al data of our clients we are unable to share pri­vate con­tact details. How­ev­er, we have tes­ti­mo­ni­als from pre­vi­ous cou­ples and this is the best way to see per­form­ers’ feed­back from past events.

Is It Pos­si­ble To Hear You Before Booking?

This can be tricky as most of our acts are booked on pri­vate events rather than pub­lic ones. From time to time our acts do have pub­lic per­for­mances where you can go and see them, so talk to us about the act you are inter­est­ed in and we can check their diary to see if they have any pub­lic per­for­mances in the near future you can attend.

Our web­site includes lots of infor­ma­tion and videos of the acts, so you can get a bet­ter under­stand­ing if they’re right for your event. 

What Is The Min­i­mum Time We Can Book You For?

For our live evening par­ty bands, they will all quote for 2 hours of live per­for­mance for your evening. The real­i­ty being that they don’t quote on a per hour basis as they won’t be able to per­form at 2 evening par­ties on the same day, so they have a fixed base rate to work from.

Have You Worked/​Performed At My Venue Before?

We are very lucky that we work with a lot of venues reg­u­lar­ly. The Gecko Team know the logis­tics, reg­u­la­tions and details of a lot of wed­ding venues. This is one of Gecko’s most impor­tant fea­tures and why cou­ples trust us — we know what works, what doesn’t and can deal with all the aspects for you. 

Can We Choose All Of The Songs The Band Will Play?

Once you’ve booked, we will ask for your top 10 requests from the band’s reper­toire which they will do their best to incor­po­rate into your wed­ding par­ty. This is the best solu­tion for mak­ing sure you get the music you want for your day, with music that reflects you as a cou­ple while giv­ing the band the flex­i­bil­i­ty to do what they do best — respond­ing to your guests and keep­ing your dance­floor full.

Can You Learn A Spe­cial Song For My Day?

All of our bands, where pos­si­ble, will always learn your first dance. For our string and instru­men­tal per­form­ers there may be addi­tion­al fees as this is like­ly to have to be cus­tom arranged for your date.

Can We Give You A ​“Do Not Play List”?

Def­i­nite­ly. In fact, this is one of the most impor­tant and help­ful lists you can share with us. There’s an entire sec­tion in our pre-event ques­tion­naire for this so we know what to avoid. How­ev­er, we ask that these are true ​“deal­break­er” songs rather than a selec­tion of songs from the band’s reper­toire that you dis­like. The band will want to hon­our your deal­break­ers whilst still being about to flex the playlist to respond to your guests. 

What Hap­pens In Between The Band’s Evening Performances?

If you have not cho­sen one of our DJ Add Ons, you can cre­ate your own playlist that the band can have ready to go for you.

What Infor­ma­tion Do You Need Before We Book?

We will need your venue, wed­ding date and rough sched­ule for the day. We can then use this to cre­ate your book­ing contract.

FOR THE DAY

When Will You Arrive & Set Up?

Our evening par­ty bands will need at least 90 min­utes of time to get in, set up and per­form a sound check. As stan­dard our arrival time is 17:30 with a view to be ready for your first dance from 19:30. It is worth keep­ing in mind that this 90 min­utes starts from when the band have clear access to the space they are per­form­ing in, not the time they arrive on site. So if you are run­ning late, they will still need 90 minutes.

What Do You Wear?

Typ­i­cal­ly the team will arrive in com­fort­able crew black to load in and sound­check. They will then change into their gig attire, sim­i­lar to what you will have seen in their pro­mo­tion­al mate­r­i­al. If you have a spe­cif­ic theme, let us know and we can com­mu­ni­cate this with the band so they can see if they can match your style.

Can We Speak With The Band Direct­ly Before The Day?

One of the rea­sons why Gecko Live was set up was to reduce the admin that our bands have to do, and keep every­thing cen­tralised for your day with Gecko Live. We deal with all the com­mu­ni­ca­tion right up until the day. This reduces the load for the bands, and also means that we make sure every­thing is in place for your day with no sur­pris­es. We also have direct con­tacts with the venues and teams which the band won’t have access to.

Does Your Equip­ment Need Spe­cial Pow­er Or Electrics?

All our per­form­ers come with all the equip­ment they need for their per­for­mance. If you have a venue that is out­doors you do need to think about generators.

Do You Need A Stage?

Per­form­ers don’t need a stage but it does always help. If your bud­get allows, we high­ly rec­om­mend book­ing a stage. Talk to the team about what size you may need and we can even quote this and book it for you.

What Is The Back Up Plan If You Are Ill?

Our lit­tle black book is huge and our bands have their own as well. In 15 years we have had last minute ill­ness­es and we have nev­er not had a band out and performing.

Do You Need A Meal & Drinks?

Absolute­ly. Please feed and water the band. We know that this is an extra cost for you, but imag­ine this scenario:

You have booked a fab band for your wed­ding day, but they have 3 wed­dings that week and you are the third. If the band haven’t been fed prop­er­ly at the pre­vi­ous 2, com­bine that with late nights, long dri­ves and the 2 hour per­for­mance for each gig, they will be tired. There is an ele­ment of pay­ing it for­ward here, but you would want it from the pre­vi­ous event to make sure that you get the best pos­si­ble per­for­mance. Gecko Live is man­aged by per­form­ers, and trust us when we say it makes a mas­sive dif­fer­ence, more than any­thing else!