Guides

What should you know before you hire a live band?

· Updated 27 July 2026

  • The music is the easy part to judge. The logistics are what go wrong: power, load-in, curfew, and who talks between songs.
  • Ask what a band covers besides the dance sets. Ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner and the microphone are often available and almost never assumed.
  • Nationally a reception band averages $4,500 and a DJ averages $1,800, so the real question is how much of your night each one covers.
  • Lead time is what buys you the songs a band does not already play. Send the list and the running order early.

Everything below is written from the band’s side of the stage, by three people who have spent more than eighty years between them playing in this town. Every figure has a source at the bottom of its page and we fetched each one before quoting it. We do not review other bands and we do not rank them, and we do not claim to have played a venue we have not played.

Wedding music

MC and announcing

Production and logistics

Austin

Hiring a band

Songs

If you would rather just ask, the questions and answers page covers how this band in particular works, and the setlist is published in full, all 39 songs with who recorded them.

Got a date and a venue? Start there.

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