Your Guarantees From Us

As performers, we all firmly believe that there are minimum standards that our clients should expect. These are just plain common sense ‘benchmarks', yet there are performers who drive to ‘gigs' in insured, taxed and ‘M.O.T'd cars but who are uninsured, use untested equipment and who are cheating us all with undeclared income.

Third Party Liability Insurance

Accidents can happen, both Equity and the Musicians' Union including free cover with membership (five million pounds). Why should you, as the organiser of an event and your guests be put at risk by the 'cowboys' who don't have cover? It is probably a requirement of your venue's policy anyway.

I have been given many different reasons over the years why performers won't take out this cover, but all of them come back to the same basic truths:

Either they are working outside of the tax system, and don't want their name appearing anywhere, or they just don't want to be bothered.

Performers who are working illegally tend to have pretty low standards of service – if they are cheating the tax man, why shouldn't they cheat you as well? If they resent (or can't afford) the membership subs for a professional organisation it probably means that they are not getting much work, and are using low cost instruments and equipment as well – both causes for concern.

Those who just can't be bothered probably have a similar approach to their working standards – if all they care about is getting your money to play the music they like, you'll probably find they want to work to their agenda, rather than yours. Better get a pretty tight contract, although that may not help much!

Also, watch out for performers who think that only one of them needs to have cover; the M.U. is very clear on this – ALL the band must have individual cover. If in doubt, always ask to see written details.

Health and Safety Electrical Testing

Again, over the years I've been fed many stories as to why performers don't have to comply with the ‘Portable Appliance testing' legislation, or P.A.T. testing as it is called. In the end, I got so fed up with this that I became qualified myself as a tester! (click here for link to certificate) Yes, it does have to be done – if in doubt, call your local council.

As with insurance, the ‘cowboys' can put you and your guests at risk – as well as themselves. Worse still, many groups just lie and say they have it, even when they don't. Please click here to see copies of our testing details; if any band cannot or will not provide a written schedule of there equipment please agree in writing that you can inspect the equipment on the day, and withhold payment if the equipment has not been tested, or if they cannot produce invoices to show that it less than a year old.

Click here for more information on our Health and Safety policies.

Money Back Guarantee

In spite of best intentions, no-one is perfect! Yes, there have been occasions when things have not gone perfectly to plan over the last 26 years. Once a musician was delayed due to excessively heavy traffic (six hours delay), another time a named performer was unavailable due to sudden illness in the family and so a substitute was arranged by us, at our expense, the night before. On each occasion the client was paid out the refund they asked for, without quibble. Our guarantee is simple – if you don't feel totally satisfied with our performance, you don't have to pay a penny.

You decide if you are happy, not us.

In making this promise we hope to demonstrate our total faith in ourselves, our performers and our equipment. Why should you have to take the risk?

Only One Restriction

As experts in our own chosen fields of entertainment there have been a very few times when we have been unable to extend this offer – where what we were asked to do was pretty much doomed to failure – and we said so in advance. We won't forget that ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune', but have, between us, enough experience to know what will work, and what probably won't! Please, use this experience to plan your event – it's free!