Booking terms

Professional standing

• Josh Smith is a current freelance member of the Musicians' Union, which provides public liability insurance, equipment insurance and legal representation. A certificate of cover is available on request.
• Performance equipment is PAT tested, and certificates are available on request.
• Josh is a member of PRS for Music and PPL.
• Rates reflect Musicians' Union rates and current professional rates.

1. Enquiries and confirmation

A booking enquiry is exactly that — an enquiry. No date is held until Josh has confirmed the booking in writing and the booking fee has been paid. Enquiries lapse automatically after 14 days. Because this is a contract for a performance on a specific date, the 14-day right to change your mind that normally applies to things bought online does not apply here (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 28). The cancellation terms below apply instead.

2. Booking fee

A booking fee of 25% of the total is payable when Josh confirms your booking. It is what secures the date: from that point the date is yours, and Josh turns down other work for it. The booking fee is part of your total, not an extra charge. If you cancel, how much of it is kept depends on how far ahead you cancel — see 'If you need to cancel'.

3. Paying the balance

When Josh confirms the booking you choose how to settle the rest: by card before the event, in cash on the day, or by paying the whole fee up front. Your choice is recorded on your contract and you can change it from your booking page until money moves. If you are paying the balance by card, the invoice is issued 14 days before the event and is due 7 days before it. If you are paying cash, nothing further is invoiced and the balance is handed over on the day.

4. Moving your date

If you need to move the date you can do it once at no charge, as long as Josh is free on the new date and it falls within 12 months of the original. Everything you have paid moves across with it. If Josh is not free, the cancellation terms below apply instead — so it is always worth asking early.

5. If you need to cancel

Cancel more than six months before the event and the booking fee is kept, nothing more. Between three and six months, 50% of the total is due. Between one and three months, 75%. Less than a month before the event, the full fee is due. The scale reflects how likely Josh is to refill a date at that notice, and it works both ways: if he does take another booking for your date, you get back whatever he earns from it, up to everything you paid. Cancellations must be in writing, and take effect from the day Josh receives them.

6. If Josh has to cancel

Josh will only cancel in a genuine emergency — serious illness, injury, bereavement or something equally unavoidable. If that happens you get back everything you have paid, in full and without deduction, and he will do everything he can to find you a comparable replacement performer through his Musicians' Union network at no extra cost to you.

7. If the event cannot go ahead

If something outside either side's control prevents the event — the venue closing, a legal restriction on gatherings, weather that makes travel genuinely unsafe — neither side is in breach. Move the date under 'Moving your date' above where that is possible. Where it is not, you are refunded everything you have paid apart from costs Josh has already incurred and can evidence.

8. What Josh needs at the venue

A safe, dry, level performance area of roughly 2m x 2m, two standard 13A power sockets within reach of it, and access to load in and set up at the time agreed. Outdoor performances need cover from rain and sun over the whole performance area, and a power supply. Josh will always look for a way to make a difficult space work, but where these are missing and the performance genuinely cannot go ahead safely, the full fee remains due.

9. Sound limits and curfews

If the venue has a sound limiter, a decibel limit or a curfew, tell Josh before the booking is confirmed. A limiter set below the level a live act needs will cut the power mid-song, and there is nothing to be done about it on the night. Where a restriction is disclosed, Josh will tell you honestly whether the booking still works. Where one was not disclosed and it prevents the performance, the full fee remains due.

10. Music licensing

Josh is a member of PRS for Music and PPL. Licensing the venue for live music is the venue's responsibility — most licensed venues already hold one. If the performance is at a private property, it is worth checking before the date.

11. Recordings and photographs

You and your guests are welcome to film and photograph the performance for your own use. Josh may use short clips or photographs of the performance to promote his work. If you would rather he did not, say so and he will not.

12. Liability

Josh holds public liability insurance through his Musicians' Union membership, and a certificate is available on request. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. Beyond that, liability for any one booking is limited to the total fee for that booking and does not extend to indirect or consequential loss.

13. If something goes wrong

Email Josh first — almost everything is sorted out in a phone call. If it is not, these terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. Nothing here affects your statutory rights as a consumer: where any term above conflicts with the Consumer Rights Act 2015, your statutory rights win.