This policy says exactly what happens to your money when a booking made through MusicGigs is cancelled. It applies to every booking paid for on the platform, and it is the policy shown to you before you pay. It forms part of our Terms of Service and should be read alongside the Payment Terms.
The policy that applies to a booking is the one shown on the quote you accepted. It is copied onto the booking at the moment you pay and frozen there, so if the act changes their policy next month, your booking keeps the terms you agreed to.
1. How a booking's money is split
You pay once, in full, at the moment you book. That single payment is made up of two things, and refunds treat them differently:
- The performance fee — the act's price. For refund purposes it is split into a deposit portion (normally 30% of the performance fee, though an act can set a different figure on their quote) and the balance — everything else.
- The service fee — what MusicGigs charges you for running the booking, the payments and the protection around it.
The deposit is not a separate charge and you are never billed twice. It exists only to decide which half of the performance fee is refundable, and when the act gets paid. The exact split for your booking is printed on your quote and on your receipt.
2. The three cancellation policies
Every act on MusicGigs picks one of three named policies. There are no custom or free-text policies, so you can compare two quotes without reading two different paragraphs. The policy is shown on the act's profile, on the quote, and again at checkout.
Flexible
- Deposit portion
- Refunded in full if the booking is cancelled more than 7 days before the event starts. Cancel inside that window and it is not refunded.
- Balance
- Refunded in full if the booking is cancelled more than 2 days before the event starts. Cancel inside that window and it is not refunded.
ModerateMost common
- Deposit portion
- Non-refundable from the moment the booking is paid for.
- Balance
- Refunded in full if the booking is cancelled more than 14 days before the event starts. Cancel inside that window and it is not refunded.
Strict
- Deposit portion
- Non-refundable from the moment the booking is paid for.
- Balance
- Refunded in full if the booking is cancelled more than 30 days before the event starts. Cancel inside that window and it is not refunded.
Windows are measured against the start time of the event, in the event's own time zone, and the test is strict: a window is open only while more than the stated number of days remain.
3. Booking inside a refund window
If a window has already closed when you book, that money is non-refundable immediately.
Refund windows are counted from the event date, not from the day you paid. If you book a moderate act 13 days before the event, the balance was already inside its 14 days window at the moment you paid, so cancelling the next morning refunds nothing. Booking late does not restart the clock.
This is only fair because you are told before you pay. When a booking is non-refundable from the start, checkout says so prominently and in plain words, marked with a warning, in the place where the refund figure would otherwise be — not in small print. When a booking is still refundable, that same place shows the exact amount you would get back if you cancelled that day.
4. If the client cancels
You can cancel a confirmed booking at any time from the booking page. What comes back depends on the act's policy and how close to the event you are:
- Any portion still inside its refund window is refunded in cash to your original payment method.
- Any portion whose window has closed is kept and paid to the act. Their date was held for you and, this close in, is hard to resell.
- The service fee is not refunded in cash. It is recorded on your account as MusicGigs credit, valid for 12 months. Credit is not yet applied by checkout on its own — contact us before you pay for your next booking and we will apply it to that booking. Cancelling an event six months out should not cost you money outright.
Before you confirm a cancellation, the app shows you the exact cash figure and the exact credit figure. Nothing is estimated after the fact.
5. If the act cancels
You are refunded 100% in cash, including the service fee, whenever the act cancels. No policy tier applies, no window matters, and it makes no difference how close to the event it happens or why. If any money had already been paid out to the act, we recover it from them, not from you.
We also try to fix the actual problem, which is that your event now has no music: you are sent a shortlist of available acts of a similar type and price, and one tap sends them the same brief. Using it is optional and it does not affect your refund.
A cancelling act receives a reliability strike, which affects how they appear on the platform and holds their future payouts until after their events. Strikes can be appealed for genuine emergencies. An appeal only ever concerns the act's record — it never changes your refund.
6. If we cancel, or we get something wrong
If MusicGigs cancels a booking, or the problem is ours — a double charge, a payout sent to the wrong account, a failed webhook that left a paid booking unconfirmed, an outage during checkout — neither you nor the act absorbs it. You are made whole in cash, the act is paid what they were owed, and the cancellation tiers above do not apply. Any shortfall comes out of our revenue. This is the one part of this policy with no thresholds in it, deliberately.
7. Worked examples
A $2,000 booking under the Moderate policy. The client paid $2,100 at booking: $2,000 performance fee plus $100 service fee. The deposit portion is $600 and the balance is $1,400.
The client cancels, 15 days before the event
Client gets back $1,400 in cash plus $100 in MusicGigs credit. The act keeps $600 of the performance fee, before commission.
The client cancels, 13 days before the event
Client gets back $0 in cash plus $100 in MusicGigs credit. The act keeps $2,000 of the performance fee, before commission.
The act cancels, at any time, for any reason
Client gets back $2,100 in cash. The act keeps $0 of the performance fee, before commission.
These figures are produced by the same calculation the platform runs when a real booking is cancelled, so they are worked examples rather than illustrations.
8. How refunds are paid
Cash refunds go back to the card or payment method you originally paid with, through Stripe. We issue the refund as soon as the cancellation is processed; after that the timing is your bank's, and typically takes five to ten business days to appear on your statement.
We cannot refund to a different card or send a refund by another route. If your original card has been closed, your bank normally forwards the refund to its replacement — talk to them first, and to us if that fails.
MusicGigs credit is recorded against your account as soon as the cancellation is processed, and expires 12 months after it is issued. Checkout does not yet deduct it for you: contact us before you pay for your next booking, quoting that booking, and we will apply the credit to it. It has no cash value and cannot be transferred or withdrawn.
9. If something goes wrong at the event
A cancellation is not the only remedy. If the act does not turn up, turns up substantially late, or the performance is materially not what was booked, either side can open a dispute from the booking page for 48 hours after the event ends.
Opening a dispute freezes the act's payout, so the money is still held by MusicGigs while we look at it. The other side has 5 days to respond. We review what both sides submit and decide the outcome, which can include a full or partial refund.
We hold the balance of every booking for exactly the length of the dispute window for this reason. Once the window closes without a dispute, the booking is treated as delivered and the act is paid.
10. Chargebacks
If you think something is wrong with a charge, please open a dispute or contact us before contacting your bank. We can usually resolve it faster than a chargeback can, and a chargeback freezes all of the money on the booking, including the act's, while the card network works through it. When a chargeback is filed we will respond to it with the booking record: the quote you accepted, this policy as it stood at that moment, the agreement you confirmed, and the message history. Filing a chargeback in place of a cancellation does not change what this policy says you are owed.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The version that governs your booking is the one captured when you paid, which is stored with the booking and shown on it, so a change here never reaches back into a booking that already exists.
12. Contact us
Questions about a cancellation or a refund:
MusicGigs Org LLC
8701 W. Parmer Lane, Suite 3214
Austin, TX 78729
Email: gregg@musicgigs.org