AI-powered artist validation & matching

GigPig is the UK’s biggest live music marketplace, connecting over 3,000 venues with 10,000 artists — from top DJs to rising local talent. With more than £10M put back into the artist economy and 50,000+ gigs booked every year, GigPig is changing the way live entertainment works. By cutting out booking fees and making gigs easier to book, they’re helping build stronger, more vibrant local scenes.

In 2025, we teamed up with GigPig to help them grow without piling on extra work. Using AI, we automated artist validation and made their artist–venue matching smarter and faster. The result? A platform that runs smoother for the team — and delivers better results for venues and artists alike.

01. Manual artist reviews couldn’t keep up with demand

Every artist profile — from images and bios to genres and links — had to be checked by hand. As GigPig grew, this became a major bottleneck. The team needed a way to speed up reviews without losing quality, so great talent wouldn’t get overlooked.

02. Helping artists stand out in a crowded space

With thousands of profiles on the platform, it wasn’t enough for an artist to just be listed — their profile needed to be complete, relevant, and compelling. Supporting artists in building strong profiles helped ensure they were easy to match with the right gigs through automated systems.

03. Smarter recommendations for 3,000 venues

In the second phase of our collaboration, GigPig aimed to improve how venues discover talent. With over 10,000 active artists and more than 3,000 venues, they needed a faster, smarter way to connect the right performers to the right opportunities — based on genre, location, budget, availability, and more — all while keeping things simple for busy venue managers.

04. Getting infrastructure ready for AI

GigPig’s platform, built with PHP and Laravel, had served them well — but to connect with modern AI tools, it needed a few lightweight adjustments. We added the necessary code to ensure smooth communication between their Laravel app and our AI service, without requiring any major changes to their existing setup.

01. Plug-and-play LLMs with Draive

Draive — our library for working with LLMs — made it easy to embed generative AI into GigPig’s existing Laravel setup, with no need to rebuild. It handles everything from prompt design to safety checks and AI evaluation. With Draive, the team can launch advanced AI features alongside existing tools, giving them full flexibility to build fast.

02. AI-powered artist validation

We built a smart validation engine that combines backend logic with LLMs. It checks every profile for quality: images must be appropriate and music-related, descriptions clean and aligned with the artist’s tier, and YouTube links properly attributed. It also verifies genres and self-selected tiers to ensure artists show up in the right searches. Each review wraps up with an LLM-generated feedback message that’s ready to send — saving GigPig’s team hours of manual effort every day.

03. Smarter venue recommendations

To help venues find the right talent quickly, we built a geo-filtering engine that surfaces at least 30 local artists within a 30-mile radius — expanding as needed. It filters by genre, budget, and availability, then ranks matches using embedding-based similarity. Each result includes a clear, AI-generated explanation to support faster, more confident bookings.

01. Moderation time cut from hours to minutes

What once took hours now happens in minutes. Artist profiles are reviewed quickly and consistently with AI, giving artists faster feedback and helping them go live with stronger profiles. For GigPig, it means every artist gets the attention they deserve — without adding pressure to the team.

02. Smarter matches, better bookings

Venues now get fast, tailored artist recommendations based on real-time filters like location, availability, and genre. Each match is ranked with AI-powered scoring and comes with a simple explanation. It’s not guesswork — just relevant, data-backed suggestions that help venues book with confidence.

03. An AI-ready music platform, built to grow

With generative AI woven into key workflows, GigPig runs with more speed, consistency, and scale — all without growing the team. Backed by flexible infrastructure and full control of their tech stack, they’re ready to lead the next wave of live music discovery.