Is anybody here currently using thebash? I'm considering signing up with them and I'm curious how you've found your experience compared to Gigsalad, Yelp, etc recently. Any experiences are welcome. The opinions I've found so far seem to indicate that Gigsalad does somewhat better for them. But that wasn't magic related. I'm already on most of the other services so just thinking about adding another. Thanks!

You know I have heard this too, including on here as well, but personally I have found with the students and clients I coach, they all seem to do better with The Bash (formerly Gigmasters).

I was even with them maybe 20 or 25 years ago (very early on in the beginning) and it was okay for any consumer-level gigs here and there. When I dropped they asked me not to go as I was one of their highest-rated at the time. However, I didn't like the bigger picture connotations that were online from their mostly consumer-based inquiries. Funny story... even after dropping them they still have me listed and I still get inquiries all the time. Its funny to me.

When they were moving to The Bash I was told they would be focusing also on professional market targeting, which I never saw materialize to the level I thought should be expected.

Now I do have some that I coach that use The Bash as their sole lead generation/booking source. For magicians it is very crowded as it is with other similar sites. I always encourage students to join the larger national package, even if they only want to perform locally, as this has generated the best results. I think its only a few hundred dollars (which you shoul dmake back on your first booking) a year but they seem to be much higher quality leads.

I will say it seems to me that their business is down over years past, but that may just be my experience with them as related to my students/clients.

I still think they are the most established and reputable. Their SEO is fantastic. While some talk highly of GigSalad I don't necessarily care for their system and some of their nuances of operation, although they offered to create a special category just for me, which I declined at the time.

I say go for it. However it does bring up a good related question...What is your top or top two performing sources of bookings? Just curious.

Thanks for the info. Great question, for incoming leads it's by far Yelp. It's done better than other services and even my own website. It's also way cheaper, and the type of bookings very tremendously. From one off birthday parties, to corporate events. Even got a lead for a trade show once believe it or not.

Thumbtack does pretty good for bookings for me.

Fedora, what are you doing with Yelp, paid ads or just the free listing?

I would bet a lot of money it is the free listing.

Free listing. I'm not a big fan of their ad system. Nonetheless, it's a fine service. Would recommend making a listing if you haven't already Dan.

I will say it's really important to respond to folks quickly on there. They list folks higher based on response time and quality of first message. I have my response time to the lowest it can go, 10 minutes. And the message quality is maxed out. I believe this gives an advantage.

We were posting at the same time, Danny would have won a lot of money.

I have a free listing on Yelp and respond asap. Someone a few weeks ago told me they found me via AI, AI recommended me. Pretty soon they'll send people to outer space or something.

I don’t get this business model at all.

You are waiting by your computer or phone hoping someone makes contact from an ad and you respond in less than 10 minutes? Do they send out multiple inquiries? Is it just game of who responds first?

I know this mightn't answer your question, but I truly believe that TheBash or Gigsalad are just middle men to Google.

Most people found you through GigSalad or TheBash because they first search "(Your city name) magician" on Google.
Since a lot of magicians are not SEO focus, TheBash / GigSalad came up as the top 2 Google search results.

the vast majority of people had never heard of GigSalad or TheBash.
The vast majority of people would never type "gigsalad.com" or "Thebash.com" into their browsers then search for a magician.

The vast majority of people will however, Google anything they need on their phones at any given moment.
The vast majority of people will however, simply ask Siri on their iphones how to find a magician for their event.

So if I must be blunt, just work on your website's SEO so you rank higher than GigSalad or TheBash.
That will lead you to way more gigs than waiting for people to google magician, then find thebash, then search magician again in thebash, then find you

So because they do better SEO (Whatever that is LOL.) they come up first in a Google search? Then when they click on the link in Google, which nobody ever really looks to see what it is, they end up on one of these entertainment collection sites?

But if one did a better job at their own Google Fu they would be able to possibly rank higher? Then they won't be competing with everyone on that site, the prospect goes directly to them?

So if I am correct in this stuff, which Lord knows I probably am not, how would one go about improving their SEO? (And ya I know what that is.) What goes into SEO? Because not being part of entertainment cattle call sites sounds smart.

Thank you for the post Nash! It's appreciated. Yes, my website has never ranked particularly well. Never been particularly good at key words or links and all that stuff. But, one thing that has worked quite well is my Google business profile. So if you Google the city I live in (and some of the shrouding areas) I will actually come up before any other website oftentimes. That's including Gigsalad and the like. Reason being I rank well on Google maps, and that panel is often placed at the top.


Good questions. For some of these, such as Gigsalad, Yelp, and Bark. A person puts in their information and it sends to multiple different vendors who have a chance to respond and send a quote. (Seems Thebash doesn't do that, it has it so you have to contact directly I think)

Being first certainly has an advantage, but it's far from guaranteed. Many make the request then never even check their messages.

As for the response time, I've found it pretty easy really. They have notifications, so my phone makes noise and I then open it and respond appropriately. Not really sure why some folks take hours or even days. Unless I'm in the middle of a show or it's the middle of the night (which happens for some reason) it's not hard to respond promptly.

Which is really a good idea regardless where the lead comes from. If they filled out a form anywhere, this is when they're most interested in booking. No reason to let time go by.

Yes sir!

TheBash /Gigsalad is just competing against you in the "Google Fu"
Guess what TheBash/Gigsaalad employees are hired to do????
They are hired to rank their websites as top 1 or 2 in Google

You can 100000% beat them. The answer is right in front of you!
Learn SEO my friends

And it really isn't a hard game to beat.
Literally all the answers on how to rank high in SEO is avaialbe on Google.
It just depends on who wants to do all the hard work

This is exactly what I did some 10 to 12 years ago. I've never spent a dime on SEO!

The business model is - when people are searching for entertainment - GigSalad and the Bash will be at the top of the search results. Then people will search for the type of entertainment they are looking for and if interested, will send an inquiry to check on availability and price. If you respond, you may get the gig. It's as simple as that.

The one thing I would mention about SEO - even if you rank at the top - there will be some clients who would rather browse on a site like GigSalad and look at options vs. clicking on one performers site. Now the argument could be made that those aren't the clients you want to work with, and that is a decision that is yours to make. But those clients are out there, and you may miss an opportunity to work with them if you are not on GigSalad, etc.

Yea I'll pass on any client who is looking to price shop. It isn't missing an opportunity at all.

I have to say that not a single person I have ever spoken with knew what either of these two sites are. Nash is right. They are not generally interested in those sites, they just come up first.

I think Nash nailed it dead on. Simply beat them in SEO. Ken said the same thing. Those clients who are out there who want to price shop can go directly to those sites.

As you have explained the business model in that above post it is not a great one.

GigSalad has landed me some good gigs. But I also agree that it's not a great business model. Like every other business they have also gotten more greedy making it more difficult to be seen on the site unless you pay for the premium memberships. That's the worst part of relying on any of these sites - you don't own the traffic - GigSalad does.

I haven't used the Bash since it became the bash but back in the Gigmasters day I got nothing from it.

If all that is true why use them?

When as Nash says all you have to do is out rank them why use them? As Ken points out it isn’t that hard why use these people?

I would disagree with this as it is only partially correct. It may be how it is perceived, but not fully how it actually works.

The business model is... if someone inquires, even if they are inquiring for only a specific performer, they are sent/presented with all performers who are in the categories and areas of the inquiry, AND those (non-local) who have a national paid listing including those that are the exact type of performer they are inquiring about or not. The type of performer is only one algorithm criteria match point. This is a major difference to what is stated above.

Someone could see my listing and THINK they are inquiring only to me and my listing, but they will actually get anywhere from 20-50 other performers directed to them matched by the algorithms based on several matching points including categories, keywords, location/areas, and other criteria.

This is the unknown aspect to those that see GM/The Bash and GS come up on Google searches, and think they are getting one thing (the act they see and are interested in (or several acts) but then very quickly get bombarded by many to dozens of performers that are getting the inquiry from the service and then therefore start to contact the person inquiring and it almost immediately causes a barrage of calls, emails, texts, and more that they were not wanting, expecting, or needing to deal with. This almost always creates a negative opinions and the inquiring prospect becoming overwhelmed and quickly not choosing to reply or respond to performers submitting to them.

With the exception of the first one or two that may reach them before this barrage and overwhelm process starts, most performers will never hear from the prospect, and many of these people/prospects contact the Bash/GS and ask for the inquiry/lead to be removed.

It is a business model that yes, matches inquiries to performers, BUT it is not made clear how many, quickly, bothersome, and aggressive some of these performers will be that creates the overwhelm and unexpected amount of contact and messages they will receive. So it is very misleading to the inquiring prospect.

So the initial belief or perception is quite different from the reality of what actually happens. It is also why so many inquiring prospects that are inquiring for say a hypnotist, are getting bombarded with responses from magicians, mentalists, kids party performers, balloon artists, caricaturists, and so on...some from 5 states away