The convenience of being able to book a practice room, then share the date & time with your band colleagues has never been easier. We found there are currently two ways in which booking a practice room online works.
Website Calendar
Music rehearsal spaces have a calendar embedded in to their website. This allows those looking to book a practice room to view available dates and times in advance.
Those managing spaces can centralise their room bookings, enabling them to remain in control of their calendar, prices, bookings and times. It also enables managers to monitor peaks and troughs of room use and consider offering discounts and incentives for downtimes.
Bandspace looked in to online booking calendars run by music rehearsal spaces and found adopting and running one has many benefits:
No endless phone calls
No back-and-forth emails
No unconfirmed availability
Manage your bookings 24/7
Other band members can book
Retain your favourite slot
Easy block book weeks ahead
Take advantage of any discounts
See how well-used practice rooms are
Add telephone and personal bookings
Easily alter booking with an account
The following spaces were reviewed.
Aspect Studios is a well-established music rehearsal space across two sites in Leicester and Loughborough in the East Midlands. It offers three bright practice rooms to hire in each location, all equipped to a high standard and ready to use.
Completing a simple registration page on its website enables you to log in to an online calendar and manage your bookings. You can book a time slot in one of three rooms, with a minimum of two hours.
Once a time slot has been selected, you follow a link to a page to create your band name. You can add band members and their email addresses. Once you have paid securely online with your credit / debit card for your slot, the space automatically emails fellow band members to confirm the booking.
Only dates when rooms are available are highlighted to ensure rooms are not double booked.
BlackFrog Studios in Thame, just outside Oxford, is a large one-room music rehearsal space.
You can manage your rehearsal sessions online using its web based booking system to ensure you retain your favourite slot months in advance. Its website simply lists a number of slots. Once you have selected your slot, you enter your name, telephone number and email address. When booked you receive an email confirmation. You can either pay online using Paypal or pay on the day.
More spaces offering online booking
Ginger Music Company
Graham Russell Drums
Langlei Studios
Meet & Jam
Melrose Yard Studios
Mill Hill Studios
Music Ape Studios
Pro9ect Studio
Rogue Studios
The Bunker
The Rhoom Studios
The Sound Garage
The Unsigned Guide
Upland Studios
Wilder Studios
Woodshack Rehearsal Studios
Third-party Directory
An external agency lists your space in an online directory. For a fee it maintains information about a music rehearsal space allowing viewers to contact a space via their webpage. There are several websites that offer to handle your room bookings:
Jammed's pricing plan offers either a per room or a complete managed service. Its booking software allows the account holder to take online bookings in real-time with payment taken before booking. It also allows you to set a room cleaning period after each booking and perform contract tracing on a customer's details. Musicians and performers get email and phone reminders of their booking, allowing your customers to cancel their booking online, and you to resell the room.
Tutti allows you to search for anything from pianos to sprung floors, blackout studios to live-stream equipment. You can explore hundreds of listings or narrow down your search using filters. You can book by the room per hour, day, or week, depending on your needs. You can also communicate directly with your host. Any space can be listed, be it a student flat, garage, club or studio with the aim to match your space with the right person.
Rehearsal Space Finder is a free service for both artists and rehearsal space owners. Simply enter your location and whether you are looking for a dance, theatre or music rehearsal studio you will be presented with a list of nearby venues. You can use keyword search and filters to narrow down the results by size, capacity, price and services or equipment offered. It also lists a number of other venue types, like photography studios, performance spaces and recording studios.
Tagvenue is a general venue hire web agency. It boasts over 8,000 event spaces listed in the UK, Ireland, Australia and Singapore, including restaurants, banquet halls, conference centres and even less conventional places like churches, warehouses and gardens. You can compare prices, capacities and user ratings. Once you find your space, you can contact and book the venue directly through the Tagvenue website.
Musicwise is a free service for musicians to find and book rehearsal studios, recording studios, music courses, music shops, and music lessons. Behind MusicWise is a group of musicians, tech professionals, and industry leaders, and together they are on a mission to help you play more.
Music Locations is a free listing website offering full contact details for the space. There are thousands of music locations listed which include pubs, schools and venues. Any location connected to music can be listed.
Cancelling a booking
If you intend to cancel a booking, you will need to notify the space usually at least 48 hours before your session starts. Otherwise you will lose your deposit and/or lose favour with the space manager.
Email or telephone
A word of warning however from Rotator Studios who have worked with Supergrass and The Foals. They have chosen not to use email but instead use a telephone to take bookings because: “If you ask a question like: What have you got available next Wednesday or Thursday evening? Our reply might be: "We have A and B slots on Wednesday, and C and D slots on Thursday… But we can't keep ALL the slots you might want open just in case you might like to take one up. So we hope you understand, it's just better if you call us and speak to us directly. Believe us, we tried it - but it was not practical” (www.rotator.co.uk).
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