GigXchange Index: methodology for a UK live music fee index

A technical note describing how the GigXchange Index, a monthly open dataset of UK live music fees, is built. It covers scope and definitions, the source classes and their caps, the conversion to artist take-home pay, the quality checks, the weighted percentile calculation, the geographic structure, the labels separating measured cells from estimates, the refresh cycle, the method history with known defects, limitations and the corrections policy. Version 1.0 describes Method v6 (from 31 October 2026), with counts from Issue 07 (October 2026): 5,192 observations and 414 published cells, of which 100 of 299 city cells are measured. Published market rates supply 68.6 per cent of observations and no confirmed bookings are included, so the Index mainly describes advertised and stated rates. It records the 31 October 2026 correction of 2,646 rows whose commission had been removed twice. The note discloses that the Index is produced by GigXchange, a UK live music marketplace, and is not independently audited. Licence: CC BY 4.0.