🌅 Horizon Future Leaders – Kit Muir-Rogers Q&A

As part of our new Horizon Future Leaders series of interviews, we are connecting with the music industry’s next generation of leaders to gather candid advice and insights into their career journeys. 

Horizon is CMU’s weekly newsletter that brings you a hand-picked selection of early to mid stage career opportunities from across the music industry, paired with insights and advice. Whether you’re looking for your first job in music or you’re ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster. Horizon is focused on highlighting the best and most exciting roles we’ve seen and is made for people who are building their careers with ambition.

Getting started and progressing your career in the music industry can often feel overwhelming. Despite the wide range of positions and opportunities available, early-career professionals often face a daunting array of challenges. From the frustrating cycle of needing experience to be able to get the roles that help you build experience, to often intense competition from like-minded peers, the barriers in music can sometimes seem higher than in many other fields.

At CMU we spend a lot of time trying to explain and demystify the music business, and our Horizon newsletter is dedicated to helping the next generation of music leaders build and progress their careers. Our new series of Q&A interviews, Horizon Future Leaders, talks to rising professionals from across the industry: to hear firsthand how they started out and what they have learnt along the way, sharing practical tips and advice for anyone looking to build and own their future in the music business.

This week, we caught up with Kit Muir-Rogers, Co-founder of GigPig.

From his early days playing in bands and his former senior hospitality roles, Kit gained an understanding of the realities musicians and venues face – skills that now shape his work as Co-founder of GigPig. His experience helped him recognise the importance of fair opportunities for artists and efficient processes for venues.

In the Q&A, Kit shares practical advice for those starting out in the music industry, including the value of hard work, building relationships and utilising available resources.

Read the full Q&A with Kit below 👇

What’s your current role in the music industry?

Co-founder of GigPig, the UK’s fastest growing live music marketplace, which provides venues with a streamlined way to search, book and manage entertainment in-house, while offering artists a free platform to find, play and get paid for gigs. 

What does your general day to day look like?

I’m based in Manchester, where we have a fantastic team of music and technology experts who are passionate about making sure that we facilitate the very best gigs right across the country. 

Underpinning everything we do is our mission to make the music industry more accessible to all – helping artists to enter the sector and thrive. Importantly, our platform helps artists to connect to a range of venues, making it possible for them to earn a great salary doing what they love. 

I’m often working around the UK liaising with our growing list of hospitality contacts – whether that’s independent bars and restaurants or multi-location venues such as Albert’s Schloss – about how GigPig can elevate their live music offering.

No two days are the same in my role and it’s all about adding capacity to build our team as demand for our platform continues to rise. This helps us to continually innovate, adding features for artists and venues to maximise their potential. 

I love nothing more than seeing venues and artists come together to stage amazing music, all via the GigPig platform. We’ve facilitated thousands of gigs now and have more than 9000 artists and 1000 venues utilising GigPig; which is a real team effort. 

The buzz of an in-person gig is like nothing else and I feel so lucky to be able to be part of a team so passionate about improving the music sector for good.   

What steps did you take early in your career to gain experience and build skills to get you where you are now?

In my formative years, I went to drama school in London; something that taught me the importance of discipline and work ethic. I loved everything about being able to showcase my creativity but it also made me hungrier for a role in the creative industries. 

Essentially, being immersed in a place where punctuality and attendance were paramount to staying on track showed me that hard work would unlock career opportunities. I still live by the rule of never being late for a meeting! Those things matter alongside the drama or music you’re creating. 

My best friends and I were in bands as kids, and all of them have gone on to secure incredible music careers. We all know what it’s like to work in an industry where you have to put the hours in; it’s not something that can just fall on your lap. 

Musicians work hard and have to have tenacity and belief in themselves. We would spend hours rehearsing. That early graft helps you to succeed and it’s worth every minute of that journey. 

What opportunities did you explore early on that were particularly valuable?

After a decade or so in the creative industries, I decided I wanted to build up my corporate experience and went on to work in senior hospitality roles. This gave me a real understanding of the opportunities and pain points faced by venues across the UK in which many gigging artists cut their teeth. 

In those roles, I was exposed to many great leaders. They guided and inspired me in a way which means that I now know that I will only ever lead from the front – a business trait that means I’ll never ask somebody to do something I haven’t done or wouldn’t do myself. Those leaders empowered me to learn and trust in myself. 

And I believe that no matter where you are in your career, it’s always wise to have a mentor who can share objective feedback and guidance, giving you the confidence to make decisions and find solutions. I reached out to Jo Fishwick of Red Bull recently, who I worked with previously, and I find having Jo as a mentor in my current role absolutely invaluable.  

Has the opportunity landscape changed since then?

The music industry is forever evolving and while that makes it exciting, it can also feel quite daunting. Streaming is a good example, it offers the chance for creatives to be in the driving seat for so many reasons but it also requires artists to have so many strings to their bow: managing finances, marketing, sales and much more. 

Often, it can feel like it’s taking away from the time you have to create and rehearse the music itself. That’s where platforms like GigPig come in, because not only do we match up the artists and the venues, our platform also helps with those back-of-house aspects in one seamless step. 

Let’s be honest, breaking the music industry to be part of a multi-million pound internationally acclaimed band – the 1% slice of the music industry – is going to be tough! But through gigging in hospitality venues, artists can earn up to £90k doing what they love and performing to live audiences. 

It’s just about being savvy about how and where you do it, and using a live music marketplace like ours also gives them that guidance as well as experience navigating a demanding sector. 

Are there any specific internships, projects, or initiatives that you would recommend to newcomers looking to pursue a similar role?

Connections are key for those working in both music and hospitality industries. I found a project called Reform Radio in Manchester to springboard back into music and getting to know peers was invaluable. It’s a place which opens doors and gives artists the chance to learn and develop skills in a safe environment, surrounded with others in the same position.

There are examples of projects such as this UK-wide and I’d urge artists to take full advantage of the opportunities they offer because it’s so important to be collaborative. 

It’s also about giving back to the industry, though, so artists should think about what they might be able to deliver in return. This could be workshops for projects or initiatives that’d be of value to others. And make sure you socialise with these like-minded people, it’s imperative for emerging and also successful artists. 

What advice do you have for building and leveraging a professional network in the music industry?

For me, I don’t think you can underestimate the value of in-person networks. In a world where so much is online, making the effort to get in front of people and have conversations can change a day or an opportunity entirely. 

Try to find like-minded people, as well as leaders in their field, who might be able to work together or signpost to what’s happening in your town or city. This could be at events being held in your location, gigs being staged, or perhaps by arranging meetings. 

GigPig uses the power of networks everyday across the locations where we have multiple venues and artists, and this has added huge economic value to those places and also supported those artists and venues to thrive. 

These communities are essential to making our mission of every hospitality venue a stage becoming a reality via helping to put on live music on every street possible. Leverage those professional networks by investing time and energy; there’s always people in your network who are happy and willing to share their experiences so lean into them where appropriate. 

How has the evolving digital landscape impacted your role, and where do you focus to stay ahead?

Innovation is at the core of GigPig’s offering and the technology we have developed is nothing without our people. 

The fuel in our fire is utilising the many decades of experience in the music and hospitality sectors within our team to navigate and be ahead of changes in the digital landscape. We have to react but also have a proactive way in which we roadmap our own technology given the various changes to the creative industries which are always going to happen. 

My role requires me to be inquisitive and passionate about making change, in a way that improves the music industry. And that helps when we make adaptations to the platform but also shapes the way in which we, for example, onboard artists and venues as we scale up.

We have a combined hunger to make a difference via relationships and technology – helping thousands of people achieve their dreams and democratising the music industry. 

What trends or changes do you see on the horizon for the music industry, and how can early career professionals prepare for them?

The music industry has for too long been a hard profession to enter, with many artists supplementing rehearsal hours with a job in another industry to pay their bills. Competition remains really tight in a world where in reality many hospitality venues are squeezing their margins and perhaps not seeing the value of live music to their business. 

What GigPig does is make sure that artists get paid fairly, but also that all of the hard work of sourcing, booking and managing live entertainment is removed for venues. Helping them to make more money from each gig, while giving artists the ability to get paid fairly and with ease, is helping to unlock this. 

So, artists no doubt need to work hard but by signing up to our platform they can unlock so many more opportunities to gig in their vicinity. And we do all the hard work lobbying venues to get involved by showcasing to them the value of live music – did you know that a pub can add an estimated £90,000 by introducing gigs? 

That’s possible because more people will visit those venues for longer, and therefore spend more, when an artist is performing. It’s a huge win all round for artists and venues; we’re proud to be addressing the problem for early career professionals and beyond. 

What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you at the start of your career?

Find something you’re passionate about and love; and then you’ll never work a day in your life. The hours are long as a co-founder but I have the best team around me and it’s incredible to see the strides being made because of the combined effort everybody makes.

It’s about backing yourself, giving back and always making sure you have laughter everyday. Work is such a fundamental part of life, but it has to be enjoyed.