The past:

• 1949 The Manager began his musical career with a song sung in a neighbours house. Attempts to learn the mouthorgan, tin whistle, melodian, and fiddle followed and 100s of hours were spent trying to master tunes and practise the pieces and exercises set by his teachers. Eventually he imagined he sounded like Ali Bain on the violin. God only knows what others thought. He continued with the day job.
• 1999. Now retired GOOD GIGS MUSIC AGENCY began with the Manager's efforts to get more gigs for his band Café Céilí using the internet
• He immediately became aware of the many and various styles of music that event organisers required, from pop to jazz, traditional to classical, and more besides.
• He contacted all the bands and musicians he knew, getting their details and writing profiles for them, with a view to recommending them for gigs.
• As bookings came in many well-known working bands registered online and the agency database began to grow.
• 2002. Rachel joined as Secretary and has become the main contact person for bands and event organisers since then.
• 2006. Eugene, another star of the Café Céilí group, configured the database so that letters and artiste profiles can be issued at the press of a button.
• 2007. Thanks again to Eugene's extraordinary technical expertise the "Quote for Gigs Available" feature was added to the web site and is proving popular with bands.
• 2008. Much more activity on all fronts, more gigs, more bands, and Rachel's maternity leave. Sadly Rachel proved irreplaceable and many services to event organisers had to be suspended for those months. Caitríona came on board to help out and we continued to register new bands, take numerous telephone and e-mail messages, and send out information as best we could. The miracle was we kept going.
• 2008 Rachel came back and requests for information on bands and performers were coming in at the rate of two or three a day.
• An offline brochure was produced with the assistance of Declan Kenny of Leixlip and advertisements were placed with the Irish Times (back page) and various other newspapers.
• 2009 The year began well with lots of bookings coming in and lots of inquiries. A day spent tidying up this web site revealed numerous dead links and "Error 400: Bad Requests". Apologies to those incovenienced and sincerest thanks to those who e-mailed me with details. Although you are looking at an electronic computer screen there is a very live human person on the other side looking forward to hearing from you.
• 3/02/2009 A leap forward: For convenience we have put PayPal on the site. Now clients and Acts can send deposits, act fees, payment for advertising etc using this safe online bank. [ See Payments. ]

The future:

• New bands are constantly being formed and are welcome to register with us.
• We hope to provide a prompt reliable professional service to those organising events requiring live music, whether weddings and family events or corporate functions.
• For weddings we help find the best musicians available at a reasonable price.
• For corporate functions we provide an efficient, documented, tax-compliant service to both event-organisers and venue owners.
• "GOOD GIGS MUSIC AGENCY" is a registered business name: Registration number: 330994. The proprietor is registered for VAT.
• In April 2009 we hope to launch an automated service on a new web site which will benefit bands and event organisers. The computer coding and web design is complex but if it works it will be worth it all.