Booking musicians for pubs, clubs, hotels and other entertainment venues seems straightforward. The person responsible for organising the music selects a date, contacts the act, makes a booking, and the job is done.

That’s the theory. In practice, according to musician Eoghan Matthews, the process is slow, convoluted, and outdated.

“Currently, live music bookings are handled through a mix of WhatsApp messages, phone calls, spreadsheets and agents. This creates unnecessary administration, poor visibility around availability and last-minute cancellations,” says Matthews, who co-founded digital booking platform CeolConnect, with Hugh Prendergast and Sam Owens last year.

“CeolConnect is designed to simplify how live music is booked and managed across Ireland’s hospitality sector. It connects venues directly with musicians, replacing the informal and fragmented systems that currently dominate the industry. The existing booking process means musicians often face unreliable communication, inconsistent work and limited access to gigs,” Matthews says.

“CeolConnect brings the entire booking process into one structured platform. Venues can post gigs, manage schedules, confirm bookings and keep track of their live music calendar in one place. Musicians can view suitable opportunities, manage their availability, apply for gigs, and build a professional profile that reflects their experience and reliability.

“The platform is built specifically around the realities of Irish live music, where recurring weekly gigs, local relationships, and trust matter,” Matthews adds. “By removing friction and reducing reliance on agents, we help venues save time and money while giving musicians fairer access to work and greater certainty.”

The co-founders met at university and, as part of their undergraduate degree in business studies, joined forces for a module in new enterprise development. “This module lasted nine months and challenged us to develop a product or service and pitch it in a dragon’s den-like scenario at the end of the module. It was during this module that CeolConnect was created,” Matthews says.

“At the beginning of the year, we had no idea of a suitable product. We generated a few ideas, but none lasted more than a week. Then, one week in November, we had a friend’s birthday on a Saturday night. I had a gig that day but forgot to ask my agent to get the night off. I couldn’t get cover at short notice, and I missed the party, but the idea for CeolConnect was sparked.”

The founders spoke to venue managers to establish the extent of the cancellation problem in particular and discovered it was a bigger issue than they had first thought.

“Venues booking around 200 gigs a year can get up to 40 cancellations and then struggle to find cover,” Matthews says. “With CeolConnect, they have easy access to more musicians, musicians have easier access to more gigs and cancellations get covered from both sides. Our platform focuses on regular and recurring music bookings rather than on ticket sales or large events.

“What stood out most for us was that the same frustrations came up again and again, whether we were talking to venues in the big cities or in the smaller towns where live music is central to the local community. Despite Ireland’s reputation for music, the systems used to organise it have not evolved. Our goal is simple: to create a simple, reliable way to support live music while making life easier for the people whose living depends on it,” Matthews says.

CeolConnect will launch on a limited basis this month with a full rollout by the end of the year as the system’s back-end is completed and features such as a payments portal are added.

“Pricing, workflows, and features are being shaped by artist and venue feedback, local booking habits, typical fee structures, and the scale of Irish venues. Early testing is taking place with Irish musicians and venues to ensure that the product reflects real needs rather than assumptions,” says Matthews, who describes CeolConnect as “a bit like Airbnb crossed with LinkedIn – venues and musicians consolidated in one place.”

The platform is aimed at bars, hotels, nightclubs, restaurants, event venues, musicians and DJs. Performers will be able to upload their profiles and add performance samples, while venues can tap into the platform to find talent and streamline their booking schedule.

Both sides can sign up to the platform for free, and CeolConnect will make its money by charging venues that book acts on its platform a subscription based on volume. There is no cost to musicians.

Investment to date in the business is running at around €50,000 (from friends, family and a private investor) while the company has also benefited from the stipend that goes with Enterprise Ireland’s new frontiers programme. Matthews is currently on the programme at ATU Sligo.

He says that interaction with the other entrepreneurs has been particularly beneficial. “Making these connections has allowed me to learn so much, and as a group we have been able to bounce ideas off each other and help each other out with our different scenarios,” he says.

A recent private investment of €200,000 will fund the next stage of CeolConnect’s development, and Matthews says the plan is to consolidate the platform in Ireland before looking to any other markets.

“We will be launching in Carrick on Shannon with a select number of bars and musicians before moving on to other towns such as Athlone. As our platform begins to grow from town to town, we aim to launch in Galway in the second half of 2026 and to move into Dublin in December.

“We do not have any comparable competition in the marketplace,” says Matthews, who adds that “generating cash flow and getting people to commit and sign up to something that isn’t available yet” have been the two biggest hurdles the start-up has faced so far.