Acoustic guitar and singer hire in Australia: the complete guide

One person, one guitar, one voice. It is the oldest small booking in live music and still the most reliable, because it works in almost any space at almost any volume, and everyone in the room recognises what is happening.

The prices on this page come from the performers listed under this exact category. It is a deliberately narrow list, so also look at the broader soloist and singer pages, where many of the same performers appear described differently.

A guitar is quiet enough to play unamplified for thirty people and loud enough through a small speaker for two hundred. A voice singing songs guests know does the rest. There is no stage to build, no drum kit to argue about with the venue, and no setup that interrupts the event while it happens.

It also scales down gracefully, which very little live music does. Ask for softer and it genuinely gets softer instead of just quieter and worse. That is the reason this booking survives every change in function music fashion.

Most of these performers are working musicians who write their own material and play covers to pay for it. At your event you almost certainly want the covers, and you should say so plainly, because it is not rude and they are expecting the question.

A song list on a profile is a good starting point rather than a menu. Ask what they play most often at events like yours, and ask which requests they would steer you away from, because one person with a guitar cannot make every song work and the honest ones will say which.

This is the format most often used to cover a wedding from beginning to evening. Ceremony, then canapes, then an hour or two through dinner. One performer, one setup, and no gap while somebody else loads gear in.

If dancing matters later, book this for the daytime and a band or a DJ for the night rather than asking one acoustic performer to do both. The daytime music is where this booking is unbeatable, and stretching it past its natural end is how people end up disappointed with an act that did nothing wrong.

This particular category is thin and spread out, with Perth carrying the largest single group and the rest scattered across New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, including regional towns rather than only capitals. Treat the list as a starting point rather than the full field.

In practice, the same performers often list themselves as soloists or as singers instead, so search those categories for your area as well. If your town shows nothing here at all, that is a labelling gap rather than an absence of anyone who can play.

How long can you play, and how do you want the breaks arranged? Do you bring a PA, and do you have a battery option for an outdoor ceremony? Will you learn one specific song for us? Do you use any backing tracks? And can you keep it quiet enough for conversation during the meal?

That last question separates the event performers from the pub performers. Playing softly and still sounding good is a skill, and a performer who mostly plays bars may not have spent much time practising it.