Guitarist hire in Australia: the complete guide

Booking a guitarist is usually a decision about atmosphere rather than a decision about a show. Someone playing beautifully in the corner while guests arrive changes a room without anyone having to stop talking, and that is a genuinely different product from a performer working a crowd.

Prices here come from the guitarists listed on the site and move as they do. One thing to settle before you read them: whether you want playing only, or playing and singing. That single choice decides most of the rest.

An instrumental guitarist is atmosphere. Nylon string or jazz guitar under conversation, a processional for a ceremony, background through a long lunch. Nobody is meant to watch, and the music sits under the room rather than on top of it. This is the classic cocktail hour booking and it is very hard to get wrong.

A guitarist who also sings is a different booking entirely, and on this site those performers are usually listed under the singer and guitar categories rather than here. If you want guests recognising songs and joining in, look there. If you want the room to sound better without anyone looking up, stay on this page.

Classical and Spanish guitar suits ceremonies, garden lunches and anywhere you want something that sounds formal without sounding stiff. Jazz guitar sits under a cocktail hour better than almost anything else, especially played quietly on a hollow body through a small amplifier. Fingerstyle acoustic covers of songs people know sits between the two and works for almost any daytime event.

Electric guitar as a solo booking is rarer and more specific. It turns up for corporate feature spots, for backing another performer, and for the occasional roving act. If that is what you want, say so in the enquiry, because most profiles here assume acoustic unless told otherwise.

A guitarist at a ceremony is doing three jobs: music while guests are seated, the walk down the aisle, and the signing. Each needs a different length and a different feel, and the walk in particular has to stretch or stop on cue rather than run to a fixed recording. That live adjustment is the whole reason to hire a person instead of pressing play.

Outdoors, sound is the thing to sort out. A nylon string guitar played in a garden with wind and thirty metres of lawn needs amplification, and a ceremony far from a power point needs a battery speaker. Ask what they carry rather than assuming, because a beautiful player nobody can hear is a wasted booking.

Queensland carries the deepest list here, and unusually Brisbane and the Gold Coast together outweigh Sydney. Melbourne is strong, Perth and Adelaide have solid numbers, and the Sunshine Coast is well supplied for its size. Warm weather venues and long outdoor lunches are the obvious explanation.

Very few guitarists on this page carry visible reviews, which is worth knowing before you use star ratings as a filter. Most of this work is quiet background playing that nobody thinks to write about afterwards, so judge by video and by the reply you get instead.

Do you sing, or is this instrumental only? What guitar and what style, and can I hear a recording of that exact setup? How long can you play continuously? Do you bring amplification, and do you have a battery option outdoors? And can you learn one specific piece for the aisle?

Most players will learn a request given a few weeks, and many have arrangements of popular songs already. Ask early rather than the week before, and ask for a recording of it once it is ready.