Band Me Up
A website-builder I built specifically for bands, because the alternatives were either generic profile pages or full-fat website builders that didn't understand bands.
The brief
Most platforms in this space try to be everything to everyone — full website builders bolted onto a profile page, or generic SaaS pretending it understands bands. Band Me Up is the opposite: it does about six things — tour dates, music, photos, mailing list, EPK, links — and not much else. The narrowness is the point.
Bands don't have time to learn a CMS. They have time, between soundcheck and load-out, to add a date or upload a photo. So every part of the product had to make those moves take seconds, not minutes.
The build
- 01Sections built for what bands actually useTour dates, music player, photo galleries, mailing-list signup, auto-generated EPK — and not much else.
- 02Integrations with what bands already useMailchimp for newsletters, Patreon for fan support, Spotify and Bandcamp for music.
- 03Pricing that doesn't scare bands offThe price of two beers a month, with a 14-day free trial.
- 04Their own domain, not someone else's profileSubdomain or custom-domain option, so the site reads as the band's own.
The details
Most bands already keep their tour dates in Bandsintown — that's where Spotify, Songkick and the rest pull from. Asking them to also maintain a list in their website CMS is a non-starter. Tour dates auto-sync from Bandsintown every six hours, with manual events sitting alongside in the same calendar. No cron job — a public endpoint with server-side rate limiting handles the schedule, which keeps it serverless-friendly.
Mailing-list signups on band sites are a magnet for bots — every one of them gets attempted spam signups within a week. The signup endpoint is rate-limited and double-opt-in, so the band's fan list stays clean and they don't end up with a few thousand fake addresses tanking their open rate.
A traditional EPK is a PDF or a separate page that the band has to remember to update every time a new track drops or a tour ends. The EPK on Band Me Up isn't a separate page at all — it's generated from the same data as the homepage. Add a track, the EPK's discography updates. Add a date, the tour list updates. Nothing to forget.
Questions you might have
The stuff small-business buyers actually email me about. Answered up front so you don't have to.
01Do I own the site?
Yes, completely. The code is yours, the design is yours, the domain is yours. If you ever want to take it elsewhere, just ask — I'll hand over everything you need to move it. No lock-in, no hostage situation.
02I'm not technical at all. Is that a problem?
Not even slightly. Most of my clients aren't technical. I'll never make you "log into the cPanel" or send you a JSON file. If something needs to happen, I'll either do it for you or write you a one-page guide with screenshots.
03How does payment work?
50% deposit to start, 50% on launch. UK bank transfer. Invoice has clear terms, payment is due within 14 days. For the Care Plan it's monthly direct debit / standing order, cancel anytime.
04Is the price plus VAT?
No. pixel61 ltd isn't VAT-registered, so what you see is what you pay. (If that ever changes, the pricing here will be updated and the FAQ will say so.)
05Will my site show up on Google?
Yes. I do the proper basics on every site — page titles, descriptions, sitemap, structured data, fast load times. That gets you found when someone searches for your business name or "[your-thing] in [your-town]", which is what most small-business customers are actually doing. What I don't do is promise you'll rank #1 for "web designer" or "best plumber" against people who've spent years and tens of thousands on SEO. Anyone who promises that is selling you something else.
06Can you fix / redesign my existing site instead of starting fresh?
Honestly? Usually no. Most of the time it's quicker, cheaper and better for both of us to start fresh on a small site than wrestle with someone else's old code. If you really want me to look at an existing site, I will — but I'll tell you straight if a rebuild is the better call.
Want to chat about a site?
Festival, band, café, distillery, holiday let, anything. Fill in the boxes and hit send — none of it is required, the more you tell me the more useful my reply will be. Comes straight to my inbox, no team, no triage.
Prefer a quick chat first? Book a 30-minute call
Or skip the form and email me directly: hello@pixel61.com
If it helps, here's what to include
None of it is required, but the more you tell me up front, the more useful my reply will be:
- 01Roughly what you're building.A holiday let? A café? A festival? Something else?
- 02Any sites you like the look of?(yours or anyone else's) — saves a thousand words.
- 03What's driving the timingLaunching something? Old site embarrassing you? Festival in October?
- 04A rough budgetIf you've got one. The packages page should tell you what mine cost — if those numbers feel about right, just say "Standard tier-ish" and we're sorted.
I'll come back with either "yes, let's do it, here's how" or "no, here's why, here's who I'd point you at instead". Both are useful — neither will take a week to land in your inbox.