Understanding Your Legal Position When Depping

For more information on depping, how you arrange cover, and what skills you need as a dep, you can read more information in our Depping for Gigs guidance.

If you’ve been booked for a gig, it is because they want to utilise your particular talent and style. If you send someone else without telling anyone, this could damage your reputation and trustworthiness, potentially making it difficult to secure future bookings. Similarly, a club, venue, band leader or other engager will be expecting you and not your dep.   

This extends beyond reputation; it might also have legal ramifications. The general public are consumers well protected by the law and the courts. They may have every right to claim breach of contract if they do not get what or who they were expecting. If you're not sure of your position, contact your Regional Office for advice. 

Public engagements

If you are taking bookings from the general public – for private parties etc – it is all the more important to expressly agree and state in your contract when and whether you can use deps.  

The public may have every right to claim breach of contract if they do not get what or who they were expecting when they booked. The general public is not involved in the music industry and so cannot be expected to know, let alone have agreed to, sector-specific music industry custom and practice. You might even find yourself having to pay your dep while being unable to demand payment from your client because you were booked but didn’t turn up. 

Health and safety

Health & Safety issues must also be considered. If you send a deputy and that person is injured or causes an injury to another person, who is liable? It could be you, as the person deemed to have engaged them. For more advice about using deputies or deputising, please contact your Regional Office. 

Useful tips

If you run a covers or scratch band, then:

• Make it clear to clients that the musicians who turn up for the booking might be different from the ones on your website, demo, or playing that night. 
• If you are booked as a soloist, agree what will happen if you are ill. 
• Get it in writing. You can use an MU contract, but if you'd like advice on a contract you've received for any live engagement, please contact your Regional Office. MU members can also access the Contract Advisory Service free of charge, including up to an hour with a specialist solicitor for advice on publishing, management, recording and other music business agreements. 
• Think carefully about your legal relationships with the musicians you use. Ensure that everyone understands their position. 
• Are they all your partners? If not, is it clear that you are hiring the others on a one-off basis? 
• If you are booking various line-ups from a regular pool, it is possible that all of them could be in partnership. How would you feel if the majority walked off with the group’s name? 
• Clarify everyone’s position in writing. If you are all MU members, you can get a partnership agreement drafted for free from the MU Partnership Advisory Service.