Live music for the arrival drinks and the seated dinner, played at the level where people can still talk.

How it works

Music for the part of the night before the party

The cocktail hour and the dinner do a quiet job. They turn a group of guests who do not all know each other into a room that feels like one event. The music has to do that without anyone noticing it is doing it. Too quiet and the room stays awkward, with every cleared throat audible. Too loud and your guests shout across the table and leave hoarse. The skill is sitting in the narrow band in between, and it is a different skill from playing a dance floor. The acts that are brilliant at midnight are often wrong at seven, and the other way around.

Which act for which part of the evening

The acts we book most for cocktails and dinner

For a seated dinner our most-booked act is Dupa Trio, four touring musicians playing trumpet, guitar, bass and vocals through jazz standards and bossa nova. They sit perfectly under conversation and lift the second the room is ready for more, which is exactly what a dinner needs. For the drift from dinner into the evening, Savoy is the DJ who leans on swing, soul and Motown before he ever touches anything modern, so the music ages up and down the guest list without a jarring gear change. For an arrival that needs a single voice and a guitar, an acoustic soloist holds the room without filling it. We will tell you honestly when one act covers both the cocktail hour and the dinner, which keeps the budget down.

Prices for cocktail and dinner music in Amsterdam

An acoustic soloist for the arrival starts at EUR 600. An acoustic duo is EUR 1,000. A jazz trio for the dinner is EUR 1,400, the most-booked option for a seated meal. A DJ like Savoy for the drift into the evening is EUR 850, or EUR 1,500 with full sound and light. If the night ends on a dance floor, a four-piece band with sound and light included is EUR 3,000, and each extra musician adds EUR 500. A common Amsterdam booking is an acoustic soloist for the reception and a jazz trio for the dinner, or a single jazz trio that carries both, coordinated and invoiced as one. Travel outside Amsterdam is a separate itemised line. Send your date, venue and timings and we come back within one business day.

Background music for a corporate dinner

A corporate dinner has a different brief from a wedding. The room is there to talk business or to be hosted, and the music is the texture, not the event. A jazz trio at low volume or a saxophonist over a soft set gives a corporate reception a polished feel without ever competing with a speech or a host. We build the levels around your run of show, drop under the toasts, and lift again for the networking after dessert. For the wider corporate offer see corporate entertainment Amsterdam and jazz band Netherlands.

Amsterdam venues we play for dinners

We have played the rooms where Amsterdam actually sits down to eat. The Pulitzer, Hotel de l'Europe and the Conservatorium Hotel host the kind of dinner where a trio belongs in the corner, not on a stage. Anantara Krasnapolsky and the Rijksmuseum handle a larger seated event with the acoustics to match. De Duif and the Hortus Botanicus give a dinner a setting that does half the work before a note is played. We know the sound limits and the load-in of each, which is the unglamorous detail that decides whether a dinner sounds warm or harsh. For the full roster browse ons artiestenbureau, the agency hub, or acoustic duo Amsterdam for the reception alone.