Band rehearsal scheduling without the group-chat spiral
Every Sunday night somebody in the band posts "who's free this week?" and the replies trickle in until Wednesday. The guitarist can do Tuesday, maybe. The drummer is on late shifts and will know about Thursday on Thursday. The bassist reacts to the question with a thumbs-up, which answers nothing. By the time the answers line up, another band has the room you wanted, and you have spent more time negotiating the rehearsal than playing at it.
This page is for whoever ends up doing that negotiation, usually the person whose name is on the room booking. It covers what makes a band different from other groups, how to set up a poll that asks only the question you have, how to read the answers, and how to use one month of answers to stop asking every week. The walkthrough uses Best Day To Meet. Everything described was checked on the live site in September 2026, and the screenshots come from a test Event for an example five-piece band, set up while writing this page.
Why a band is its own scheduling problem
Everyone has to be there. A football squad can train with fourteen of its eighteen players. A band without its drummer is a different band, and a rehearsal with four of five is a sectional at best. So the answer you are looking for is the evening all five can make. "The date with the most votes" only helps when it is also the date with every vote.
It happens every week. Friends choose a dinner date once. A band chooses an evening fifty times a year, and a method that is fine for a one-off (asking the chat) wears everyone out by March.
The slot is fixed and paid for. If you rent a room, you book a fixed block, say 7 to 10pm, and you pay for it whether or not the drummer turns up. Nobody needs to vote on the time. The open question is which evening.
Availability changes every few weeks. Shift rotas, teaching timetables, a second band, dep gigs offered at four days' notice. What a member told you in September is out of date by October, which matters later when you decide how often to ask.
Set up the poll around your rehearsal evenings
Create an Event with a name and a date range. Four weeks is a good block for a band: long enough that you are not polling constantly, short enough that people can answer honestly about their shifts.
The second step of the form narrows the range to the evenings you would rehearse. "Which days count" switches weekdays, weekends and public holidays on or off. With weekdays on and weekends off, the test range of 14 September to 11 October offered 20 candidate dates. "Repeat pattern" narrows it further. Leave the interval at every 1 week, select Mon, Tue, Wed and Thu under "Only these weekdays", and the preview drops to 16 evenings. In the example band, Fridays are gig nights and weekends belong to families, so neither is on the table.
The preview is editable date by date. In the test, the room was already taken on Wednesday 30 September, so one tap removed it and the count went to 15. Removing a dead date before you share the link stops it from winning the vote.
Two more fields on the same screen do real work for a band. The optional Description appears under the Event title for everyone who opens the link, so it is the place for the room, the hours and what "available" means. The test Event used "Room 3 at the rehearsal studio, 7 to 10pm. Mark every evening you can do the full three hours." Voting is on whole days only, and that one sentence stops the bassist marking a Tuesday when they can only get there at half eight.
The Voting deadline closes the vote automatically at the time you set, in your time zone. The test Event closed on Sunday 13 September at 8pm, the night before the first candidate evening. Deadlines are part of the free core.
What each member has to do
Creating the Event takes you to a share screen with the link, a short code, a QR code, an editable invite message, and buttons for WhatsApp, email, SMS and copy. Paste the link into the band chat with the deadline in the same message.
A member opens the link, types a name and taps the evenings they can make. There is no sign-up and no app, for them or for you. Each voter gets a private edit link saved in their browser, so when a dep gig lands on a Thursday they can open the Event again and untick it, up until voting closes. Band availability goes stale quickly, so being able to change an answer without asking you to do it counts for more here than it would for a one-off dinner.
Look for "Everyone free" first
Once votes come in, the Event page lifts any date the whole group can make into its own card above the calendar, labelled "Everyone free" with an "Add to calendar" link. On the calendar itself those dates carry an "All free" badge, and every date shows the initials of the people who marked it and a vote count.
In the test Event, five Participants marked their evenings across the 15 candidates. Four dates came back with all five: Thursday 17 September, Thursday 24 September, Thursday 1 October and Thursday 8 October. The best Tuesdays reached four of five (22 September without Theo, 6 October without Mia). No Monday got more than three votes, and no Wednesday more than two.
For a squad or a dinner, a four-vote Tuesday is a good result. For a band it means paying for a room for a rehearsal someone cannot attend. The cards at the top answer the band's actual question, and in this case the answer was one evening a week, every week, on the same night.
Use the first month to find your standing night
As the Host, scroll down and the Participants list shows each member with every evening they marked, with the all-free dates highlighted.
Sara, the drummer in the example band, marked 7 of the 15 evenings, and every one of them was a Tuesday or a Thursday. The other four members all had every Thursday free. The band's scheduling problem was one member's shift pattern, and the poll found it in a single round.
That is what a first poll is for. When the same weekday comes back all-free four weeks running, stop polling weekly. Ask the room about a regular booking on that night, tell the band that Thursday is rehearsal night, and run a new poll only when something changes: a new job, a new term, a new member. Keep the poll for finding the night and for handling exceptions.
Two Host controls sit above the Participants list. "Close voting now" stops new votes immediately, without waiting for the deadline. "Final date" picks one date that everyone sees and can add to their calendar. For a month of Thursdays, use the Add to calendar link on each Everyone free card instead. Each one downloads an .ics invite for that single date, so every member can drop all four rehearsals into their own calendar.
Extra rehearsals, gigs and recording weekends
In the run-up to a gig you may want extra rehearsals, and the setup changes a little. Use a short range covering the two weeks before the show, switch weekends back on, and set a deadline 48 hours out. Everything else works the same way.
Some band decisions are longer than an evening: a recording weekend, a short run of out-of-town shows, a writing retreat. Two Pro features cover those. Event length turns calendar voting into multi-day windows, so members accept or decline a whole Saturday-and-Sunday block instead of saying yes to half of it. Date Options mode lets you list the specific dates the studio or promoter offered, and the band votes on those as whole options. Pro is sold as a subscription or as a one-time unlock for a single Event, so a band can pay for the recording-weekend Event and keep weekly rehearsals on the free core.
If the link goes public
Every Event page carries a small "Made with Best Day To Meet" badge at the foot, with a "Plan your own event, free and no sign-in" link under it. In a rehearsal poll that only the band sees, that makes no difference. It starts to matter when the band uses an Event in public, for example asking friends and regulars on the band's socials which of two Fridays suits a hometown show, or polling a wider pool of dep players. Branding removal is part of Pro and takes the badge off the Event page.
When a poll is the wrong tool
If the band already has a night that works every week, keep it. Polling a settled night invites people to renegotiate it.
If the question is the start time, a whole-day poll answers the wrong thing. Best Day To Meet does not do hour-by-hour voting. Agree 7pm or 8pm in the chat once the evening is set.
If the band is a duo, text each other. A poll starts paying for its setup at around four people, when the replies no longer fit on one screen of the chat.
And if every member already keeps a shared band calendar up to date, that calendar is your source of truth. A poll on top of it splits the answers across two places.
Band rehearsal scheduling, step by step
- From the homepage, create an Event named for the block ("Rehearsals, October") with a four-week range.
- In the second step, turn off the days you never rehearse, open Repeat pattern and select only your rehearsal weekdays. Tap out any evening the room is already booked.
- Put the room, the hours and "mark only evenings you can do the whole session" in the Description.
- Set a voting deadline for the evening before the first candidate date.
- Share the link in the band chat with the deadline in the same message.
- When the deadline passes, look at the Everyone free cards first. Book those evenings and use Add to calendar on each one.
- If the same weekday wins every week, make it your standing night and poll again only when a schedule changes.
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest way to schedule band practice?
Poll only the evenings you could rehearse, over a four-week block, with a deadline. Book the dates where every member is free. After a round or two, one weekday often wins every week, and that becomes your standing night.
Do band members need an account to vote?
No. A member opens the link, types a name and taps the evenings they can make. Neither the members nor the person who created the Event needs to sign up.
Is Best Day To Meet free for bands?
The core is free: Events, calendar voting, the repeat pattern, voting deadlines, sharing and .ics export. Pro adds Date Options mode, multi-day Events, the comment feed and branding removal, as a subscription or a one-time unlock for a single Event.
Can a member change their availability after a gig comes up?
Yes. Each voter gets a private edit link saved in their browser and can update their evenings until voting closes.
Can we vote on rehearsal times as well as days?
No. Voting is on whole days, and on multi-day windows if you set an event length. Put the fixed session time in the Description so members know what they are agreeing to.
Should we run a new poll every week?
Usually not. Run a four-week poll, and if one weekday comes back with everyone free every week, book it as your regular night. Poll again when someone's job, shifts or term changes.
Comparing more options? See Find a date that works for everyone.