The short answer
Gaffr Live sends you Opportunities: bookings from clients who need crew. You choose which to take. Declining costs nothing, and there's no minimum acceptance rate. When you accept, the booking is a contract between you and the client. Gaffr introduces you, collects your fee for you as your agent, and passes all of it on.
How do I join?
To finish signing up, Gaffr asks for:
- proof of your right to work in the UK: a share code from GOV.UK
- photo ID
- a public liability insurance certificate
- your National Insurance number
- your bank details (Stripe pays your shifts into your bank)
GOV.UK says who can get a share code. It also says British and Irish citizens can prove their right to work with a passport. Gaffr can't complete a right-to-work check from a passport alone.
Licences and tickets, such as PASMA or IPAF, are optional uploads. A person at Gaffr checks each document is what it says it is. That isn't a check of your skills or how you work. Gaffr Live tells you when a document has passed the check.
When can I go live?
Gaffr Live lets you go live once all of these are in place:
- right to work, photo ID and insurance checked
- an hourly rate
- your National Insurance number
- a Stripe account that can receive payments
Gaffr checks your right to work again, usually every six months, and tells you 30 days before. For insurance, Gaffr can record the certificate's expiry date when it checks it. If it does, you're told 30 days before. When a right-to-work or insurance expiry date passes, your account pauses. The pause lifts overnight after a replacement has passed the check.
Where does Gaffr work?
The West Midlands: postcode areas B, CV, DY, WS and WV. Gaffr Live is open to people who live in one of them.
How do Opportunities reach me?
There are two ways, and you can use either or both.
- Go live. When you press Go live, you're offered work that starts before the time you set as your live-until time.
- Availability hours. You can set the hours you're free. You're then offered scheduled work that mostly falls inside them. That needs notifications on and Gaffr Live opened in the last week, or having been live in the last week. An on-demand booking that hasn't filled after a short while also reaches crew whose hours cover its start. That needs you live, or notifications on and Gaffr Live opened in the last week.
Opportunities go out in widening rounds by distance from the venue, never more than 50 km.
What does an Opportunity show?
Before you accept:
- what you'd receive, worked out from your own hourly rate and the hours
- the fee Gaffr charges you, which is £0.00
- the role
- the date, the start and end times
- the venue's street address and postcode, and how far it is from you
- the client's "Where in the venue" note, if they wrote one
- a line saying so, if the client has set a meeting point on the map
- the client's company name, or their name if they haven't given one
- the client's answer to the health and safety question
Once you accept, the booking also shows the client's notes for crew, the site contact and the meeting-point pin.
An on-demand Opportunity stays open for about a minute. A scheduled one stays open for up to 6 hours, or until the booking stops looking. You're offered the same booking at most twice. Want more than your rate for a job? You can send one counter offer: see Setting your rate.
When does Gaffr use my location?
Only while the app is open, and only at these times:
- once when you press Go live, rounded to about 100 metres, for that day's on-demand Opportunities. It's kept for 30 days and never shown to clients.
- on the "On my way" screen
- during the shift
Gaffr Live doesn't read your location in the background. The privacy policy has the detail.
What if there's no GPS or signal at the venue?
After "On my way", Gaffr Live can start a shift without a GPS fix. With no signal, it keeps the start on the phone and sends it when you're back online. If location is switched off for Gaffr Live, the app asks for it to be turned back on first.
Sometimes a start never reaches Gaffr, for example because the phone died. Gaffr Live then offers "I worked this shift", up to 7 days after the shift's end. It tells a person at Gaffr, who looks into it.
If Gaffr can't confirm the start, the client can report that you didn't show. A person at Gaffr checks it before any refund to the client or payment to you.
What if I can't make a booking?
Gaffr Live gives you two options.
- Release it. Gaffr reopens the booking and may match someone else, and the client is told. You're not paid for it, and you won't be offered that booking again. The app asks what's happened. Gaffr asks for a reason, such as "Personal reasons", and a sentence in your own words. Only Gaffr sees it, and you're never asked about your health. The release and its reason are recorded with the booking.
- Name a colleague to cover it. Gaffr Live accepts a crew member whose documents Gaffr has checked and who meets the booking's requirements. A person at Gaffr confirms with your colleague and makes the swap. Gaffr checks their documents but doesn't choose them. Naming a colleague closes some time before the call. They work the shift and are paid for it.
The terms set this out in full.
Where are the crew terms?
In Gaffr Live, accepted when you join. They're being rewritten to match how the app works today. The terms page lists where they're out of date.
Can I message the client?
Yes. Messaging opens 24 hours before the call time, stays open through the shift, and is read-only afterwards. It's plain text.
How do ratings work?
You and the client rate each other after the shift. Neither of you sees the other's rating until you've both rated, or 14 days have passed. Clients see your average once you have three or more ratings.
After a 1- or 2-star rating, the app asks whether you'd rather not be matched with that client again. The client isn't told.
Is this employment?
Gaffr doesn't decide that, and this guide doesn't either. Employment status depends on the facts of how you work, not on what an app says. HMRC's CEST tool, GOV.UK's guide to employment status and Acas explain how it's worked out.