Performers Per Gig Request - Is Less Really More?

In a recent vibrant discussion on our message boards, a few members were expressing their strong belief that TOO MANY performers were being contacted per gig request. Their reasoning was that it was just too overwhelming for a client to receive 10-15 bids (with all the emails and phone calls that accompany that), and that perhaps 5 would be a more manageable number. This seemed like a reasonable assertion, so I decided to delve into the numbers a bit.

To begin, I looked at ALL gig requests filled out in 2009. I then grouped the gig requests into buckets based on how many performers were contacted per gig request. This included performers handpicked by the clients as well as performers that were auto-added by our system.

I then calculated the booking conversion rate for each grouping. By 'booking conversion rate' I mean the percentage of gig requests that became bookings.

Below is a table showing the results. In the 1st column is the # of performers contacted per gig request and in the 2nd column is the booking conversion rate (again, defined as the % of gig requests that turned into a booking).

Performers Contacted Per Gig Request*	Booking Conversion Rate
1	14.78%
2	13.16%
3	14.89%
4	15.48%
5	15.69%
6	17.01%
7	17.76%
8	17.86%
9	17.80%
10	15.53%
11	17.04%
12	20.75%
13	24.35%
14	26.22%
15	24.81%

* results based on all client-added gig requests filled out in 2009

There is definitely more analysis that needs to done before jumping to any conclusions, but it does appear at least on first glance that generally speaking the more performers that were contacted on a gig request, the more likely it was to turn into a booking.