Why do artists occasionally see their inquiries “dismissed?”

You aren’t doing anything wrong. There are several potential reasons for dismissed inquiries. 

1. Host no longer active or taking an extended break. 

2. Host restarting, and we offer them a fresh start.

3. Most often, it’s because your unanswered inquiry is 6 months old. This happens automatically to give artists a fresh start with that host, since the proposed dates are likely no longer valid, and it’s likely that the inquiry would be at the bottom of a long stack – unlikely to ever get answered. 

Dismissed inquiries are part of our maintenance to make sure that hosts/venues get time-relevant messages, and so that artists are encouraged to update requests if they wish.