The person behind the platform

Carina Bruwer

Founder & CEO, Gigster · carinabruwer.com ↗

“I’ve spent most of my career in and around the events world — as a musician, a producer, and an organiser. I built Gigster because I wanted the platform I wished had existed.”

The story

Carina studied Musical Performance at the University of Stellenbosch and has been embedded in the South African events industry ever since — as a performer, a producer, and an organiser. She’s been on every side of the industry, which is exactly what drove her to build Gigster.

Booking event services had always run on WhatsApp threads, verbal agreements, and deposits transferred on trust — with no real recourse when things went wrong. She wanted deposit protection, proper contracts, and a professional digital process. When she couldn’t find it, she built it.

Gigster launched in 2015 and was rebuilt from scratch in 2026 into a full marketplace — with escrow-style payments, signed PDF booking agreements, verified reviews tied to real bookings, and infrastructure designed to scale across all 54 African countries.