PRIME

PRIME's own website can't settle on which city to call home. The page a search for a Swiss wedding band is likely to land on titles itself "Hochzeitsband Zürich, Schweiz" and mentions Basel only as an afterthought, "Basel, Bern Nähe," tacked onto the end of that same title tag. The homepage disagrees outright: its own title reads "Schweiz Hochzeitsband, Firmenevents und Partyband aus Basel," from Basel, no qualifier attached. A rule further down that homepage settles the practical question even where the marketing copy won't: the first 130 km from Basel are free of travel charges, and every kilometre past that costs CHF 0.60 per musician each way, with a worked example pricing an event 180 km out at CHF 240 for 4 musicians. A fee schedule anchored to one city is a stronger tell than a headline, so read Basel as PRIME's practical base and Zürich as wherever this particular page's own copy decided to lead.

Wherever it starts from, PRIME doesn't stay there. Its FAQ names 7 cities it plays regularly, Zürich, Bern, Basel, Luzern, St. Gallen, Aarau and Zug, and states outright that it also travels to smaller towns and unusual venues country-wide, not just those 7. The venue list on the same homepage backs that up with names rather than a slogan: Bürgenstock Resort, The Dolder Grand, Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa, Kulm Hotel St. Moritz, Gstaad Palace and Schloss Schadau Thun, alongside Halle 622 Zürich, Volkshaus Basel, Kursaal Bern and Schlössli Utenberg Luzern. Victoria-Jungfrau turns up on another wedding band's own client list too, so treat this as evidence PRIME has played that circuit of Swiss 5-star hotels rather than as a claim that any one of them is exclusive to this band.

It's a 5-piece: "die fünf Musikerinnen und Musiker von PRIME," the site says, plural enough to cover more than one singer across different bookings; one review from a corporate event names that night's vocalist, Kateryna, directly. Bookings run through a single person rather than a sales office. The contact page names him outright, Michel Argast, with a direct phone line and email under his own name, and the homepage repeats the point in its own words: you deal with the bandleader himself from first enquiry to the stage, because he plays on it. A review on the site's own testimonials page backs that up by name, thanking "Michel" for answering every question through the run-up to a wedding at Schloss Bottmingen.

Duo through dinner, full band once the dancing starts

The band scales itself to the part of the day. For the ceremony it sends a smaller unit, a singer with a guitarist or, on request, a pianist, playing heartfelt ballads and stripped-back versions of familiar songs, whether the ceremony is in a church, a chapel, a registry office or outdoors. The aperitif gets the same choice of duo or full band, pitched as a deliberately quiet lounge sound meant to let guests talk rather than compete with the music, and it works equally in a garden, on a terrace, in a courtyard or inside a restaurant room. Dinner keeps the volume down further and hands its own PA over for speeches, and the site is explicit that the full band can set up at the party location while the duo is still playing through the meal, so there's no dead air while equipment moves. Only once the tables clear does the full quintet take over, with a stated repertoire of over 100 songs across pop, rock, funk, soul, disco, reggae and current charts, and the site names actual titles rather than genres alone: Dancing Queen, Uptown Funk and Shut Up and Dance for the dance floor, All Of Me, Perfect and Hallelujah for the ceremony, Happy and Three Little Birds for the aperitif. What it won't do is play anything that isn't a cover: its FAQ states flatly that it plays exclusively covers, songs a room already knows rather than original material.

The gear it brings, and the room it needs

The band supplies its own sound and light rather than asking a venue to provide it: a PA system, party lighting, monitors, every instrument and every microphone, set up and struck by the band itself. What it asks of a room in return is space and power: a minimum of roughly 4 by 3 metres of stage for the full quintet, about 2 by 2 metres for the duo, a power connection, and weather cover if the performance runs outdoors. The microphones already on stage double as speech mics, so a best man's toast needs no separate rental, and a laptop or phone can plug into the same rig for a slideshow or a video message.

CHF 3,500 to 5,500, booked 6 to 9 months out

PRIME publishes a price band rather than one number: CHF 3,500 to CHF 5,500, depending on the lineup booked, how long it plays and how far it travels, and the site states the quote is all-inclusive, musicians, technical equipment, setup and teardown, soundcheck and background music during breaks, with nothing added later. Its FAQ recommends booking 6 to 9 months ahead, warning that Friday and Saturday dates between May and December, wedding season here, sell out fastest. A stand-in policy is stated rather than implied: the band says it draws on a wider musician network if a member falls ill, and claims no full cancellation has ever happened in its history, though that particular claim isn't independently checkable from anything published.

A 5-piece with no English page, and a shared agency roster

2 things are worth knowing before booking from outside Switzerland. The site runs in German only, its page code is marked lang="de-CH" with no English version and no alternate-language link anywhere on the wedding page checked here, and nothing on the site states that Michel Argast or the band works in English for planning calls or on the day itself. What does exist are 2 customer reviews written in English on the site's own testimonials page, one calling the band "Amazing" at what reads like a private party, another describing a surprise birthday, evidence the band has played for English-speaking guests before, not proof that English is how a booking gets run. PRIME also isn't a standalone outfit: it's one act inside a booking network called Bandscape, alongside sibling bands built for other regions, Flugmodus in Basel, Random in Zürich, Replay in St. Gallen and Ahead in Bern, so an enquiry that finds PRIME already booked for a date may still get answered by one of those instead.

A gig log on the same site records actual bookings rather than just claims: weddings in Bottmingen, Fischbach-Göslikon, Luterbach, Spiez, Müllheim and Auvernier through 2024 and 2025 sit alongside corporate and public-festival dates, the kind of running list that's hard to fake and easy to check against. For a couple planning a Swiss wedding from outside the country, that combination, a named bandleader who answers his own phone, a stated stage footprint and PA, an all-in price band and a 5-star hotel client list that reads as more than a logo wall, is worth more than a page that can't decide whether to call itself Zürich's band or Basel's.