The Ultimate Band Management Application?

[bernee]

Hi guys,

I’m looking into some different software applications, both offline (windows) and online (web), and I just wanted to know what YOU think are essential tools / features for managing a band, and taking them to the next level? Any help / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Matt

[Steve]

Hi Matt. I have to say, I can't even imagine a piece of software for this type of job? A managers tools would be a telephone and lots of meetings with potential gig organisers, PR men, Newspaper columnists etc. Where would software come into this? The last thing a manager should be doing is sitting at a computer! In what way would software be usefull? I just can't see it myself?

Welcome to songstuff

[Nightwolf]

Hi Matt,

One thing that I noticed has been taken to the next level via the web is Street Teams

Bands have always had rabid fans willing to spam the universe with posters and promos for their favorite bands, but with the online versions it is no longer limited to the bands home area. There are also promo sites for street teams such as Omotion (I did a search, I do not know anything about this site use at your own risk).

Great topic, anyone have any experience with online promo or management software??

[bernee]

I acknowledge that there are many, many aspects to managing a band. I could envisage a lot of these aspects could be assisted in the management side of things through some software, eg:

1. Contact management (venues, industry contacts, etc)

2. Fan management (letting the fans know about upcoming gigs, recordings, etc via mailing lists / e-newsletters and so forth)

3. Financial management (tracking and keeping band finances in order)

4. Website management (easy way of updating band website with latest news, etc - as in a blog or something like that, that any numpty can use)

5. Band calendar (where band members can block out dates that they can't play gigs, and gigs are also entered into this calendar. then it could automatically remind band members what time sound check is for particular gigs thru email and/or sms)

These are just a FEW things that I think could be invaluable in assisting the management of a band and I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts of products that could do some or all of this? And if anyone does use any sort of product like this, what are the pros and cons of it?

Here are some examples:

indiebandmanager.com

bandtastic.com

thebandleadersoftware.com

vocalist.org.uk/gigapp.html

Cheers,

Matt

[Bitstream]

As a band manager, you will require as many communications methods that are available; remaining online while out and about should provide you with e-mail, phone and internet access for research etc. Have a look at the blackberry phone...

[john]

Hey

Software to help a band manager? Hmmm. Ok, assuming this software is actually to help artists manage themselves rather than as a supplementary tool for existing managers, which would be a small available market, then I think the key thing that would be needed would be access to knowledge.

Sure contract and fan management, contract management (searchable), web, financial and some calendar capability integrated would be useful, but that only give tools not how to use it. Tools that already do each of these tasks exists, and can be found for free.

So as a band manager, or self manager , I would like:

Basic, broad ranging pre-populated, broad ranging, categorized contacts covering all the main countries, not just the USA

Contract Knowledgebase

Negotiation and other business tutorials

Fan club wizard for web and real world

Merchandising management, tutorials and starting accounts

Web site wizard (including blog pages and podcast capability,news streams)

Planning tool

Calendar(s)(band appointments, business meetings etc)

Word integration

Professional bodies integration for royalties management etc.

There's lots of others, but I think the one thing that would really make a difference would be a live, regularly updated feed of business intelligence including what labels are signing what stuff, what recent deals are, market speculation, affiliations, sponsorship opportunities etc.

Just off the top of my head.

Is this for some requirements gathering for a realistic new product? A uni project?

Cheers

John

[Nightwolf]

conract management (searchable)

not like that it ain't

Fixed

[john]

yadda yadda

[Nightwolf]

ok, so now i know why my edit crashed

[bernee]

Hi John,

Yes, I'm looking into this to see if it is a needed tool for artists/musicians/bands to manage themselves. To assist them in bridging the gap between self management and being managed by a 3rd party. I'd pretty much thought of most of what was on your list besides Contract Knowledgebase, and Negotiation and other business tutorials. If you have any other ideas, please post them so we can talk more about them, and I can more accurately determine the validity of this idea.

Much thanks for you input,

Matt

[Bitstream]

What's it to be, then? A Uni project or a personal interest?

[bernee]

It is completely personal interest... I don't go to uni anymore ;-)

[Bitstream]

GPL? LPL? or commercial? Do you have any Software programming experience?

[john]

Hey

out of interest is it something you plan to develop as an application on your own, or just shooting the breeze? Not that it matters, just being nosey!

I guess one thing that could be valuable from the information management aspect would be how that information is sorted. A standard filter algorithm based on date and keywords? Better, though harder to do, would be a more qulaified set of results. Weighting based on the source (validity/popularity), and favored keywords for example.

I'd also add something like contact searching to help populate online contact data. i.e. I'm looking for contacts in music distribution in Germany, so I enter those details into my management app, and it goes off and crawls to find suitable email addresses and contact forms.

Last suggestion would be your own web presence, perhaps a forum and other select services for people who use your application. Better would be something actually integrated into the application that provides a similar functionality to a forum, that way you could customise interaction and data import/export.

Cheers

John

[bernee]

Hey John

Well, it is something that I plan to develop if and when I determine that there is a need for it. At this stage it is looking like I'll begin developing something fairly soon. If there was absolutely no interest or response to this idea, I wouldn't have taken it any further.

I definately agree that having a searchable / filterable pre-populated industry contact database would be invaluable to any band. And then having a set of templates that could be used for email/letters, where certain fields are automatically populated by a database entry. So you could click on a contact, then say if you wanted to send them a gig booking email, you click on the "gig booking" template and it fills in all the neccessary parts and then you just click send (or allows you to edit by hand if you wish). Just one idea of many to get bands representing themselves as professionally as possible.

Yes, there would definately be a forum involved. Prob some sort of knowledgebase. Also, I would envisage having some video tutorials on using the application, as well as detailed help.

Thanks,

Matt