Whether you’re an entertainment agency, a venue, or part of a larger multi-site venue group, entertainment is core to customer experiences. But the operation of live entertainment can be administratively laborious.

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It can be a complex task, especially if you’re working with a large roster of entertainers across multiple venues. There are many jobs that need to be completed simultaneously whilst maintaining relationships and sourcing new business.

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Sourcing entertainers, managing entertainer availabilities, booking entertainers, communicating with key stakeholders, getting assets for marketing, marketing, collating entertainment invoices, paying said invoices, then managing your books. Current solutions include a combination of Excel, repurposed roster or rota software run on a system of calls, emails, and texts across WhatsApp, iMessage, and even Facebook chats.

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It’s unsustainable and un-trackable.

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We believe that live entertainment professionals should automate their admin, and supercharge their business development.

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To do this, you need to embrace live entertainment booking software.

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What is live entertainment booking software?

It’s simple - Software to run your bookings and automate the admin surrounding it.

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A good live entertainment booking software should do the following jobs:

1. Store your roster in a central Entertainer CRM - This keeps your roster/rota centralised and trackable. New entertainers can be added when discovered.
2. Collate all entertainer assets and details - The CRM should collate images, bios, social handles, key contact and finance details to pass on to venues and to perform administrative functions.
3. Automate entertainer availabilities - Instead of manually collecting entertainer availabilities, a good piece of booking software should do this whilst you sleep. Your entertainers add their availability, and you can use this to cross-reference when you book.
4. Quick booking system - A streamlined method to create bookings and send offers out to entertainers. They should be able to accept the offers or decline. This should be able to be done in bulk.
5. Event briefs or worksheets - Each booking should be able to have a worksheet attached to brief them on further detail, removing the need for back-and-forth phone calls and texts.
6. Entertainer calendar and gig reminders - Entertainers should have their bookings centralised in one calendar, and gig reminders should let them know about their gig before they go live.
7. Automated marketing for venues - The best systems will have marketing built in for venues - automated gig guides and QR codes. You should be able to give this to your venues to market without the effort.
8. Payment adjustments - Things can change on the night of the gig. You should be able to adjust the gigs after the fact to reflect what happened on the night, ensuring accurate payment.
9. Automated entertainer invoicing - Some suppliers can be slow with invoices, and the invoices can often be incorrect. This can cause major problems. The system should automate this invoice creation for suppliers.
10. Consolidated invoicing - Venues shouldn’t receive a single invoice per performance; they should receive one. This invoice should also be automatically sent to the venue.
11. Automated payments - Once the venue pays that consolidated invoice, payments should be automated to every entertainer, and agent commissions should be paid as well.
12. Payment statuses - Progress statuses should be live through the entire invoicing and payment process. Venues, agents, and entertainers need to be fully aware.
13. Record keeping - All entertainment and associated payments should be kept in one spot for future referencing and collation for tax time.
14. Compliance with local laws - Laws change all the time. A good piece of software will stay ahead of this for you and ensure you are fully tax and super compliant.

All of these features will allow you to move faster, achieve more, and focus on what matters.

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Time for the shameless plug - We’ve built the world’s best live entertainment booking software at Surreal, and yes, it does all of the above (and more).

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Surreal currently does 80,000 bookings across the globe and has helped venues and agencies get control of their live entertainment operations. We even helped one agency expand nationally.

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And yes, we wrote this article to promote the product, but why not when we’re so passionate about it?

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So why would you need something like Surreal? What will it do for you practically?

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Why do you need live entertainment booking software?

Save time, put your admin on autopilot

This one may be slightly obvious… But by automating everything from collecting entertainer assets to gig reminders to finances, you save time. A lot of it.

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Some systems may automate a small portion of the associated admin, but not all of it. Don’t underestimate how much time micro-admin can take away from you and your team.

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Each action counts, each action compounds. Automating and streamlining as much as possible will add up and save you a bulk amount of time.

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Create a repeatable process

By adopting software, you adopt a streamlined process. There are many benefits to adopting a process that will again save you time.

1. Onboarding new hires - When you hire new people, you can quickly train them on your method. At Surreal, we have a full onboarding guide, so you don’t even need to do this part yourself.
2. Onboarding new entertainers - Quickly bring entertainers into your operation without having to manually collect payment details, assets, and availabilities. Just send them an invite link and let the software do the heavy lifting.
3. Get new venues online, fast - The system will allow you to get new venues online rapidly. With a live entertainment booking system, you can roster and input entertainers within minutes. This pace will put your competition to bed

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Give your entertainers a professional experience

Your interactions with entertainers count. Great entertainers appreciate well-organised booking operations. They want to work for venues and agents that make things easy and pay on time.

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When engaging entertainers with a system, they will be greeted with a slick process rather than a text or email. Onboarding is via a link, offers come from a consolidated spot, briefs are attached to every gig, they don’t have to create invoices, payments are communicated in real time, and everything is tracked.

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Entertainers will appreciate operations that look out for them. By adopting a system, you will give your entertainers a great experience from start to finish.

Focus on new initiatives

This part is the most important part of all of this. Through this whole process, the ultimate benefit is that you save time. This time can be used to focus on new business development initiatives.

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Whatever the shape of your business, whatever your objectives, more time will mean you will be able to get there faster. If you’re an agency, you can focus on acquiring more venues. If you’re a venue operator, you can focus on building new experiences for your customers. If you work at a hospitality group head office, you can focus on the next big thing.

Surreal

Many industries around the world have embraced technology to make their jobs easier. At Surreal, we wholeheartedly believe that the live entertainment industry should do the same.

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We’ve spent years working with live entertainment professionals to create the perfect booking software to achieve everything above.

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We conduct 80,000 gigs a year in the UK, Australia, US, and NZ, plus many other countries.

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We are excited about innovating this part of the industry.

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If you’re interested in learning more, you can book a call with one of our team here or read more here.

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