So a 'maybe next year' turns into a gig.

Building bookings is relationship work that plays out over months and years: a promoter who passes today might be exactly the right call next season for a new programme. That doesn't call for a system that turns you into a salesperson — it calls for one that keeps track of time for you. Here's what it does:

• Every enquiry in view — New · First contact · In talks · Hold · Confirmed · Played, each stage explained on the spot
• Today view — who's waiting on you, who replied, where a follow-up is due
• Writing enquiries — one at a time or as a series, every email cleared by you
• Day sheet — times and place, line-up, programme, travel, documents, checklist
• Multiple projects — quartet, duo, solo, each with its own pipeline and a shared contact book
• Availability poll — ask the whole band's dates in one go
• CSV import and export — bring your Excel or Outlook contacts in, take them out whenever
• Mail hub — connect your own inbox or a dedicated address on EU serversplanned
• Network map — your contacts across Europe, dense and thin regions at a glanceplanned
• Tour editor — line up dates, see distance and travel time, suggestions for the gapsplanned
• Fee splitting — divide up after the show, Money gets clean numbersplanned

Why we're building this

Fifteen enquiries go out, three come back. Two turn into a yes and one into a no, and four promoters want to circle back — then gather dust in a spreadsheet row. After the summer tour you can't remember who you meant to write to for the autumn festival. That's not a sales weakness, it's a tooling problem.

So Booking keeps your contacts in one place and shows you every morning who needs a word. No email goes out without your say-so, and it comes from your own address — no one spots a tool behind it. This isn't cosmetic: a message that smells of a tool gets deleted unread, and that's the clearest feedback there is from the promoter side.

When the yes comes in

The promoter says yes — and then? Times into the calendar, the running order into the WhatsApp group, the address separately to the dep, and from scratch again with every change.

In Booking every gig gets its day sheet instead: times and place, who's playing, the programme. All in one spot, and the band picks it up there themselves. If the soundcheck moves, you change it once. And if you want, you pick how the rest of the band hears that something has changed.

Whoever's playing looks it up themselves

Everyone playing that night can reach the day sheet: when load-in and soundcheck are, where it happens, who else is on it, what's being played. The dep who has never played with you included. What you discuss with the promoter is untouched by that — only you see it.

No one needs an account for it, by the way. Whoever has one finds their gigs from every band in one place and gets a warning when two clash. Whoever would rather not gets a link to that one night — enough to say yes or no, enter an arrival time, and attach the receipt from the train.

After the show

The same gig turns into the settlement. Booking asks you one thing: do your players invoice through you, or the venue directly? Both happen, and the settlement looks different either way. The mail to the band then carries the amount, the billing address and the reference — no round of asking back.

Multiple projects, one person

Anyone freelancing rarely has just one project: a quartet, a duo, a solo programme, often at once and with half-overlapping line-ups. In Booking each has its own workspace with its own pipeline and its own gigs — but the contacts are shared. A promoter who's already booked your quartet is there for the duo too, without you entering them again. One click switches between projects.

What you connect is up to you

Booking runs with nothing connected. You enter what the night needs, and that's enough. If you like, more is possible: connect your inbox so enquiries and confirmations are picked up on their own. Or forward single emails to your Booking address, if you'd rather. Your outgoing mail can go through your own domain, and gigs can show up in your calendar. You switch each of these on separately; none is required.

And for promoters?

Nothing changes for them: an enquiry from you is an ordinary email. Anyone who wants can keep a profile of what they're after and get fewer off-target enquiries. Anyone who doesn't notices nothing of Booking at all.

What we're not building — on purpose

The feature set is shaped as much by what's missing. No marketing automation: Booking sends no email you didn't clear yourself — not as a promise but by design, with a per-contact limit and every series enquiry confirmed one by one. No public promoter database: a venue exists only within the networks of the musicians who entered it, not in a central store. No marketplace, no rating stars. Booking is your workplace, not a stage — and nothing that wedges itself between you and the people you actually talk to.