Top 5 Artist Management Software Options

WHAT IS ARTIST MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE?

Tired of using too many band apps to manage your music project? That's why artist management software was invented - to put everything under one roof.

But there’s a pretty big problem with most of the “Artist Management Software” options out there: they don’t actually “manage” artists very well at all.

If you are an artist or band looking for a piece of software that you can use to manage yourself, or if you are a manager trying to find software to manage your artist with, it’s likely that you have stumbled across a ton of “Booking Agency Software”, posing as “Artist Management Software.” That’s annoying!

There are a few big reasons why Booking Agency Software and Artist Management Software are NOT the same thing:

1. Bands have very different needs than booking agencies. They are generally groups of musicians who need to communicate with each other, share files, share set lists, get organized for rehearsals and gigs, and or course, get paid.
2. "Bandleaders" or band managers, are generally the one's who faciliate all of the above...and it's a lot of work.
3. A Booking Agency doesn't generally do any of the above, but instead just deals with clients wanting to hire bands. That typically involves a bit of advertising, relationship building, growing a band roster, booking gigs, creating contracts, collecting payment, and then paying out their bands.
4. If you're a self managed artist or band, you get the fun job of doing all the "bandleader" tasks, while also fulfilling the "agent" role. In other words, you are the "swiss-army knife" tasked with EVERYTHING to keep the business running.
5. Artist management software really should be designed for this type of situation. Artist (or band) management software should be able to facilitate the jobs a bandleader needs to perform but also provide the tools needed for agent-type work.

WHERE DO ARTIST MANAGEMENT APPS FAIL? (Why do they suck?)

Ironically, most management software fail to manage the artist (aka band).

You can find loads of apps claiming to be "artist management apps" that basically ONLY facilitate a booking agent's work. But when you go looking for tools to help manage the inner workings of you band, they just aren't there.

In short, most of these Artist Management Apps, just manage "artist bookings", and clients, but completely overlook the abundance of duties involved in bandleading. Duties like:

1. Gathering availability info and booking musicians for rehearsals and gigs
2. Communicating with musicians and staff
3. Paying band members
4. Providing band members with the resources to do thier job (sheet music, reference recordings, performance notes)
5. Building and distributing set lists
6. Storing and distributing any files necessary for each gig (stage plots, riders, load-in instructions etc)
7. Building hype for shows
8. Scheduling social media posts
9. Updating show details on the band's website

Just to name a few...

WHY DO YOU NEED ARTIST MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE?

In this age of DIY everything, it's great if you can be the independant artist or band and do it all yourself. But it kind of sucks having to do it ALL yourself!

Booking gigs, and/or running a band and a music business isn't easy. It's hard to stay profitable with the amount of work you need to do just to get a band to the stage.

If you want to make a decent living without going insane from overworking yourself and your admin team (if you've got one), you need to be efficient in the office.

Therefore, finding the right software and apps to streamline all your client, musician, money, document and music management is essential.

Otherwise, you'll just be duplicating information between all your various apps and wasting your precious time, and very likely making errors along the way.

FIVE TOP ARTIST MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE OPTIONS

A simple google search for 'Artist Management Software' will get you several results. Unfortunately, most of them just don't have the features needed to support professional artists and bands. But hey, don't take our word for it...we've got some hand charts here to compare all the features.

WHAT FEATURES SHOULD YOU LOOK FOR IN AN ARTIST MANAGEMENT APP

Being efficient means having all your information in ONE place. Therefore, the best software for artist management should:

1. Facilitate all aspects of band management, mentioned above ("Band Management")
2. Make it easy to take care of your clients ("Client Care")
3. Store all your set lists and music resources ("Music Library")

With that in mind, let's dive in...

SO, WHAT'S THE BEST APP FOR "BAND & MUSICIAN MANAGEMENT"

Great artist management software should be able to help you:

1. Book the right musicians for each gig,
2. Communice ALL gig details to musicians in a timely manner,
3. Make sure everyone completes their assigned tasks on time,
4. Pay everyone on time, and
5. Keep track of who you have paid and who you still owe.

WHAT'S THE BEST APP FOR "CLIENT CARE":

What is client care? It is the act of taking care of your clients and bringing them down your sales funnel in the most natural, relaxed, value-adding and persistent way possible.

After all, clients (people who hire your band) are the reason you can call your band a business. If you weren't making money, it would just be a hobby!

With that in mind, artist managemet software should allow you to treat our new prospects and existing clients like the royalty they are.

Just like in the dating world, your band needs to go beyond just having a stellar dating profile ('band website'). Once the client likes what the see, they need an easy way to reach out to you (lead forms). Then, you need to communicate with them in a timely and respectful manner.

Once they're ready to book, you need to gather final details from them, prepare a contract and invoice and secure a payment or deposit. This process should feel smooth and relaxed. Being able to accept online payments usually makes things much easier and more trustworthy.

WHAT'S THE BEST APP FOR MANAGING YOUR "MUSIC LIBRARY":

What is a music library? We define music library as a collection of songs and supporting resources that make up a band's repertoire.

Whether performing original music or not, every band has it's own way of playing it's own songs. So it's necessary for there to be a record or how each song is performed so that substitute players or new musicians joining the band can quickly get on the same page.

Think of it like an insurance policy for your band. If your bass player gets sick the day before the gig, having your sheet music and reference recordings ready to send to a sub right away, can litterally save the gig!

Generally, these 'records' are things like sheet music, lyric sheets, performance notes, tempo notes, reference recordings, video reference files etc. In this digital era, most bands share and store these resources via apps like Dropbox, Evernote, Email, WeTransfer, GoogleDrive and more.

It's a huge task to put all these resources together and an equally huge task to manage it all cleanly, in a way that's user friendly and practical for your musicians. So let's look at which band management apps can handle this.

But before we do, let's talk about set lists...

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A 'SMART SETLIST'?

Imagine a list builder that would allow a bandleader to build a set list once and publish it to all their bandmates instantly. Without needing to download an app or pay for anything, musicians could just click a link and the set list would be displayed in their browser, regardless of device type. But that's not all.

The smart set list would know who is reading it and which instrument they play. As such, it would deliver only bass charts to the bass player and only keyboard charts to the keyboard player and so on. It would indicate which singers are singing which song, which key each song is in and even calculate set lengths automatically. And to top it off, it stores tempo data for each song and can provide a click for your drummer at the tap of a button.

No one's sheet music is blowing around in the wind. No one forgot to print their copy. And no one needs to reorganize their binder because the foolishly put their lyrics in the wrong order.

Too good to be true?

Not anymore.

Below, you'll see that we've got a couple contendors in the race to make a great smart setlist app. As you evaluate these options, think about how easy it will be to get your team to adopt a new set list system. If they all need to shell out cash, you're likely to have some push back. If there's a steep learning curve involved, your musicians will be turned off. And if it's too hard for you (the bandleader) to get your songs and data into the system in the first place, are you ever going to maximize the potential?

For these reasons, we think bulk uploading (via spreadsheet) and bulk editing features for your music library (ideally with a desktop computer) are essential. For your musicians, it should be dead simple for them to access your set lists and navigate your music library. They have a lot of songs to learn and many important performances to worry about.

So how do our five popular artist management apps stack up when it comes to music library and set lists?