G2.fm, a startup based in Chicago, is hoping to change the way that live music is booked.
The company, which was the winner of last night’s midVentures25 startup competition, compares their service to job boards like Monster. While it’s easy to submit your documentation and apply for jobs on sites like Monster, no similar service exists for musicians. To get gigs, musicians have to create DVDs and press kits, and mail them to clubs. The whole process is time-consuming, expensive, bad for the environment and outdated.
G2.fm’s online gig-booking service hopes to change this.
Rather than sending press kits, G2.fm allows artists to create a profile including the components of a press kit, such as their music, pictures and a biography. After filling in this information, they can search for clubs with openings in their schedule and apply to play at these clubs. Once they apply, they show up in the queue of club’s booking agents. Acts can also increase their visibility to bookers by purchasing slots towards the top of the club’s gig application list.
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What makes G2.fm so special, though, is the incentive it provides for clubs to use the service. Sifting through piles of press kits to find a good act to book is a hugely time-consuming job for booking agents. On the part of G2.fm dedicated to club owners and bookers, there are analytics tools which rate potential acts based on prior reviews and on similar acts that had played well with the club’s patrons.
These tools have clearly been popular, as major clubs across the US have begun using the system to book their acts. It allows clubs to screen acts based on compatibility with their clientele, it allows clubs to fill last minute openings and it cuts down on the piles of press kits filling booking agents’ offices. G2.fm is good for artists, it’s good for clubs and it’s good for music fans.
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