Advance your acts without chasing email threads

Know which acts need you today

Each act on your line-up has an advance showing how many sections are confirmed, what is still needed and the days left before the show. Filter to the acts that need attention, the ones waiting on their own team or the ones ready to sign off. Then work down the list that matters right now. At a conference the same list advances your speakers, and at a film festival your filmmakers.

An act needs attention when you sent a section back for changes, a due date has passed, or the show is close with sections still open. The first time anyone opens an advance, Fai fills in the empty answers she finds in the booking, travel, hotel, schedule and documents. She marks each one as hers, shows where it came from, and never replaces an answer a person gave. Accept a whole section of her answers at once, or change any of them before you save.

• Filters: needs attention, waiting on their team, ready to sign off and signed off
• Progress on each row: sections confirmed, what is still needed and days to go
• Filled by Fai: answers from the booking, each showing where it came from

• Advance your performers before the show

Ask each act only for what you need from them

A local support DJ does not need the same advance as a touring headliner. Choose the sections each act needs, from arrival and departure, accommodation and technical to guest list, merch and content and marketing. Give each one its own due date. Add a section of your own, such as Wi-Fi or security, wherever your event needs one.

Save the sections for an act as a set, such as one for headliners and another for local acts, and describe the acts it suits. Fai then matches new acts to the right set, with its allowances, so you advance a fifty-act bill on the terms you use each year. A section you leave out keeps its answers and drops out of their team's link and Fai's chasing. It comes back whenever you add it again.

• Sections for this act: untick what the act does not need, and add it back at any time
• Due date for each section: the date you need each part by
• Saved sets: one set for headliners, another for local acts, matched by Fai

Let the tour manager fill in their own part

Choose a contact from the act's team, pick the sections they can see and fill in, and email the link or copy it. The tour manager opens it on any phone or computer with no account and sees what is still needed at the top. They save answers and files such as stage plots, input lists and riders as they go, and each section they save shows as received on your advance.

The tour manager can invite a teammate, such as their production manager, with a link of their own for only the parts they choose. Payment and settlement stays private unless you add it. Start the act's team from the agents, tour managers and engineers Fai found in the booking paperwork. Stop a link at any time and you keep what they already filled in.

• Ask their team: a link to only the sections you choose, emailed or copied
• Their team: agents, tour managers and engineers, started from people Fai found
• Invite a teammate: their own link for the parts the tour manager chooses

Get answers out of tour books, riders and replies

Add a tour book or rider yourself, or let the tour manager send theirs from the advance link. Fai goes through it alongside the act's replies to your emails and what they had at your last event. Each answer she finds waits under Answers to check, beside the words she found it in. Accept the new answers together, replace an existing one only when you choose, and reject anything wrong.

When you accept technical and hospitality answers, your hire and shopping lists update too, so the backline order and the dressing room shop follow the advance. As the show gets closer, Fai drafts an email to the act's main contact listing exactly the sections still open, with a fresh link to fill them in. You read and approve it before it goes, and payment and settlement is never part of a chase.

• Answers to check: each answer with the words Fai found it in
• Use what they had last time: answers from the act's advance at your earlier event
• Answers from their replies: emails from the act's contacts in your connected mailbox
• Chase drafts: the missing sections listed, sent only when you approve

• Fill in each performer's advance for your event from tour books, riders and emails

Give each act what you agreed, straight from the offer

The deal already says what the act gets. Use the numbers from the accepted offer and the guest list places, hotel rooms, nights, meals and drinks fill in for you, each marked as coming from the offer. Change any number, or leave one empty for no limit, and see what is used and what is left beside each.

The tour manager sees the same allowances on their advance link, with what is left and a way to ask for more. They cannot add more guest list names or a bigger party than the rooms allow, so the limits hold without anyone policing them. Each ask shows what they want and why. Approve it and the allowance rises by exactly that, or say no with a reason they see on their link. When an approval rule covers these asks, the ask goes to the person it names. Your own team can always go over an allowance, and it then shows as over.

Guest list places are the act's guest list pass group in Accreditation, so changing the number on the advance changes it there too. On the day, when your meal desk scans a pass from the act's travel party, the card shows their drinks for today and your team serves each one against the allowance.

• Use these numbers: allowances taken straight from the accepted offer
• Used and left: what the act has taken against what they are allowed
• Asks for more: approved, or declined with a reason the act sees

• Set each performer's guest list, hotel and meal allowances for your event
• Issue crew, artist and press passes your door team scans

Work from one travel party list across your teams

Add each person travelling with the act with their role, contact details, dietary needs, room and arrival and departure times. Or paste the list from the tour manager's email and check the names before anyone is added. The passes, the hotel's rooming list, pickups and the kitchen's dietary count all use the names on this one list.

The list counts the people, those staying and the rooms they need, and warns you when it needs more rooms than the act is allowed. The tour manager can fill it in on their advance link. Take someone off and they leave the travel party, the rooming list and pickups together, so the driver is never waiting for a drummer who stayed home.

• Travel party: people, rooms shared and dietary needs for each act
• Paste a list: names from an email, checked before anyone is added
• Room warning: a clear line when the list needs more rooms than allowed

• Get your acts to the hotel and stage on time

Turn each rider into a checklist your crew can follow

A rider runs to dozens of lines, from backline to towels to the car from the airport. Keep each act's hospitality rider, technical requirements and catering as lines, with how many are needed and any alternative the act accepts, such as "or two vegetarian". Each line starts as to do and is struck through when done, so whoever is on shift sees what is open without calling the booker.

Add notes about the act for anything your team must know, such as where the band wants to eat or which dressing room is theirs. Each note shows who added it and when, and your teammates see it straight away. Upload the rider and Fai picks out what it asks for, then adds the items you name to the list. She also files a document under the right act and part of the booking, and picks the fee, deposit and payment dates out of a contract or invoice.

• Rider items: quantity, item and the alternative the act accepts
• To do and done: finished lines struck through, open lines easy to spot
• Team notes: who added each note and when
• Rider and contract details picked out: Fai picks out rider items and the fee, deposit and dates

• Keep rider lists and notes for your event's artists
• Assign dressing rooms and buy what each rider asks for

Know which acts to chase, then sign each one off

Each act on the bill is a card on Artists, with a badge for finance, technical, hospitality, catering and travel and accommodation. A badge turns complete only when someone on your team marks it, so two weeks out you see exactly which acts to chase. On the advance, mark each section confirmed or send it back for changes. Sign the advance off once all its sections are confirmed.

Keep notes for your team that the act never sees. Signing off makes the act's page read only until you reopen it, and you can print a day sheet for the act from the advance. Add each day of the event with its opening and closing times, and each set, soundcheck and rider task falls on the right day in your event's time zone. A touring act and your production office then work to the same clock. Drop contracts and riders onto Artists and Fai sorts the files by act, so your existing paperwork starts each record. Switch to the table view to work down a long bill.

• Booking badges: finance, technical, hospitality, catering, travel and accommodation
• Section status: received, needs changes and confirmed
• Sign off and reopen: a read-only page for their team once it is done

• Track every artist booking for your event