The “Extras” tab is the place where we enter any Gigs that we book at a venue, and a place to enter individual dated notes for our To Do List and financial tracking.
GIGS
We’ve found that we really only need to know 5 things about a gig. The date, start time, status (whether it’s tentative or confirmed), the approximate dollars we expect to make, and then miscellaneous notes (which might include how long we’re playing, if food and lodging are provided, other elements of the deal, whether we need a PA). To us a gig is very simple. Five key things, and a way to track the eternally variable minutiae.
To help booking agents use BandMgrX we’ve added a field called “For Contact” as well, which enables you to book shows for multiple bands, or multiple venues and stages (if you’re booking a venue or festival instead of a band).
Clicking on the circle-arrow to the left of a Gig takes us to a detail screen for the Gig if we want to enter and view more detail. We can enter whatever we want there, including additional dated notes, and we can even enter detailed financial breakdowns there as well. You can track how much the guarantee is, how many CDs you sell, how much you got in tips, that sort of thing. The Gig detail screen is designed to handle tracking for as many different items as we can ever dream up, like shirts, pens, vinyl, autographed posters, books of lyrics, jewelry, you name it.
DATED NOTES
The Dated Notes section looks pretty boring, but it’s actually pretty powerful if you’re into To Do Lists. The idea here is you can enter FUTURE items in the Dated Notes section, then they’ll appear in your To Do List on that day when it arrives. Want to be sure the venue has your gig listed on their website 30 days before your show? Enter a “To Do” item for that date to remind you to check. Need to send posters to the venue but they don’t want the posters to arrive more than three weeks before the show? Enter a “Send Out” note for that date. Did the booker talk to you on the phone but was too busy right then and asked you to call them back after they get back from vacation next week? Enter a “Call” note for that date. Those items will continue to show up in your To Do lists until you check them as DONE. Once they’re checked as DONE, they’re archived for as long as you like, or until you delete them.
One sort of unorthodox addition to Dated Notes is the $$ field. You can enter numeric values in this field and see a total at the bottom. We use this as a sort of down and dirty place to track numbers. It doesn’t replace accounting software or anything, but it’s enough for most of the tracking we do. Use it as you will.
Hey, if you’re not into To Do Lists or have no need for $$ tracking, all good, no worries, you can use this notes section however you want, or you don’t have to use it at all. We just wanted you to know how we use it and why we built it the way we did. Cheers!