What is Entertainment Management Software?

Entertainment management software is a cloud-based platform designed to specifically to help entertainment companies manage everything relating to their professional work, from bookings, to issuing contracts and invoicing and managing clients.

Entertainment companies can simply be defined as any person, business, or agency who provides an entertainment service to a paying customer or client. This could be:​​​​

• DJs
• photobooth company
• magicians
• face painters
• casino tables
• candy carts
• chocolatiers
• speakers
• toastmasters
• make-up artists

Software built for entertainers can also be branded as artist, or band management software. This is because the needs of entertainers are often similar to the needs of musicians and anyone working in the music industry after all, they are also providing an entertainment service. Different vendors will target different audiences.

However, there are slight differences between a CRM system and entertainment management software. Entertainment management software is basically, in its raw form, a complete CRM system, but built with features built for entertainers at the focus. A CRM system is a Customer Relationship Management. It's a technology used to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. In the case of entertainers, it is built to help manage bookings from enquiries to confirmed bookings. 

Having said this, entertainment management software usually offers more features than a typical off the shelf CRM system. These features usually include contract creation and the ability to collect e-signatures, invoice creation and online payments, and possibility to share and manage other entertainers on a booking.

Top 4 Features of Entertainment Management Software

1. Event Management

Bookings and performances are your business and a good management software will allow you to easily store event information, such as date, time, event information and much much more. An added bonus would be for a todo list and the ability to upload files.

Band Pencil offers 25+ fields to store all your event information in. These fields include information about whether food will be provided, saving the performance room and dressing room information, how many guests are attending and whether there is any noise limit. Not only this, but we make it easy for you to export this information to a PDF worksheet for you to have on the day. ...and yes you can upload files and make use of our todo list!

2. Client Management

Clients are key to your entertainment business, they pay you for your services at the end of the day. We recommend you pick a service which allows you to securely store client information. An added bonus would be a software which allows the client to view gig information, sign contracts, view invoices and make payments. See more about our client portal here.

3. Entertainers & Crew Management

It's hard for anyone to manage multiple different people and coordinate their jobs so a management software needs to offer a system to easily allow artists and crew to see the gig information online. Band Pencil has a member portal and offers a  "self-service" approach so your team can view event information online 24/7. 

4. Invoicing & Payment Systems

You need to be able to quickly build invoices and track event income and expenses. You also need to be able to download these invoices and send them to clients without having to use a third party software such as Microsoft Word. Being able to track this in a software will allow you to:

• Track unpaid invoices
• Send reminders
• Produce on demand revenue reports

If you want to be paid quickly we would recommend picking a software which has an online payment system. In doing this you get paid quicker; make it easy for clients to pay invoices and easily create receipts on the fly.

With Band Pencil, invoicing and online payments are intergrated and with Band Pencil Pay you can accept payments online. Our built-in invoicing system makes managing invoices easier and speeds up your workflow.

Do You Need An Entertainment Management Software?

If you're reading this article then you've probably already answered this question, but if you're not sure here's a simple way to figure that out.

In a given month, how much time do you spend managing holds and booking events? Yes, the management side of any company can be a full-time job. You've only got to look at the service industry like plumbers or electricians - often even a small local business will have a person in the back office managing jobs, sorting the invoices and coordinating the work.

If you're spending a large amount of time, and using may different services (Excel, Word, email, calendars) you may want to consider using a software to help bring everything under one roof and store this information securely. Not only this, but storing information in one place and managing your bookings on a software will help speed up your workflow. On average, our users book events 2x faster using Band Pencil's software. That means if it take 6 hours to organise one event Band Pencil will reduce this to 3 hours - that's a quarter of your day back to focus on other more important things.

Software is a financial commitment, so this is a choice you need to make yourself, but the pros definitely out weight the cons in the long run and remember, software costs are an allowable business expense.

Which Entertainment Management Software Is The Best?

This is a very subjective decision and really depends on your needs. Choosing the right product for your business is a challenging task. As most software will offer some sort of free trial I recommend you register with all the softwares that interests you and try them out. Read the testimonials from other users and reach out to the support team to see if you can schedule a demo. Pick a software which has all the features you need now and has the features you may need as you grow.

We suggest you avoid looking at comparison charts or if you do, remember they are probably out of date and they will be very bias towards their own software!

What is Band Pencil?

We know the name doesn't really shout entertainment software, but trust us, our software is used by many entertainment companies to help manage their companies. Band Pencil started out in the music industry mainly to help band leaders manage their events. It was so liked, entertainment companies started to join us as it offered all the services they required.

Don't just take our word, Fancy Entertainment, a entertainment agency based in the UK said:

Having all the information for both clients and performers in one place makes the booking and event malmanagement process much more efficient. The ongoing software updates from the user feedback are improving the functionality and making the software even better after each new version.

As Band Pencil is aimed at the music industry, by default we use the term musician, or member, but in Band Pencil's settings you are free to change this to whatever you like. Some popular choices for entertainers are: entertainers, performers or members!