Photo by Chris Murray on Unsplash
When you’re a road warrior, it’s inevitable that at some point, you’ll need last-minute backline rental, a 24-hour laundromat, or a walk-in clinic, fast. And then sometimes you just have an artist with wants that seem like needs—a cowboy hat, doughnuts, or the best breakfast in town. The team behind Master Tour, the one-of-a-kind mobile and desktop platform for managing every detail of a tour, understand this. That’s why they’ve just added a crowd-sourced resource feature as one of three new updates to its Master Tour Mobile app.
Since 2000, groups from Beyoncé to Maroon 5, Manheim Steamroller and even The Moscow Ballet have all relied on the robust desktop software to keep band and crew members on time and on stage. Band and Crew members currently log in to the mobile app, Master Tour Mobile, to view information on venues, travel, and lodging that has been entered by a tour manager or production manager.
The impact of the new features will be huge, changing Master Tour Mobile from a passive viewing experience for crew and band members to one where they can actively engage with colleagues throughout the industry. Eventric is expanding to better serve this expanding base of users as well. The Chicago-based company just opened an office in Los Angeles and will soon have another in Nashville at the new Fort Knox Studios.
The first step is creating a profile, where you can enter a photo, your expertise, credentials, frequent flier numbers and a lot more. “You can enter everything from your preferred airport to allergies,” says CEO and founder Paul Bradley. “Then you’ll see some easy-to-follow prompts that let you know about where to find everything in the cities on your tour, from backline rental to bass strings. You’ll see recommendations entered by some other artist’s tour crew. When you live on the road, you have very specific things you need to do. You don’t have a lot of time and Google and Yelp results can be too broad.” Shaun Hoffman, Tour Manager for Bruno Mars says, "Master tour has already made it so that everyone knows what is going on during show day. Now they have taken out the issue of having to search out the best of every city on non-show days."
Determined to make Master Tour a one-stop place for every member of the band and crew, Eventric is working to gather all this information, contributed by the 100,000+ dedicated Master Tour users, into an intuitive interface that lets touring musicians and professionals find hotels that treat bands well, where the coffee is nice and strong, and vendors that offer special deals for musicians and crews.
Master Tour users can “Tag” spots to mark their unique finds, vet other users’ contributions, and see what’s nearby in real time when they arrive in each city. “We’ve been wanting to add this service for years,” Bradley notes. “Once we hit 100,000 users, we knew we had a great base to offer this functionality. We’ve been focusing on what we wanted this to look like, what the user experience would be, for over a year.” Eventric worked hard to develop something streamlined and seamless. The goal: “Make it as simple as possible. We want users to be able to go everywhere in a couple clicks.”
Eventric has also partnered with the Event Safety Alliance and Keep the Beat Alive to create a local emergency services feature, and general event and health safety protocols. Click on the red cross in the Master Tour Mobile app and you’ll immediately get contact information for the nearest embassy, hospital, clinic, and emergency services, along with links to the latest safety guidance, training, and standards - handy, and potentially, a real life saver.
These new features, all tied to the profile management system, mark the beginning of a significant expansion of the platform. Master Tour plans to become an indispensable tool for all kinds of touring professionals to actively manage and enjoy their live career. Next steps include an insider job board and advanced admin features for venues, including a standardized template for their “tech pack,” critical information that artists and their production teams need to understand staging, lighting, and sound.
Eventric will be unveiling this new feature in Master Tour Mobile at the annual Tour Link Conference in Palm Springs, CA later this January, where you can hear Bradley speak on a “Touring and Technology” panel and tour the software with Eventric reps at their booth.
About Eventric and Master Tour
Eventric is a Chicago-based provider of software and online services for the professional live entertainment industry. Eventric’s solutions promote connectivity, community, and competency, making the production of live events more profitable and effective.
Our customers include touring professionals, music artists, artist management, tour and event production companies, entertainment venues and festivals. Our software and services are used behind-the-scenes to power many of the largest tours in the world.
Eventric, founded by and comprised of musicians and touring professionals, is dedicated to making the very best tools and solutions for the people and businesses who earn their living performing and presenting live events. Our unique combination of experience in both the software and entertainment industries gives us the ability to create new and innovative solutions.
Products:
Master Tour - Master Tour is the premier software solution for tour management and logistics. Our software is battle-tested by professionals who make their living on the road. With Master Tour you can organize your itinerary, travel, production, accounting and more in one application. Work on or offline and share critical information with your crew in real-time. Master Tour will help keep your entire organization in sync.
Live Access - Live Access is Eventric’s online “Friends and Family” ticketing service used to manage retail sales, comps and private ticket holds. Guest list requests come from personal friends and family, industry executives, celebrities and loyal fan club members. We understand that these important guests require a personal touch which can’t be replaced by a generic ticketing system. Live Access was designed with this scenario in mind. You retain complete control over all communication to your guests. You decide when requests are approved, what fees (if any) should be collected and when the customer is billed.