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| Canaan Music Calendar |
GigKeeper is designed to simplify the management side of playing in bands. GigKeeper keeps track of gigs, bands, parts, players, and most importantly, who's available to play which parts for which gigs. GigKeeper automates such things as:
- Tracking the scheduling status of gigs
- Tracking the availability of players
- Tracking guest players (or subs) for a gig
- Maintaining mailing lists for bands and gigs
- Advertising the band and its gigs
The various concepts you need to know about first
A player/musician/user is identified by one or more email addresses. A player can log in using an email address and a password, after which the player has access to, and can update, information about the bands and gigs that the player is involved in. Players can also easily create new bands. A band has a list of parts associated with it. You can make up your own parts, like 'Guitar', 'Vocals', and 'Sound'. There is one special part that is called 'Manager'. Each part can have zero or more players associated with it. If a player is a Manager, then it is allowed to create new parts, remove them, and assign and unassign players to parts. A Manager can make other players Managers as well. If there are no players assigned to being Manager, all players automatically become managers. A band also has a list of gigs associated with it. A gig has a synopsis describing the gig in a few words, as well as a time and a place and some other information. Any player in the band can create new gigs, but (currently) only managers can edit or remove them. A manager can invite any player to play a part in a gig--they do not necessarily have to be assigned to the part.How do you become a player?
When a manager assigns you to a part in a band or gig, you automatically get an account if you did not have one already. In that case, an email is sent to you notifying you about where to log on. You can also by clicking on Register at http://www.gigkeeper.com. There you specify your email address and the name you want to be known by. An email is then sent to you with further instructions. Players should log on regularly to see what gigs they're involved in. (Currently, no automatic emails are sent to you. This is a feature that is in the planning however.) After logging in, you'll be directed to your personal GigKeeper home page. There you can update your availability to the various gigs you are involved with (available, unavailable, or don't know yet).How do you create a band, a part, a gig, ...?
When you're logged go to your My Events page and click on the link that creates a new band. You will be directed to a page where you can specify the name of your band. You're then directed to a page where you can do additional configuration, like specifying parts and members. You'll automatically be the Manager of the band, but you can change this later if you like. Band names are required to be unique at the moment, but that will probably change. A link to the band page will be added to your GigKeeper home page.You said it keeps public web pages up-to-date?
Yes, check out the following pages of the Ageless Jazz Band, the band that I play in:
In order to find out how this is done, click on the 'Profile' tab of your user and band pages.What about security, privacy, and so on?
It is easy to get an account with GigKeeper under any name, create a band of any name, and publish arbitrary information. GigKeeper does not do any background checks or editing of public user or band pages. Thus if page claims it is about 'Charlie Parker' or 'The Beatles', it is not necessarily written by an authorized person. GigKeeper cannot guarantee that information on public pages is in any way correct or appropriate. Nor can GigKeeper check the accuracy of listed events or URLs.
GigKeeper does try to confirm listed email addresses carefully. When an account is created, an email is sent with a confirmation number in order to confirm that the email indeed belongs to a particular user. That user can claim to have any name, but the user cannot hijack email addresses that belong to other users. For additional security, GigKeeper does not send any passwords by email. Users can specify whether they want their band to be listed publicly, whether they want their events listed publicly, and whether they want their email address to be listed publicly or not. All textual information about bands and users is completely under the control of the users.