Dear Sonicbids Members,
We’re sure our new Sonicbids site has not gone unnoticed. We’re also sure some of you have questions and concerns; hopefully this ‘open letter’ will help some of the dust settle.
For the last 12 years, we worked to connect musicians with the people who want to hire them. To do this, we built our product to meet the industry’s needs and keep up with trends and opportunities. Eventually, we realized our former platform was no longer rising to the occasion. Limitations in the architecture of the old system prevented us from building the best experience for you. We needed a complete overhaul. We started building this over 9 months ago to update the look and feel, improve the search tools, simplify your experience, and give you better access the most important thing: gigs!
Whether you are booking gigs, hiring talent to perform, or promoting your shows, we want Sonicbids to be your one-stop-shop for all things involving the words “music” and “live” in the same sentence. Here is a breakdown of all the new additions to our site as well as a glimpse at what’s to come.
Electronic Press Kits
Our EPKs needed a serious update. We started by building a new foundation for the EPKs. With that in place, you'll start to see a variety of improvements. Please bear with us as we work on bringing new features and functionality. Expect your EPKs to continue to improve over the next few months, and feel free to tell us your thoughts as changes are implemented. We’re looking to improve and would appreciate your feedback on how we could make your experience better.
Finding Gigs
It’s now easier to find and apply to the right gigs for you and your band. Whether you are sorting by location, genre, date range or price, we want to make sure you find the right gigs as quickly as possible.
This change will also help promoters from being flooded with applications that aren’t relevant to their specific gig and make it easier to find talent on demand. In the near future, promoters will be able to narrow talent search with filters, making it easier to find and review bands.
Applying to a Gig
We’ve also made it so you don’t have to answer the same application questions over and over again. We’ll store your answers so next time you apply to the same or a similar type of gig, we’ll have your personal responses on deck for you to plug in. We’ll also make sure you answer any new questions.
Hiring Musicians
While the feature changes at launch are not drastically different, we really wanted to improve the user interface and provide you with a much faster experience in reviewing your submissions. To start, we've revamped the look and feel of both the gig listing and your review tools to make both much cleaner. We've updated functionality to be more current, for example, switching from folder sets to tags. We've also simplified the workflow by giving you new features like a thumbs up, thumbs down tagging system to help keep track of your favorite bands and keep your inbox organized. But perhaps most important for you to know is that our new platform is laying the groundwork to provide you with more data – the best data – to help you with your decision–making process.
Data Storage
With our updated platform, bands now have unlimited storage. Want to post that high res photo from your last show? Have a desire to post more photos in general? Do you have more songs or more videos you’d like to put up? Awesome. You can upload it all.
Social Media
We’ve made it really easy to integrate all your social media into our new platform. Feel free to link your Instagram and Twitter feeds in addition to your Facebook band profile up with Sonicbids. We’ve added a built-in Facebook “like” button, as well as made it possible for anyone checking out your profile on Sonicbids to see how many Facebook “likes” you’ve already racked up.
We’ve made it possible to import your music on Soundcloud when you’re getting started with us and are working to bring a widget to the dashboard for those of you wanting to do it later.
Account Options
In the name of simplification we combined the tiered membership options. The old token system is gone, and there are no longer limits on how many gigs you can apply to. Media limits are also a thing of the past. Any one who was on a particular payment plan before the overhaul will be grandfathered into our new system. For those still perusing what we have to offer before making a final decision, you’ll still have the ability to make a profile, share your profile, and browse our listings. When you are ready create an account with us, FREE or paid, click here.
Help and Support
Sonicbids added a Live Chat feature where you can ask a real person for help, provide us with feedback or get answers for any questions you have. Live Chat will be available during business hours but if a question pops into your head while you’re having a midnight snack, our support page is always up. We also put together a helpful FAQ page to answer the most common questions.
Our future plans include:
- Better "Email my EPK feature."
- Improved embeddable widgets for players, calendars etc.
- Giving bands and musicians the ability to rate promoters and venues.
- Requiring promoters to give constructive feedback on why a band wasn’t chosen for a specific gig so they know what to improve on for next time.
- Handling the payment process for performing so artists are guaranteed pay through Sonicbids.
- Ensuring bands receive all the royalties they’re entitled to when playing shows.
- Introducing a user profile where you can chronicle over time the bands you’ve been in, the gigs you’ve played, the feedback you received. This will really give our musicians a chance showcase how they have built their careers.
Our goal is make building your music career as easy as pie, and to use all the information we have to make the best, personalized recommendations for bands and promoters. This is the start of an exciting new act in our history, and we are glad you're joining us for the adventure.
Thanks!
The Sonicbids Team
