booktheact.com is both directory and booking system designed for promotion of high quality professional and semi-professional bands, musicians, singers, comedians, speciality and related light entertainment performers. Developed by the publishers of The Stage newspaper, it allows acts and/or their agents to showcase their talent to corporate, private and industry bookers/event organisers using video and sound as well as detailed descriptions and photographs. The booking system is flexible and easy to use and has been designed to provide an initial quote and optional contract signing between the event organiser and the agent/act with secure "electronic signatures" for speed and efficiency.
booktheact.com is a unique site built around the needs of entertainers and bookers. The site provides entertainers and agents with a range of tools to make promotion, booking, organising and performing as simple as possible for acts and event organisers alike.
The acts listed, or agents on their behalf, buy annual subscriptions to feature on the site. Currently, the three available packages are Silver, Gold and Platinum that vary in price according to the level of promotion and functionality an act wishes to achieve using the site.
No. It is an online directory/booking system published by The Stage Newspaper Ltd, the UK's leading provider of information services to the entertainment industry since 1880. The service is completely independent of any entertainment agent, act or trade body. It aims to provide users with comprehensive information on entertainment talent of all types, enabling event organisers to search, select, check availability and to book the act(s) that fit their occasion and budget, quickly and efficiently and to the benefit of all parties.
To login to your account, select the link on the right of the home page and enter your username (your email address as registered) and password. If you cannot remember your password, enter your email address and click the "Reminder" button that will email it to the address you provided.
Please contact support@booktheact.com with your name, address, contact number and both your old and new email addresses. Once this has been verified with you, your account can be amended to enable you to login.
Whilst the pages are designed to work with all major browsers and operating systems, there may be circumstances particular to you, which we are unaware of. In this case, please email support@booktheact.com with details of the problem, and the browser and operating system you are using and we'll investigate.
Absolutely. The arrangements on booktheact.com do not conflict with any you may have with agents and management companies. However, we strongly recommend you notify such parties and establish any fees that may need to be paid in the event of accepting a booking through booktheact.com. It is in the best interests of agents and managers to signup to booktheact.com on your behalf, using the Agent Signup facility.
Yes, you can accept bookings direct outside of booktheact.com. However, the use of the booktheact.com system to facilitate such bookings is recommended in order to take advantage of the automatically generated contract option, diary entry and general site efficiency.
We understand that, for a variety of reasons, you may be able to (or not wish to) accept a particular booking. Simply decline the booking online or by text message.
No, acts are not reviewed before listing. However, reliability, quality of performance, and professionalism are taken very seriously and feedback from bookers and event organisers is encouraged and will become an increasingly important part of the service. The publishers reserve the right to suspend acts from booktheact.com following substantiated complaints or misrepresentation within their listing.
Yes, the system incorporates a general contract for use between you and the event organiser, if required. This has the benefit that it can be signed electronically by both parties and stored on our database for reference online. You may, however, use your own contracts if you wish to do so; agents usually use their own.
All acts record their availability on the system diary - although the full date sheet is never shown publicly. When event organisers find the act that they wish to use, they register their personal details and are then able to send a booking enquiry for the event date to the act (or agent) via the site email and/or the text message facility (text alerts are a no cost optional extra for acts with either Gold or Platinum subscription packages). On receipt of the new booking enquiry the act (or agent) is able to accept or decline the booking within the following 48 hours, either online or using mobile text messaging. It is important to note that, if an act (or its agent) fails to respond to a booking enquiry within 48 hours, the system automatically schedules and sends a "decline" response to the booking enquirer.
Your notification is immediate either by email and/or text message to your mobile number. When you respond, the event organiser is also notified immediately of your decision.
Upon receipt of a prospective booker's email and/or text message, you can login to your booktheact.com account and accept or decline the booking via the system's email facility. Alternatively, should you receive the booking enquiry by text message, you can reply with "confirm" or "decline". Either response method is acceptable.
Arrangements for paying are negotiated directly between you (or your agent) and the event organiser. We recommend that a deposit is paid before the event at contract stage and the balance paid on the day.
Note: We are actively investigating the viability of an escrow payment system with a view to trial. An escrow facility would allow the cleared funds for the total booking fees to be lodged in advance of the event but held until after the event has taken place when the funds would be released directly to the act or agent. booktheact.com would welcome feedback from acts, agents and bookers on the appeal of such a system by emailing randd@booktheact.com.
All content on the site is checked and approved before it is published so it's likely that the amendments are with our editors. We aim to complete this process within 48 hours.
Please check your email in box - you should have received an email from booktheact.com asking you to activate your account. This process enables us to verify that you are who you say you are and that your email address is valid. It helps us to stop spammers and spoofers from using booktheact.com for their purposes. Please also check your entertainment style, act availability and regions served match your search criteria.
Only when you are ready to show your page to the world, should you go to Your Details and check the "Put my page live" checkbox.
You may upload any number of items of media (photos, sound clips, video clips), and display as many as your chosen level of subscription account (Silver, Gold or Platinum) allows, but you are asked to choose one photographic image as your "primary photo" that you feel represents the act to best advantage in listings and search results.
All media is sized, prepared and compressed for efficient delivery on the web. This process can take our servers a small amount of time per file. In most circumstances, this will be completed automatically within an hour but some files may require more time. If you are still experiencing a problem, please contact support@booktheact.com.
Use booktheact.com to locate the act you want to perform at your event, and to confirm their availability and fees for the date concerned. If you have not booked through the site before, you must then register your details by setting up an account. You can then send a booking enquiry to the act (or their agent) at the quoted rates from the site. Your booking enquiry will be sent automatically by email and/or text message, to which you will receive a reply within 48 hours either accepting or declining the booking. On acceptance, you are then able to proceed with the booking arrangements and contracts entirely online, or deal directly with the act or agent offline. Should you decide to withdraw from the booking at this, pre-contract, stage you should advise the act/agent straightaway.
Absolutely. All messages from an act's page are sent directly to the nominated contact(s) and you may ask any questions you wish.
You can, but you may find the act has a preference for booking directly on the system. All documentation is available and retrievable online and the contracts can be electronically signed to minimise delays, with further enhancements to come.
Yes. A key part of the system is its ability to keep track of the booking online and communicate with the act if there are any questions as the event date approaches.
The act is immediately informed by email and/or text message when you make a booking enquiry for your event/date. The act then has 48 hours to reply to you either by email or text message with their response. No matter what the act's response, you will receive a message in all instances to keep you updated with your enquiry.
booktheact.com only allows bookings for dates two days from today and beyond, to give acts and organisers time to communicate and set up the gig.
Some acts vary their price for certain dates based on criteria outside of those catered for within the booktheact.com system. On these occasions, the quoted price is shown as "POA", which means Price on Application, and you will need to make an initial enquiry to establish total costs for your event.
Acts and agents are keenly aware they must price their services to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace. Therefore, fees stated are likely to be good value and, as booking administration on the site is very efficient, costs are kept as low as possible. However, you may have areas for discussion with the act or agent relating to price and the system allows for this during the booking process
Once a system contract is signed-off by both parties, one party cannot modify it without the agreement of the other party. However, the booking may be cancelled by agreement of both parties OR additional notes added pre-event: go to the contract and "Add note" which will allow both parties to view and comment on the information before the event date.