Gear Lugging App

[CormacBass]

I was on the way to a gig last night with a new wedding band I'm in. I had looked at the hotel online, it's a 5 star, looked pretty nice. On the way the drummer said to me, oh no "not the Gibson Hotel tonight, that's a 2 star at best".
This confused me a little so I asked him what he meant.
It turns out he's made a list of every hotel he's played at and judged them on how easy it is to get the gear in.
The criteria are things like:
Do you have to lift up a stairs?
Do you have to use an elevator?
Is there a service entrance?
How long is the walk?

Anyway I told him this was a great idea and that he should make it into an app. Is there anything simular on the market right now?
I'd buy that, would you?

 

[Dave W]

I would not buy it. If a place wants to pay me to play a gig there, I'm playing it no matter what.

Having a crappy load in sucks, but it's part of the territory.

 

[MikePL]

I would not buy it. If a place wants to pay me to play a gig there, I'm playing it no matter what.

Having a crappy load in sucks, but it's part of the territory.

Having a crappy load-in sucks, but if you're prepared for it isn't it better?

 

[ksandvik]

Light gear, Class D amps and Neo cabs. Should not be an issues in this time and age.

 

[HolmeBass]

I would like an app like that. Even with lighter gear and preparedness, some load-ins just flat out suck. It's reasonable to charge a little extra for needed "leg work" at places like that. And if they ask why- you tell them. Let us use the service elevator, or put in a permanent back line, and we'll knock the surcharge off the price.

 

[MikePL]

I would like an app like that. Even with lighter gear and preparedness, some load-ins just flat out suck. It's reasonable to charge a little extra for needed "leg work" at places like that. And if they ask why- you tell them. Let us use the service elevator, or put in a permanent back line, and we'll knock the surcharge off the price.

+1, but you still have to be prepared in the sense that if you sign the contract before going to that gig for the first time, you probably won't know it's a 'two star' place before actually asking those extra $ in the contract.. Am I making any sense here?

 

[Mystic Michael]

Anyway I told him this was a great idea and that he should make it into an app. Is there anything simular on the market right now?
I'd buy that, would you?

Potentially useful? Sure. But practical to develop and market? I'm not persuaded.

Two key points:

1) It's a very small market. Demand for such an app would likely come only from musicians - or shall we say most broadly, from entertainers. Are there really so many of us around so as to enable the economy of scale that would make the development of such an app financially viable?

2) Data collection. How will you gather the data necessary to populate the app, and keep it current? Hire people to visit all the venues and conduct a site inspection? How will you guarantee consistent access from the venue managements? What's their incentive to cooperate?

Rely upon gigging musicians to provide you with venue reports? If so, how would you guarantee accuracy and quality control? (Especially from a bunch of flakes like them...)

Interesting concept. But there are some bugs in the business model. I think it would be more feasible to develop a website that would allow musicians to self-report - with the caveat that the data is only as good as the cats who provided it...

MM

 

[CormacBass]

I don't think it would be a profitable app, more of a community based thing. Something to do in that time you have between set up and the gig.

 

[colcifer]

You'd get the data by crowd-sourcing it out to the users. I like the idea. It would have to be a free or low cost app, though, and you'd have to add a web site for accessibility.