Before I started booking live music shows, I was a software engineer. And as someone who loves music and engineering, I am always looking for ways technology can be used in the music world.

Live music is a people business at its core. Technology can never replace real human relationships. And as much hype as there is about AI, it’s not going to replace the human touch.

But there is a whole lot that technology can fix in the live music industry.

This article is about how technology can drastically improve the live music industry and a few areas where it never will.

Artist Discovery

Instagram and TikTok are dominant social media platforms for musicians. You practically have to have an account if you are serious about being a musician publicly.

And yet, they offer very little in terms of direct discovery. They are built for entertainment. Discovery happens only as a side-effect.

There is a need for a directory-style platform for musicians. Something with a direct way to search and filter and find musicians.

If you go searching, there are very few musician directories out there. I started Hire Musicians initially to fill the need.

No More Cold Emails

When I started booking, I was impressed at how many emails some of my colleagues were getting from artists daily. Average size venues are getting over a hundred cold emails every single day from musicians who want to book a show with them.

That’s a lot to sift through for someone who is doing an honest job at curating music. And it’s a huge pain for musicians to do all that cold outreach!

It’s a lose-lose situation.

I see the future of booking small live music shows becoming a lot more like hiring a plumber.

When you need a plumber and you don’t know a guy, you find one online and call them. You don’t sift through a Gmail folder of cold emails from plumbers that you have been maintaining for 15 years. And plumbers don’t cold email people.

It should be exactly the same in live music. If you know a guy, hire them. But if you don’t, an online directory of live musicians sure would be helpful.

Replace Email Folders

There are thousands of live music buyers out there who manage their contracts using Gmail folders.

By all means, Gmail is great. But there is a better solution on Hire Musicians. You can maintain custom collections of your favorite musicians and see their listings side by side.

It is much easier to compare musicians when everything is displayed visually in one format. Sifting through individual emails in a folder feels like a nightmare by comparison.

Can AI Replace Booking Agents?

AI is all over the news these days. There is fear going around about AI replacing all kinds of jobs.

I’m here to tell you that booking agents are safe.

The real value of a good agent is the human relationships and trust factor. Good agents don’t get paid because of what they know but because of their reputation and taste. No technology can replace that.

But technology can make an agent’s job easier.

Why Has No One Done This Yet?

Other live musician directories charge for leads or charge transactional revenue for bookings. Musicians only use them temporarily. They jump ship as soon as they can to avoid fees.

As a result, the platforms stay small. A directory with low inventory is not that useful.

Hire Musicians takes a different approach. Listing is free. Leads are free. There is no obligation to make a transaction on the platform if you get a lead from it. So there is no penalty for staying on the platform.

Hire Musicians Is Building the Future

Technology thankfully cannot replace the human aspect of live music. But it has the power to remove the busy work. That leaves more room for working on the things that actually drive revenue for venues and musicians.

Building genuine audience and community.

Technology can never replace human connection. But it does have a place in building a better future for everyone working in the live music industry.

Hire Musicians is building that future. If you are a musician or a live music buyer, consider joining our community.

By John Filippone