Getting paid for gigs

For most working bands the gig money is the money. Tips and merch are real, but four rooms at $400 is the month. So Sonic Bloom keeps a running answer to the two questions you actually ask: what am I owed, and what have I made this year.

It's under Gigs in your dashboard.

Put the gig on the books

Hit Add a gig and give it a venue, a date, and the fee. That's it — load-in times, production notes and the advance live in the app, because that's the screen you want at the venue, not at a desk.

You can also just tell Roadie: "we're playing the Murray on the 14th for $400."

Adding a gig whose date has already passed marks it as played, because entering last month's gig is something you do to get paid for it.

Announcing it too? Leave Also list it on my website ticked and the gig appears on your public shows page at the same time — one entry, both jobs. If you'd rather hold the announcement, untick it and list it later from the same screen; each upcoming gig shows whether it's public yet.

Door deal, no set fee? Leave the fee blank. We won't invent a number for it — it shows as "Door deal" and counts as an outstanding night, and you enter what it actually paid when you settle up.

Mark it paid

Two ways:

• On the Gigs screen, find the night under Waiting on money and hit Mark paid. The amount is pre-filled with the agreed fee — change it if the room paid more or less.
• Or tell Roadie: "the Murray paid", or "we got $450 from the Elm on Friday." Naming the room is enough; Roadie takes the most recent unpaid night there and assumes the agreed fee unless you say otherwise. It works on your phone too, which is where you usually are when it happens.

Marked the wrong one? Nothing is permanent — you can put it back.

Rooms worth a call

Under the two numbers you'll find Worth a call — rooms that already had you and haven't asked again. It works off your own history: how often you normally play each room, how long it's actually been, what the room pays, and how many people it puts on your mailing list at the merch table.

That last part is why the order is useful. Being overdue at a $600 room that fills your list is not the same as being overdue at a $150 room that doesn't, and the list is sorted accordingly. A room already back on your calendar never appears — there's nothing to chase.

You can ask for the same thing in words: "who should I be calling?" or "the calendar's thin in March". Roadie reads the same history and can draft the ask. It never sends anything; you do that, from your own name.

It needs history to work. Add the gigs you've already played — past dates are recorded as played — and the rhythm of each room builds from there.

The two numbers

• You're owed — every night you've played that hasn't been settled. Any deposit you've already banked is subtracted, so it's what's actually outstanding, not the headline fee.
• Gigs, this year — what has been paid and banked since January. It counts money by when it arrived, not when you played, so a March gig paid in May is May's money.

It counts as earnings

Gig money now feeds the Earned figure on your dashboard and your weekly digest, alongside tips, music sales and merch. Before, a band whose income was mostly rooms saw a headline number made of tip-jar change.

One difference worth knowing: tips, music and merch come through Stripe at 0% commission and land in your account automatically. Gig money is paid to you by the venue — Sonic Bloom just keeps the record straight. We never touch it and never take a cut of it.

Who can see it

If you have bandmates on your account, money is separate from everything else. A bandmate can see the gigs, the dates and the day sheet without seeing the guarantee or the settlement — in plenty of bands the leader is the employer, and the software shouldn't force that conversation.