Musicians have to do much more than simply practice and perform to make a living. Jared Judge knows first hand how many roles artists have to take on. To help fellow musicians with the many aspects of managing their careers, he developed the BookLive app.
The app helps users book gigs, write contracts, connect to and communicate with clients, work with other musicians and get paid. Judge’s story is featured in this month’s Milwaukee Magazine.
Judge came up with the idea behind BookLive when he missed a gig and couldn't find any quick replacements to cover for him. Later that night, he was ordering an Uber and thought that the same concept would be useful for him and other musicians.
"I thought to myself, why does this not exist for live music, particularly high stakes gigs — like weddings and ones where you're being paid a living wage to do what you love. You know, in that frustration of not existing, I did a lot of research and decided this is my time to make it. So right after that, I sat down and started coding it. The rest is kind of history," he says.
Ultimately, Judge says musicians have to be better at marketing their music and then be able to sell people on actually paying them a living wage.
"I love knowing that like there are performances across the country that I'm not playing in but I'm involved in because I either helped the musician book that gig or helped them run the back office to get the musicians to show up and play the music. So I kind of feel like I get to play more music vicariously through all of my students," he says.
