The Startion Notebook
Field notes from the creative and cultural industries.
Product releases, workflow thinking, ecosystem milestones and long-form essays from music, festivals, performing arts, theatres, museums, galleries, creators and agencies.
Editor's picks
StageRider 2.0 has arrived!
StageRider 2.0 has arrived!
A major release for StageRider — 365+ items, new sharing, drag-and-drop, rider templates, a redesigned UI and a more compact PDF export.
The 10 Most Common Stage Plot Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Ten mistakes that turn stage plots into stress for everyone at load-in — and how professional artists and production teams engineer them out of the workflow.
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Beyond Social Media: Professional Profiles for the Live Industry
Facebook shows your parties. Instagram shows your best light. Spotify shows your streams. LinkedIn shows your job titles. None of them show the one thing the live entertainment industry actually books on: your work, verifiable, in context.
Why Every Artist Needs a Professional Stage Plot
A stage plot is not a drawing. It is the single document that decides whether soundcheck starts on time, monitors point the right way, and the show begins in calm or chaos.
Your Next Opportunity Already Exists — You Just Can't Find It
The right collaborator for your next tour is already active in the industry. The perfect support act for your festival is already touring. The tour manager you need is finishing a run this month. None of them are hidden. They are simply not surfaced.
Why Music Networking Is Broken
The live music industry runs on relationships, but it looks for them on platforms designed for something else. Facebook was not built for a booking agent to find a stage manager. Instagram was not built for a festival director to verify a sound engineer. And yet, here we are.
Every Team Needs Different Information
The driver does not need the setlist. The artist does not need the security perimeter map. Yet every team receives the same 42-page PDF. This is why nobody reads it, and what a personalised itinerary changes.
Stop Sending 15 Versions of the Same Schedule
Schedule_FINAL.pdf. Schedule_FINAL_v2.pdf. Schedule_FINAL_v2_updated.pdf. Schedule_REAL_FINAL.xlsx. If your team has ever named a file this way — and every team has — the problem is not naming. The problem is that the schedule is not a file.
Why Festival Timetables Keep Changing
A festival timetable is not a schedule. It is a hypothesis about the weekend, tested continuously against reality — and reality, in the shape of delayed flights, storms, and rerouted trucks, wins more often than we admit.
One Source of Truth for Every Show
The rider is in Dropbox. The schedule is on Messenger. The hospitality note is in Gmail. The backline change is in WhatsApp. The venue thinks the source of truth is a spreadsheet. It isn't. It never was.
The Hidden Cost of Missing Rider Information
A rider is not paperwork. It is a promise. When a line is missing, someone pays for it — usually the crew, usually in overtime, usually at 2 a.m. Here is what incomplete riders really cost, and why the industry keeps underestimating it.
Why Advancing Still Happens in Endless Email Threads
Every touring professional has lived it: a thirty-message thread, three PDF versions, a WhatsApp side-conversation, and a rider that no longer matches reality. Advancing is the invisible engine of live entertainment — and we still run it on email.
Startion Represents Hungary in the Finals of the World's Largest Creative Industry Competition
Startion Represents Hungary in the Finals of the World's Largest Creative Industry Competition
The Startion music industry startup won the Hungarian edition of the Creative Business Cup and will represent Hungary at the world finals in Copenhagen.
Startion to Showcase at the BIME Startup Competition in Colombia
Startion to Showcase at the BIME Startup Competition in Colombia
Startion has been selected as one of the six finalists of the BIME Startup Competition and will pitch its solution at BIME Bogotá, May 6–9.
Head of Marketing and Sales — We're hiring
Head of Marketing and Sales — We're hiring
Startion is hiring a Head of Marketing and Sales to help take the ecosystem of music industry workflow products to international markets.
So Far So Good in Milan
So Far So Good in Milan
An inspiring few days in Milan at the Linecheck conference — the opening event for the Music Tech Europe Academy 2024–25.
Startion selected among the 10 startups of the Music Tech Europe Academy
Startion selected among the 10 startups of the Music Tech Europe Academy
Startion is the only Hungarian participant of the Music Tech Europe Academy 2024–25, chosen from over 80 applicants across Europe.
5 Common Mistakes Bands Make When Creating a Stageplot
5 Common Mistakes Bands Make When Creating a Stageplot
A stageplot is the blueprint for your stage setup. Here are five common errors to avoid when preparing one — and how to communicate clearly with the crew.
New icons and features have arrived!
New icons and features have arrived!
A first wave of new icons and editor features lands in StageRider — laying the groundwork for the 2.0 release.