We've been in your shoes.
Podium was built by people who've actually run the call — managed personnel across rehearsals and performances — and got tired of the chaos.
Our story
We've sent the 2am “can anyone sub tomorrow?” texts. We've lost track of who's been paid. We've watched good performers slip through the cracks because our “system” was a pile of spreadsheets, group texts, and memory.
Enterprise arts software exists — but it costs tens of thousands and takes months to implement. Rock-band and DJ booking apps exist too, but they're built for a different world, with no concept of sections, covers, sub cascades, or 1099s.
So we built Podium for the middle everyone ignores: modern, affordable, and designed for the organizations that staff performers per event — orchestras, choirs, theatre, dance, worship, and agencies alike.
Make staffing the performing arts so simple that you can spend your time on the work — the rehearsal, the performance, the art — not the admin.
The principles behind the product
Performers first
Every feature starts with one question: does this make life easier for the people who perform and the people who staff them? If it doesn't, we don't build it.
Simple over complex
Enterprise arts software is powerful and overwhelming. We believe the best tools are the ones you can use on a deadline without a manual or an onboarding call.
Built by people who've run the call
We've managed personnel, chased subs, and reconciled who got paid. We built the tool we wished existed instead of guessing from the outside.
Honest and transparent
No hidden fees, no surprise charges, no dark patterns, no invented customer counts. We earn your trust by being straightforward — including about being early.
Our journey
One phone tree too many
After enough lost weekends spent texting to fill open seats — and enough spreadsheets that only one person could read — we started sketching what better personnel management could look like.
A tool we'd actually use
We built the core loop we needed ourselves: a real roster, offers people answer from their phone, a cascade to the next person when someone passes, and pay tracking that doesn't live in a shoebox.
Same problem, every art form
We started with chamber musicians, then heard the same story from choirs, theatres, dance companies, churches, and agencies. The call is the call everywhere. So we broadened Podium to speak each art form's language.
Early, and building in the open
Podium is young. A handful of founding organizations use it today, and we're shaping it alongside them. We'd rather tell you that honestly than dress it up in numbers we haven't earned.
A whole art form runs on freelancers
These aren't our customers — they're the field we set out to serve: the thousands of organizations that hire per performance and sit below the six-figure enterprise price floor.
2,200+
U.S. orchestras
170+
Pro opera companies
250+
Dance companies
1,000s
Choirs & churches with paid players
Market figures from public sources — the League of American Orchestras, OPERA America, and Dance/USA.
Built by people who've run the call
Our small team combines real experience in performing-arts personnel and operations with software engineering — enough to know what actually happens backstage, and enough to build something that respects it.
Come build it with us
Whether you staff a quartet, a symphony, a stage, or a Sunday service, we'd love to help you spend less time on admin and more time on the art.