How do you get started with Optune as a booking agent?

This guide gives you and your agency team a clear starting point for working with Optune. It covers the most important steps, settings and workflows to help you get up and running quickly and confidently.

Start by adding your artists, creating your first booking, understanding booking statuses and preparing your contract template. If you also want to create invoices through Optune, prepare your invoice template as well.

Our team can create your first contract template, invoice template or data import for you, so you can start with all important data already in place from day one, without entering everything manually.

After that, invite your agency team, artists and artist teams to Optune, connect your calendars, choose your notification settings, add website integrations and use Optune features like Share, Request, tasks, guest lists and the AI booking assistant to save time, reduce mistakes, lower stress and keep artists, teams and promoters aligned.

If you have a question, click your profile picture in the bottom left corner and open Ask for help. This opens the Optune chat, where you can ask product questions, send feedback or share ideas for improvements.

Support is included with your Optune subscription at no extra cost. Your artists can also contact us directly through Ask for help and receive support themselves, so your team does not have to answer every product question internally.

Start by adding the artists you represent. Open the Artists area and click Add new artist.

First, add the most relevant artist information, such as bio text, images, press kits, media links, social media profiles and other useful details. This makes the artist profile more complete and helps you present professional information to promoters later.

You can invite the artist and their fixed team members from the Team section inside the artist profile. This can include the artist, tour managers, technicians, assistants or other people who should regularly see or edit booking information. Each person can receive different access rights.

People who should only be involved in one specific booking should instead be invited directly inside that booking.

If the artist profile already exists on Optune, the artist can merge the existing profile with the new one during the invitation process. This helps avoid duplicate artist profiles.

Good to know: an artist profile can be connected to more than one agency on Optune. This is useful when an artist does not work exclusively with one agency. You can manage these connections in the artist profile under Connect, where you can add or invite other agencies.

You can create a new booking manually from the Dashboard or the Booking Overview. Click the green plus icon in the lower area of the app. This opens the Create new booking form.

If a new booking is similar to an existing one, copy the existing booking instead. Go to the Booking Overview and click the copy icon directly on the booking card. The icon looks like two overlapping squares. Optune creates a copy of the booking, which you can then adjust. This is especially useful for repeated shows, tours or similar events.

Bookings can also be created through a Booking Request form when a promoter sends a request through your website or a shared link. This is a great way to reduce manual data entry and receive structured booking information from the beginning.

When you create or edit a booking, you can set two different date ranges in Optune for different purposes.

The booking date is the main show date of the booking. It appears in gig lists, booking overviews and website widgets.

The Operational period shows the full time frame around the booking. It can include arrival, setup, soundcheck, the show itself, overnight stays and the return trip. The booking date must always be within the Operational period.

Example: if a show takes place on Saturday but the artist travels on Friday and returns on Sunday, the booking date is Saturday and the Operational period runs from Friday to Sunday.

This helps you and your team clearly understand when the artist is actually unavailable and makes calendar planning much more accurate.

Every booking has a status. These statuses help you and your team understand where the booking currently stands.

Status meanings:

Separate from the status, you can use the Published label. Published controls whether a booking appears in public feeds, for example on websites or public gig lists. Not Published keeps the booking private, even if the internal status is Confirmed or Completed.

This is useful for private events, internal bookings or shows that should not yet be announced publicly.

Pro tip: when you set a booking to Canceled, Optune opens a window where you can enter the cancellation reason. This helps you track why shows were canceled and evaluate patterns later.

Open My Account to set your personal language and base currency settings. These settings only apply to your own account, not the agency as a whole, and influence how dates, numbers and amounts are displayed throughout Optune.

The selected language also affects formatting in contracts and invoices. This is important because document formats can differ between countries.

The base currency defines the default currency used in your account. You can still work with other currencies where needed, but the base currency keeps your financial overview consistent.

In My Account, you can decide which notifications you want to receive for each group you are part of. You can choose the events that matter to you and decide whether you want notifications in the app, by email or both.

Typical notification events include:

Set this up early. It helps you stay informed without overwhelming your inbox.

You can display your Optune bookings in your own private calendar through the Private Calendar Feeds feature.

At the agency level, go to Agency in the navigation, open the Integrations tab and scroll down to the Private Calendar Feeds section. There, you can create new calendar feeds and define exactly which booking information should appear in your calendar entries.

For example, you can decide whether guest lists, travel details, contacts or other booking information should be included in the calendar description.

Agency calendar feeds include bookings from all artists connected to your agency.

You can also create artist-specific calendar feeds. To do this, open the relevant artist profile under Artists, go to Integrations and use the calendar feed options there. Artists can also access their own artist-level calendar feeds directly in their own Optune account.

Once a feed has been created, copy the private calendar feed URL and subscribe to it in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, iCal, Outlook or another calendar app that supports calendar subscriptions.

Important: private calendar feeds may contain sensitive booking information. Do not share these feed URLs publicly.

Optune can be integrated into your agency website or directly into an artist website. The two most important integrations are the Booking Request form and Present Bookings.

The Booking Request form lets promoters request bookings directly through your agency website or an artist website. Present Bookings lets you automatically display published bookings, including upcoming and past gigs where needed. This keeps your website and artist pages up to date without manual edits.

Examples:

You can find these integrations in the agency profile or in the artist profile under Integrations. These integrations are available on both the agency level and the artist level. This means you can create a general agency Booking Request form or artist-specific forms and booking lists.

If you need a custom style, layout or setup, contact us through Ask for help. We can customize integrations so they fit your website and workflow.

In the artist profile, click the settings icon in the top right corner to open the artist settings screen. There, you can define which group should receive booking requests and which connected groups should be able to see them.

Only one group can be the main receiver of incoming booking requests, for example either your agency or the artist group. Additional visibility can still be granted to other connected groups, so they can see the request without being the main receiver.

Different agencies and artists often work in very different ways, so Optune gives you flexible settings for handling booking requests. Some agencies prefer that incoming requests first go through the agency team before the artist is informed. In other cases, artists want to receive requests directly themselves or stay closely involved from the beginning. You can define the right setup per artist, so the workflow matches the way your team and artists prefer to work together.

In the artist settings, you can define default commissions for each artist. These default values are automatically applied whenever a new booking is created and a fee is entered.

You can set standard commissions such as:

This saves time, reduces manual calculations and keeps commission structures consistent across bookings.

You can also decide on the same page whether the agency commission should be visible to artists and team members who have see deal rights, or hidden from them. This lets you control whether they see the full booking deal and fee breakdown, or only the final artist fee while the agency commission remains private.

The Booking Overview becomes much more useful when you combine search, filters and date ranges.

Use the search bar to search for artists, venues, contacts or other booking information. When you press Enter, your search is added as a tag next to the search field. You can add several search tags and remove each one by clicking the x.

To filter by a specific time period, click Filter in the top right corner and then click Set date range. Select the date range you want to use. The selected date range is then added as a tag next to the search field, just like the search tags. You can remove the date range again at any time by clicking the x on the tag.

Inside the Filter menu, you can also choose which booking types should be shown or hidden in the Booking Overview, for example bookings, canceled bookings, blocked dates, on request or on tour.

This is useful when you want to find older bookings, review a tour period or focus only on specific shows, artists or booking types without scrolling through the full list.

If this setting is enabled in My Account, the Esc key helps you move faster through the Booking Detail View. It can close and save open fields, and it can also close and save the entire booking view.

When a field or modal is open inside a booking, press Esc to close it and save your changes. Press Esc again to leave the booking and return to the Booking Overview.

You can also work through booking sections such as Guest Lists, Line Up and Schedule directly with your keyboard. Use the Tab key to move through fields, enter information quickly and create new rows in a workflow similar to an Excel sheet.

Templates help you create contracts and invoices much faster.

Once a template is prepared, booking information such as artist name, booking date, venue, fee and contact details is automatically added to the right places.

You can create contract templates from the Contract navigation and invoice templates from the Invoice navigation. Later, inside a booking, select the right template in the Contracts or Invoices tab and generate the document with the booking details already filled in.

Contracts can also be sent for electronic signature directly through Optune. This helps you move from booking confirmation to signed contract without switching between several tools.

You can create your first template yourself, or contact us through Ask for help if you want support. We recommend letting us set up your first contract or invoice template, so you can copy it later and adjust it for other artists or similar use cases.

Pro tips:

The availability view gives you a dedicated overview alongside your bookings and helps you quickly see whether an artist is available, unavailable, on request or already connected to a planned tour period.

As an agent, you can manage availability information for your artists yourself. If artists or team members have the required permissions, they can also update and maintain their own availability.

To add availability information, open the Dashboard or Booking Overview and click the plus button in the lower right corner. Then select Set Availability. Choose the artist, select the availability type, add the relevant date and an optional note, then save it.

Availability types:

Availability information appears throughout Optune in several useful places. You can find it on the Dashboard under Availability, in the Booking Overview as an Availability card and inside the Booking Overview calendar view. The calendar view is especially helpful because it provides a clear monthly overview of bookings, availability periods, tours and requests across your entire roster.

Encourage artists and teams to keep availability updated regularly. Well-maintained availability helps avoid scheduling conflicts, improves planning accuracy and allows your agency to respond faster to promoters.

Each artist has different workflow and information needs. In the artist profile, open the settings icon and choose which Additional Info sections should be visible inside bookings for that artist.

For example, if an artist never needs flight details, you can hide the Flights section. If an artist regularly works with hotels, travel logistics or guest lists, you can keep those sections visible.

This keeps the booking detail view cleaner, more focused and easier to work with. Sections that are not relevant are hidden automatically, so you and your team only see the information that actually matters for that artist.

Share and Request are separate tabs inside each booking. They help you work with people outside your internal team without sending long email threads or manually preparing different PDF versions.

Request is used when you need missing booking details from external people, for example promoters. Inside the Request flow, you can choose exactly which booking categories should be included in the request. For each category, you can separately decide whether the invited person is allowed to view the category and whether they are allowed to edit or add information in that category. This gives you full control over which information is shared and which parts of the booking remain private. Optune then sends an email with a secure private link to the recipient. The recipient does not need their own Optune account to access the request. They can simply open the link, view only the categories you selected and edit only the categories where editing was allowed.

Share is used when you want to share selected booking information. You can either create a general share URL and send it manually through any channel, for example WhatsApp, email or chat, or share the information directly with a specific contact. In the Share flow, you can toggle which categories the recipient is allowed to see. When you share with a specific contact, you also gain more flexibility afterwards, because you can later add additional visibility permissions, remove individual categories or completely revoke access for that person if needed. In that case, Optune sends an email with a secure private link directly to that person. The recipient can open the link and see only the booking information you decided to share, without needing their own Optune account.

You can find the Guest List feature inside a booking under Additional Info. Add the available number of guest list spots first, then add guest names, notes and the number of spots per entry. Optune counts down the remaining spots automatically.

Artists and team members can also add guest list entries themselves if they have the right permissions. Through the Request tab, you can ask external people to add guest list information. Through the Share tab, you can share the guest list with promoters, venues or other partners. You can also download the guest list as a PDF directly from the Guest List category and send it manually if needed.

Team Polls let you ask internal Optune users a quick question directly inside a booking, for example your agency team, management, artist team or crew.

The main use case is checking who is available for a specific booking date. You can also use Team Polls for any other internal decision, such as who comes by car or who brings which equipment.

Everyone included in the poll receives a notification and can answer with Yes, No or Maybe plus an optional comment. You are automatically informed as soon as someone responds, making Team Polls one of the easiest ways to collect internal booking information without chasing people manually.

You can find the AI booking assistant in the right column of every booking. It uses booking information, excluding fees, and can combine it with external information to give you smarter answers.

You can use it as an intelligent assistant for many booking related tasks. For example, it can draft customer emails, summarize missing booking details, prepare offers or analyze competing events around the same date and location. These are only examples. The assistant can support many more questions, research tasks and decisions directly from the booking.

Tasks help you keep the booking process organized.

You can create tasks directly inside a booking or create general tasks that are not connected to a specific booking. Booking-related tasks are useful for things like sending contracts, checking hotel details, confirming arrival times or preparing invoices. General tasks are useful for internal reminders, planning or agency-wide to-dos.

Assign tasks to the right team members and use due dates where needed. This gives you and your team a clear overview of what still needs to be done.

Groups help you manage separate work contexts inside one Optune account. This is useful for agents, artists, team members, technicians and anyone working across different projects or roles.

Click your profile icon in the bottom left corner, open Groups and click Add New Group. Each group has its own artists, bookings, contacts, notifications, workflows and permissions.

This lets you work in different roles without multiple logins. For example, you can be a booking agent in one group and an artist, tour manager, technician or freelancer in another. Artists can also be part of different bands or artist teams, while each group stays fully independent.

When you switch groups, your full work context switches with it. The groups are not connected to each other, so responsibilities, communication and booking information do not get mixed between roles, bands, agencies or organizations.

If your agency wants to connect Optune with other tools or build custom workflows, you can use the Optune API.

The API supports both reading data from Optune and writing data back into Optune. This makes it possible to sync bookings, contacts, venues or other information with external systems.

You can find the API settings in your Agency profile. Open Agency, go to the Integrations tab, scroll down to the API section.

The full API documentation explains all available options in detail: https://api.optune.me/docs

This is useful for custom dashboards, automations, reporting, CRM workflows or internal tools built around your agency workflow.

We are also happy to develop custom apps, workflow tools or integrations on top of Optune for you. If you have an idea, want to connect another system or need a tailored solution for your agency, contact us through Ask for help.

You can add Optune to your phone home screen and open it like an app. This gives you faster access to your bookings, requests and tasks without searching for Optune in your browser.

From your home screen, Optune opens in full screen and feels similar to a native app. It can also load faster and stay easier to use when your connection is weak.

Open https://app.optune.me on your phone and add Optune to your "home screen" from the browser menu. A native Optune app for the App Store and Google Play is already in development and will follow soon.

For the full step by step guide with screenshots for iPhone and Android, read this article: https://help.optune.me/en/articles/2984673-install-the-optune-app-on-your-mobile-phone

Once you have added artist information such as bio text, images, links and social media profiles, you can click Share Profile in the top right area of the artist profile.

Optune then creates a public artist profile link that you can share with promoters, venues or partners. This is the fastest way to present an artist professionally without creating a separate website.

For a more complete artist website, you can use Onescreener, our own website and link in bio product, at https://onescreener.com.

Onescreener lets you create simple artist websites with links, videos, media, merchandise and Optune booking data in one place. Go to Onescreener and log in with your Optune login credentials to create an artist website and connect it with Optune. Once connected, Booking Request forms and Present Bookings can use Optune data automatically, so new booking requests and upcoming shows from Optune can appear directly on your Onescreener page.

Example Onescreener page: https://www.raydouglas.ch/

You do not need to master all 25 points at once.

Start with the basics, use Ask for help whenever needed and add the more advanced features step by step as Optune becomes part of your daily workflow.

You are now ready to handle bookings, save time and keep your team organized with Optune.

Check the Optune Changelog at https://roadmap.optune.me/changelog.

You can also visit the Optune Roadmap at https://roadmap.optune.me/roadmap, vote for feature ideas and submit your own requests.

For product updates and inspiration, follow Optune on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/optune.me/.