How to text in a gig — I Got A Gig Help

You booked a gig. Text it to the I Got A Gig hotline. That’s the entire job.

There’s no app and nothing to log into. Write it the way you’d tell a friend:

Friday at Tipitina’s, 9pm, $10

playing the Maple Leaf June 12 with the full band, doors at 10

BJ’s Bywater this Thursday, free show, starts around 8

What happens next

We text you back a summary of what we understood — venue, date, time, cover. Read it. If it’s right, reply yes. If something’s off, just text the correction (“actually it’s 10pm”) and we’ll send an updated summary.

Nothing goes public until you say yes.

Once you do, we text back with a link (usually starting “All set!”). Hang on to that text: the link is how you fix or cancel the gig later, right up until it starts. More on that in Fixing a mistake.

Got a bunch of gigs? Send them all at once

Booked the whole month? Put it in one text, however you’d write it:

Fri Tipitina’s 9pm, Sat Maple Leaf 10pm, next Thursday d.b.a. 8pm

Instead of a yes/no for each one, we text you a single link:

Got 3 shows from your text. Review and post them here: app.igotagig.com/s/…

Open it and you’ll see every gig on one page. Fix anything we got wrong, remove any that don’t belong, choose who hears about them, then tap Post. If we flagged something on a gig, look it over first; the Post button waits until you have. You get one text back saying what went live. Nothing goes public until you post, and if none of it is yours, tap Not mine to throw the whole batch out.

A few things to know:

Up to 20 gigs at a time. Send more and we’ll take the first 20 by date. Text us the rest once those are posted.
We leave out gigs that already happened or that you’ve already sent us, and the page shows you which ones.
Weekly residencies aren’t supported yet. In a list, “every Tuesday at the Spotted Cat” gets left out. Text each date instead.
A few gigs may get a second look. A gig that looks like a duplicate waits for a person on our end, and out-of-town gigs go on your page only. The text after you post tells you which.
The link lasts 12 hours. If you don’t get to it, a real person on our end looks the gigs over instead of letting them go live on their own.
One batch at a time. A single new gig is fine to text while a batch is waiting; it gets its own summary. Send another list, though, and we’ll send your waiting link back. Post it or tap Not mine first.

Got a flyer? Send the picture

Text us your flyer (or a screenshot of a venue’s post) and we’ll read the gigs off it. A flyer with one gig gets the usual summary to confirm. A flyer with several gets the one-link page above.

One picture per text: we only read the first one. If we can’t make out a gig, we’ll ask you to text the date, venue and time instead.

Every picture you send is read as a flyer, so a photo of the band just gets that “couldn’t read a show” reply. To change the photo on your page, email us.

In more than one band? If the flyer names one of them, it goes to that band. Otherwise we’ll ask which band it’s for first.

What to include

The more of these you give us, the less we have to ask:

Venue — name is enough, we know the rooms
Date — “Friday,” “June 12,” “tomorrow” all work
Time — start time or doors, either
Cover — “$10,” “free,” “donation” — whatever’s true

Forget something? We’ll ask, or fill in what’s obvious. And if a text ever stumps the system, a real person looks at it. Nobody’s show falls through a crack because a robot got confused.