One of the most challenging things about producing an event is event crew management. Even small events involve multiple people handling various aspects of production and everyone needs to be connected to ensure a successful and entertaining event.

At Mertzcrew, we have created event crew management software that may be used to facilitate communication and minimize problems with event production. By providing a centralized way for you to communicate with your staff and AV freelancers that you’ve contracted, we can help you create memorable events that your clients will love. Here’s what you need to know about using event crew management software to manage and improve communication.

What is Event Crew Management Software?

Event crew management software is a software solution that’s designed to help AV production companies manage crew members for an event, including freelancers. Managing freelancers comes with some special challenges since they are not employees.

Some of the most common features of crew management software include the following:

• Creating a list of qualified freelancers who may be available to work events.
• Creating compliant contracts for freelancers.
• Collecting and tracking tax forms from freelancers.
• Collecting and tracking proof of insurance from freelancers. (With Mertzcrew, you can ensure freelancers are covered, even if they don’t already have it.)
• Tracking freelancers’ schedules and services for events.
• Collecting and paying invoices from freelancers.
• Communicating about events before, during, and after production.
• Creating event rosters to make sure that everyone involved knows where and when they are working and which tasks are on their agenda.

There are many benefits to using crew management software to run events. By communicating with every AV freelance worker you contract, you can be sure that they understand event logistics and what their responsibilities are. You can communicate in real time, whether you’re at your office or at the event venue.

How Do You Use Crew Management Software for Improved Communication?

There are three main steps required to make crew management software part of your communications.

#1: Preparing to Use Crew Management Software

The first step is to do the preparations necessary to use crew management software. The most important part of preparation is choosing a software solution that provides all the features and functions you need.

With Mertzcrew, you can add approved freelancers to your database for easy communication. You can also collect important information, including tax forms and proof of insurance, to share with your clients. Having everyone involved with an event ready to use your crew management software will help with communication.

#2: Implement Crew Management Software

The next step is to implement your software by using it to create event rosters, schedule staff and freelancers’ time, and be sure that everybody knows what their responsibilities are and how to use the software to communicate with you and other members of the team.

New freelancers should be provided with necessary how-to-guides so that they understand how to use the software. If they need a way to communicate with you, crew management software can simplify the process and make it easy for everybody to stay in touch.

#3: Communicating Before, During, and After Events

After you have implemented your crew management software, it’s time to start using it. Keep in mind that you may need to communicate with your staff and AV freelancers during the planning stages of an event. Communication may include information about scheduling and responsibilities.

You can use Mertzcrew to communicate with AV freelancers and your staff before, during, and after an event. Beforehand, you can collect necessary information and convey schedules and responsibilities. During an event, you can use crew management software to make sure everything is running smoothly; and after the fact, crew management software can help you collect and pay invoices in a timely manner.

Do You Need Technical Knowledge to Use Crew Management Software?

One of the questions we are asked most frequently about crew management software is whether people need technical knowledge to use it effectively. That’s an important question because a steep learning curve may make it difficult for your staff and AV freelancers to buy into the idea of using it—or to use it effectively.

The good news is that you don’t need any special technical skills if you choose user-friendly software like Mertzcrew. We’ve designed a crew management solution that’s easy to use with minimal training and onboarding because we believe that your team should be able to get up and running as quickly as possible.

To make sure that everyone on your team, from project managers to schedulers to AV freelancers, has the information and guidance they need, we have made sure to create a knowledge center that everybody can access. We’ve got blog posts and frequently asked questions to guide you. 

We also offer skilled humans that offer personalized onboarding and support options that include phone and email, making it easy for you and your crew to get the support and assistance you need to create wonderful events that your clients will love.

Whether you prefer to “figure it out yourself” or you want access to a real live person to help guide you, our team provides you with the tools and resources to successfully use Mertzcrew.

Why Use Crew Management Software to Communicate with Freelancers?

Now that you understand how to use crew management software to communicate with AV freelancers, here are some of the benefits of doing so.

Streamline Event Crew Management Processes

Using crew management software makes it easy to streamline every part of planning and producing an event. With Mertzcrew, you can onboard freelancers, collect necessary documents, schedule freelancers’ time, track their progress, and communicate—all from the same dashboard.

It’s far easier to manage an event with crew management software like Mertzcrew than it is to do so with multiple spreadsheets or with multiple tools that don’t do everything you need them to do.

Unified System for Solving Problems Fast

Anybody who produces events knows that things go wrong and often, these mix-ups and complications happen at the worst possible time. It’s essential to take control when problems arise and resolve them as quickly and easily as possible while keeping everybody who needs to be informed in the loop.

Crew management software provides an all-in-one, unified system to facilitate problem solving and communicate with clarity, so that everybody involved in your event is up to speed and aware of changes with the event roster or their assigned tasks.

Increase Efficiency While Saving Money

Efficiency is a must when producing any event since even small productions have a lot of moving parts. Using Mertzcrew makes it possible to work efficiently before, during, and after an event. That means you can easily communicate changes in real time and get confirmation to be sure that everybody understands the changes you’ve made.

Saving money goes hand in hand with increasing efficiency. The less time you spend trying to communicate with freelancers and staff, the more time you have to focus on creating events that exceed your clients’ expectations.

Keep Data Safe and Support Legal Requirements

Finally, using crew management software is the best way we know to keep data safe, including your company data, freelancers’ personal information, and data shared by your clients to produce events on their behalf.

You can use Mertzcrew to collect necessary tax forms and proof of insurance, track freelancers’ contracts, and make sure that you’re meeting all legal and regulatory requirements in the course of every event you produce. Doing so protects you, the freelancers you hire, and your clients. As a reminder, Mertzcrew is the only crew management solution that can help you obtain insurance for your freelancers who don’t already have it.

Key Takeaways

The key takeaways here are that using crew management software to help with communications is essential and can help everyone involved in crew production.

Operations staff can benefit from having a single dashboard that allows them to manage every aspect of creating an event roster, from identifying skilled AV freelancers to hire to making a detailed event schedule to minimize problems and ensure a smooth production.

Production staff can benefit too, because Mertzcrew provides a streamlined and convenient way to stay in touch with everybody involved in a project before, during, and after production. It’s a lot easier to create a successful event when everybody’s in communication and accessing the same information.

Your HR team and schedulers also benefit because using event crew management software makes it extremely easy to stay in touch with freelancers and to know that all of the taxes and insurance requirements for your company, freelancers, and clients are in compliance with state and local laws and regulations.

The bottom line is that everybody involved in your production, from the newest freelancer to the most experienced project manager, will reap the rewards of selecting user-friendly crew management software like Mertzcrew to help you plan and produce memorable and meaningful events that your clients will love.

Improve Event Crew Communication with Mertzcrew

Using event crew management software can make planning and producing events easier than it ever has been. By providing a centralized and streamlined experience to facilitate communication, you can have more time to focus on creating events that will wow your clients.

Are you in search of an all-in-one crew management software solution to streamline planning and communication? Mertzcrew is here to help! Click here to schedule a free consultation where we’ll learn about your crew management needs, talk about Mertzcrew’s features, and help you decide if Mertzcrew is the crew management solution you’ve been searching for.