After the hype-filled boom of 2017-18, some might think there’s no industry existing which hasn’t been put on the blockchain, but one Aussie entrepreneur is showing there’s still room to innovate.

Having been in the talent booking and events management space for 20 years (after a brief stint as a lawyer to “keep Mum happy”), Harris Meitanis is well-versed in the issues plaguing entertainers and celebrities, both big and small.

Meitanis runs a number of different companies in the industry, including record label iSPY Records and events and entertainment company APE Events. He tells StartupSmart he’s been working on his most recent venture for the past four years, finally taking the wraps off late last year.

Today, Meitanis’ business the Associated Celebrity Talent App (ACTA for short) is up and running, being used by big-name Australian celebrities and entertainers such as Molly Meldrum, Megan Washington, Sophie Monk and Paul McDermott.

Meitanis explains one of the biggest issues for talent landing jobs is the quagmire of middlemen, fees and unauthorised endorsements associated with lining up an opportunity, and decided to launch ACTA as a solution.

“ACTA facilitates the procurement and curation of celebrity talent, and we’re using blockchain technology to eliminate 90% of time, effort and margins for resourcing all manners of services in the entertainment industry,” he says.

“It cuts out the middlemen and lets the actual representatives of artists deal directly with clients. We’re universally laying a foundation of transparency. What we do in this industry is so mired in darkness that this level of transparency is the only light available.”

This transparency is driven by blockchain technology, specifically the Ethereum blockchain. Talent or their management create the contracts and then, in turn, they are signed by clients. These contracts are immutable and embedded in the blockchain, providing proof of contract and payment for all to see.

The blockchain aspect also allows secure and confidential transferral of details between parties, along with confirming both parties are paid the correct amount, and on time.

ACTA is just one part of Meitanis’ overall platform, dubbed the Event Ecosystem. The startup has also recently launched GET (Global Event Talent), a sister platform to ACTA focused specifically on booking smaller entertainers and performers.

The founder says a third part of the platform is in the works, which he describes as an “Airtasker for events”.

“I just came off the Australian Red Hot Chilli Peppers tour, and we spent a lot of time with the production staff. I shared with them what we’re doing and they were very excited,” he said.

“They told me every time they land in a new country they need 20-30 extra staff like stage runners, merch managers, all manner of things, so our new platform will give them a way to hire those on demand.”

**A two-part platform**

Another big part of ACTA’s platform is the app itself, which goes beyond just facilitating the payment between client and management. ACTA’s app also provides a centralised location for documents, communication and notifications, ensuring management, clients and talent are all kept in the loop.

“It’s a two-part platform: the first provides them with the direct contracting and payment, and the second part is the real guts of the content management system and real-time events management.

“The current method is just everyone emailing and calling each other, but we’re so confident in this tech that we think no one will go back to the old way of looking through email trails with old copies of documents. We’ve eliminated all of that.”

ACTA is free to use for talent and management, with the platform charging clients a 10% fee that is capped at $5,000. Meitanis says the level of automation on the platform means his overheads are minimal, allowing the company to offer lower rates.

So far, both talent and clients are seeing the benefits of ACTA, with Meitanis saying many of them appreciate the reduced friction for booking and organising.

“The goal is definitely to be the ubiquitous software solution for the industry. These platforms have been built and designed from the ground up, and we’re hoping they make people question why they’d keep using the status quo,” he says.

***Date Published** - 18th March 2018*

***Source** - https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/news/acta-talent-management-blockchain/*

**Associated Celebrity Talent Application (A.C.T.A) and Global Event Talent (G.E.T) were the Beta platforms that have now been combined to comprise the newly revamped 'acta'.*

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Talent testimonials 

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I’ve now used <strong>acta</strong> to process a few corporate bookings for my talent clients and on all occasions, its been a really enjoyable experience. 

Lucky Ent

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I’ve been using <strong>acta</strong> from the moment it launched. What a dream to be able to have one centralised platform that hosts all the information I need for an event. I particularly love the standard contract feature that allows me to send a contract in seconds.

Candy Hertz

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I was booked through acta for a recent speaking engagement. The invoice and contracting templates provided by acta made it really easy to process the booking and having direct communication with the client was great.

Pat Farmer

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I've really been enjoying acta's automated contracting and invoicing, as it saves so much time for me as a performer! 

Kenny Cheung

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Ever since adopting acta as my tool to receive and manage booking requests, I’ve only had positive feedback from my clients. It’s easy to use, professional and ensures booking security which I love. 

Neo Song

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acta is the easiest way I've used to book my own gigs. I love the 50% upfront payment!

Al Del Bene

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I have found using acta to be incredibly easy and seamless.  In particular, the way the system allows us to communicate directly with clients, draw up contracts and process payments all within one platform has been really valuable. I look forward to assisting many more clients with their events through acta! 

Sassy Entertainment 

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acta has been incredibly helpful when booking gigs and makes things so much easier to connect the artist to the booker. It has also made scheduling events much easier as they are all listed in the one place.

James Sutherland 

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acta has been in invaluable for easily connecting us with potential clients for corporate and private bookings. Great platform!

One Hit Agency 

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Using acta really streamlined the booking experience. Having all communications and documents in the one place allowed us to progress smoothly from the initial inquiry through to contracting and invoicing. The acta team were also really responsive and helpful with any questions I had during the process.

Four Seventeen

Our friends in the industry 

It's been a hot minute, but we're back and we've just launched a bunch of new features! 

Since our invitation-only launch in May, we’ve had a lot of amazing feedback from users. We’re listening, and today, we’re excited to share the latest updates in response to their suggestions. 

**Free Public Liability Insurance**

We know that insurance can be one of the biggest hurdles to a successful booking and event. So we've taken care of it. 

When talent are booked for $10,000.00 or less through acta, they are now automatically included as an interested party under acta’s Public Liability Insurance policy. 

Excitingly, this means that talent can save on annual PLI costs, simply by using acta to manage their bookings. Additionally, for talent that wish to use their own policy, we also now allow custom policies to be uploaded to their profile. 

In both cases, the Certificate of Currency is automatically uploaded to every booking once the contract has been exchanged which is excellent news for event organisers given how important this requirement is for talent attendance and the overall production of events.

**Broadcast Messages for Event Organisers**

Managing an event where you're booking multiple talent can be stressful. Everything has to be communicated 2,3,4,5 times right? Not anymore. 

With acta's new Broadcast Message feature, in addition to being able to message talent 1:1, event organisers can also send a single broadcast message that will be received by all the talent attached to an event Event Organisers can also choose to specifically broadcast messages to all talent that are either in enquiry or booked stage.

Given the amount of event organisers that are utilising acta to book their entire entertainment program, we anticipate this will greatly improve the productivity of event organisers on acta by making it quick and easy to instantly share communication with all relevant parties. A real-time industry needs real-time solutions. 

**Message Reply By Email**

Moving to new online platform can be difficult and daunting at first. It's another bloody system to learn how to use and can sometimes leave you worried that you'll mess something up. Not really something you can afford to be worrying about when you work in events. Now whilst we know that we'll eventually win everyone over, in the meantime we understand that emails are the dominant mode of communication. 

So, to make everyones life easy, we've introduced the ability for users to reply directly to the “unread message” email notification. Simply hit reply, type your message into the body of the email and once sent and we'll magically copy your message into the platform so that it doesn't get lost.  

All new “new chat message” emails will now include the body of the message right inside the email for extra convenience.  

Now like we said, we're improving the product every week and soon, we'll be releasing a lite version of our mobile app which will make it even easier to reply to messages and check event documents. For now though, when you're on-the-go using your mobile or just strapped for time, this will do the trick! 


**We'd love to hear from you!**

So that's it, just a few little features from us to you that we know are going to really improve your experience when using acta. 

As always, your feedback means a lot to us, so we’d love to know what you think of the new features and also if you have any suggestions for what we should be focusing on next. 

If you'd like to share your feedback or suggestions, send us an email to support@actaapp.com or get in touch with one of our amazing customer success managers via the support chat on the platform. 


Celebrities on the blockchain: How this Aussie fou ...