Auto-Fill takes the back-and-forth out of staffing a performance. Instead of manually reaching out to each musician one by one, BookLive works through your Personnel List in order — sending requests, waiting for responses, and moving to the next musician automatically if someone declines or doesn’t respond in time. By the time your roster is full, you may not have had to send a single message yourself.
Before You Begin #
- The performance must have at least one open seat with a specialty assigned.
- A Personnel List must be attached to the performance. Auto-Fill pulls musicians from that list in the order they are ranked. If no list is assigned, the Auto-Fill button will not appear.
- Musicians on your roster should have valid email addresses so they can receive and respond to requests.
Step 1: Open the Musicians Tab on the Performance #
Log in at https://booklive.com/login, navigate to the performance, and click the Musicians tab. You’ll see all the seats for the gig along with their current status.
Step 2: (Optional) Set a Response Deadline for Each Seat #
For each seat, you can tell BookLive how long a musician has to respond before the request moves on to the next person. To set a deadline:
- Click on the seat to expand its detail panel.
- Under Response Deadline, choose a window from the dropdown: No deadline, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours.
- The setting saves automatically.
If you leave the deadline at No deadline, BookLive will wait indefinitely for a response before moving on — so setting a deadline is strongly recommended if you need the gig staffed quickly.
Step 3: Click Auto-Fill #
Once your seats and deadlines are configured, click the Auto-Fill button in the Musicians section. BookLive will begin working through your Personnel List for each open seat, starting at the top of the ranked list.
Each musician receives:
- An email with performance details and a link to accept or decline.
- An SMS text message with a short link to the same response page (if a phone number is on file).
Step 4: Monitor Progress #
Once Auto-Fill is running, a Contracting in Progress status chip appears in the Musicians section. You don’t need to do anything — BookLive handles follow-through automatically:
- If a musician accepts, the seat is marked filled and BookLive stops requesting musicians for that seat.
- If a musician declines, BookLive immediately moves to the next eligible musician on the list.
- If the response deadline passes without a reply, BookLive marks the request as expired, notifies both the musician and you, and sends the request to the next person in line.
When all seats are filled, the status chip changes to Contracting Complete.
Step 5: Halt or Resume Auto-Fill (If Needed) #
If plans change mid-process, you can pause Auto-Fill at any time:
- Click the Halt Auto-Fill button.
- Choose whether to cancel pending requests (musicians who haven’t responded yet will be notified the request is withdrawn) or simply pause without cancelling.
After halting, the status chip shows Contracting Halted. To restart the process, click Resume Auto-Fill. BookLive will pick up from where it left off, requesting musicians for any seats that are still open.
Tips & Notes #
- Order matters. Auto-Fill contacts musicians in the exact order they appear in your Personnel List. Review the list order before starting if you have preferences for who gets the first ask.
- Already-filled seats are skipped. If a seat is already assigned before you start Auto-Fill, BookLive won’t re-request musicians for it.
- Musicians already on the performance are excluded. BookLive will not send a second request to an artist who is already assigned to another seat on the same gig.
- If the entire Personnel List is exhausted with no one available, you’ll receive an alert email so you can staff that seat manually.
