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Roles

Roles are integrated to the healthy functioning of a wedding band like The Hat Club in many ways. For example, when staffing an event, Roles are determined before Musicians are. When Ensembles are marketed to couples, the core difference between them are the specific combinations of Roles. In this way, an individual Role can uniquely specify a place occupied by a person on the day of an event. Roles therefore mostly relate to on-stage performers and members of the production team. Rounding out the remaining Roles are various other titles like Chauffeur Driver. Since a Role must uniquely specify a place occupied by a person, we must use labels like "Vocalist I," "Vocalist II," and "Vocalist III" to account for multiple singers performing at a time. Since we refer to Roles with differing degrees of technicality, a Role can be represented by multiple labels. For example, "Vocalist I" is the primary label, we use it in most places. "Vocalist I" is also represented by "Lead Female Voc" using the call list label where we need the additional clarity.

A Role By Any Other Name...​

Wedding bands like The Hat Club also have people in the back-office handling sales, marketing, and other business functions. The Roles we are talking about exclude these and any others that do not occupy a place filled by a person on the day of an event.

Roles Relationship with Event Products​

For brief background, Events can have many Products related to them. Products sometimes do not have any Roles, like a Ceremony Mic, or Uplighting. For all of the entertainment services, however, Roles have a vital relationship. Capturing the intricate details of an event is one benefit of databases. The nuances of the structure provide powerful functionality beyond what spreadsheets offer. Roles become nuanced in relation to Events, allowing great flexibility.

Event Products are described in English like, "Reception for Peter and Polly" and "Ceremony for Peter and Polly." Since these examples are entertainment services, they are required to have Roles related to them. In a typical scenario, a wedding band like The Hat Club is booked for certain sections of an event first, then the details are worked out later. In some cases, pricing is determined before Ensembles are finalized. This means flexibility is essential. Typically, Roles for an event are determined by the Ensemble. For example, "Reception for Peter and Polly" might get a 13-Piece Full Band, then the 13 Roles (possibly more when accounting for production) that make up that Ensemble are then associated via Event Product Roles.

Event Product Roles are described in English like, "Saxophone for Reception for Peter and Polly" and "Violin I for Reception for Peter and Polly." This structure allows for a Violin I Role to be described for a Reception differently than a Ceremony. This is useful when pricing is considered because when a role is present in multiple entertainment services, then a discount exists as compared to when it is present only in one entertainment service. This structure also allows for customization of Roles that deviate from the standard Roles related to an Ensemble. A 13-Piece Full Band can be attached to "Reception for Peter and Polly," which defaults to the Roles related to a 13-Piece Full Band, then individual Roles can be substituted according to the preferences of the event.

Once Event Product Roles are finalized for an event, Musicians are invited to fill those individually identifiable places for the event. Remember, Musicians describe literal musicians and people involved in production.

Roles and Musicians form the basis of the Call List. By default, the Musician who is first in the call order for a Role on the Call List gets the first invite for a gig. This default can be overwritten to account for specific needs for an event. Musicians can be related to multiple Roles and occupy different ranks in the call order for each Role.

The following visualization shows the abstract relationship between Events and Event Products and Roles on the left and an example on the right.

Events
|
----> "Peter and Polly"
     |
     |----> Event Products
           |
           |----> "Ceremony for Peter and Polly"
           |     |
           |     |----> Event Product Roles
           |           |
           |           |----> "Violin I"
           |           |
           |           |----> "Violin II"
           |
           |----> "Reception for Peter and Polly"
                 |
                 |----> Event Product Roles
                       |
                       |----> "Violin I"
                       |
                       |----> "Saxophone"
                       |
                       |----> "Vocalist I"

Just Roll With It​

A wedding band like The Hat Club interacts with many constituents, like the couple for a wedding, the venue, the wedding planner. To give them a place in the application to interact from, they are given System Roles. The system role is visible in the user capsule: 'Venue', 'Admin', 'Planner', 'Staff', 'Musician'.