For more than 25 years, conductor/arranger Brent Havens has led Windborne Music's live productions of classic rock music with orchestra. Windborne personnel travel the world touring The Music of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, The Doors, Queen, Michael Jackson and many more - with orchestras both great and small. The challenges with keeping track of the varied details involved with these productions is what brought Brent to EVM Live. We sat down with Brent to see how he uses EVM Live and how it impacts his daily business workflow.

First of all Brent, I think folks should know a little of your background. You've written quite a bit of music over the years for orchestras, feature films and television. You've worked with many of the "names" in music like The Doobie Brothers, Robbie Krieger & Ray Manzarek of the Doors, Lou Gramm of Foreigner and many others. I can imagine you stay busy enough with these sort of projects, so why do a series of symphonic rock shows?

The whole idea was to get orchestras doing things they wouldn't normally do. It took a while for this to get off the ground because managers were completely afraid of it. They would say, "Our audience won't be interested in this." Our point was, "We aren't looking for your audience. We're looking for classic-rock fans."

And we hear that this idea of doing classic rock with orchestration is very popular with orchestras who are seeing greater ticket sales from a whole new segment of audience than they would normally see. I imagine that this popularity comes as a bitter sweet challenge. On one hand it's sweet to have all the added work but perhaps a little bitter in that there is more to organize and plan for. Has EVM Live helped with this in any way?

EVM Live has been a Godsend for us.  Having to deal with all of the complexities of getting musicians and crews, music shipments and gear to cities all over the world... sometimes multiple crews at the same time... became a nightmare in making sure everyone had the data that they needed to do their jobs.  Especially since each individual musician or crew member really only needed their own data rather than data for everyone.  EVM Live solved this for us in a really efficient manner.  The fact that each member got data pertaining to them AND we could share all of our data with the orchestras meant that everyone was on the same page, including all of the production crews at the local venues where we were scheduled to perform, as well as librarians for the orchestras (they could track the music shipments right from the EVM) and even the local ground transportation companies had access to see our flights and personnel lists... all in one place. We’ve been using EVM Live since the early days prior to the new mobile version and having the ability to see all of that data has been amazing.

What are some of the most difficult details for your team to keep track of in your event planning/execution and how does EVM Live help?

I think for us both as administrators AND touring musicians and crews, one of the most difficult things has been keeping track of our travel... whether it be flights or LGT (local ground transportation) and making sure that everyone who needs to see that data has access to it.  EVM Live solves that for us beautifully.  We used to send out emails with itineraries on pages and pages of information for our crews.  And it’s easy to lose a printed piece of paper when you’re dragging   around luggage and gear with you.  With mobile devices, it’s always in your pocket and having our data in the cloud means we can access it anywhere, anytime... and that’s been fantastic for us.  

What is your favorite feature in EVM Live?

For me personally it’s two items... the new SMS Messaging and as an administrator, the new ITF Module.  Both are incredibly helpful.  First the SMS Messaging allows us to send quick details of changes made in the EVM to all of our crews right from inside an event... without ever leaving that event, and then being able to track who has received the text message from the admin page on the EVM.  Amazing!  Additionally, before the ITF Module was developed we had to input ALL of our flight data by hand into the system.  It worked fine but was tedious and if we accidentally typed it incorrectly we were then disseminating bad data to our crews. Now the system does it automatically where we simply send our confirmation emails to the ITF Module and the data appears automatically in the ITF flight list... and you simply select an itinerary and assign it to a tour date with passengers and you’re done.  That has saved hours of admin time and eliminated all of the errors of manually typing in the data. It costs a little bit extra each month but it’s been totally worth it.

Is your team happy with EVM Live? How do they find it most beneficial?

My team is thrilled with the EVM. They no longer have to keep track of printed itineraries and they can configure the EVM to show them only what they wish to see. AND they can access it whenever and wherever they want without carrying around paper itineraries. It’s a matter of selecting data and clicking on it. Plus, with the new download option they can get updated setlists right from within the event. Simple. 

In your use of EVM Live is there much collaboration that happens with clients? If so, in what ways?

There is plenty of collaboration with our clients! They can send us data and know for sure if we got it by checking the EVM. If it’s there, they know we got it. The fact that we can share data with guest users (our clients) means that all of our data is visible to them... and that means we’re all on the same page. No more missing data and no more worries about whether someone has sent data to our clients. Everyone can see it inside the event. Especially when we have travel issues (delayed flights, changed pickup times, etc.)  We simply update the EVM wherever we are and our clients sees the changes. That’s very valuable to us and to our clients

What's the response that you get from your clients?

They are amazed at how the system works. First thing they want to know is where we found the EVM and if it’s available to purchase. Ha. It’s been amazingly helpful for them and extremely easy for them to use.  They simply log in and get all of our data... all on one page.  And they only see their own events and none of the other shows or events that we do around the world. We assign them guest access to only their shows so it’s data that is only pertinent to them. We can’t be happier with how EVM Live has changed how we do the business of putting on shows and distributing that data to everyone who needs to see it.

If you would like to learn more about the features of EVM Live and how they could benefit your event planning, please visit our features page. If you would like to get in touch with us and have EVM Live begin working for your business right now, please contact us.