Thembisans develop booking site for DJs and artists
The aim of the platform is to allow up-and-coming entertainers to make a living out of their career.
Two Thembisa tech enthusiasts from Teanong Section Khulekani Zwane (32) and Thabo Ramoabi (32) years founded a website which will help up-and-coming DJs and artists.
Bookime, pronounced booki mi, is a self-service website similar to Facebook. It intends to help up-and-coming DJs and artists to promote themselves and their events.
Zwane said: “Bookime is a self-service website and you would use it the same way you use Facebook.
“People can book you on Bookime. Bookime does not take any money from DJs/artists booked through Bookime, unless agreed or when we partner with the DJ/artist.”
The two young men started working on this website in 2010. Founding something from scratch has never been easy. It is only normal that they came across changes and it took them years to finally put everything together.
“Late in 2010, I wanted to create a platform (then called Book a DJ) for up-and-coming DJs to promote their music and get bookings. After a month of development, I was not happy with the design and functionality of the site and we abandoned the development,” explained Zwane.
“In 2013, I revisited the idea, changed the name and added a calendar. In 2015, I went back to my partner and started to develop the site again. We kept changing the look, features and navigation until we got to an easy-to-navigate site and officially launched it on April 1, 2019,” said Zwane.
According to him, the aim of the platform is to allow up-and-coming entertainers to make a living out of their career. They want to let entertainers know it is okay to charge for their service and give them a platform to manage those services and see how much they make through bookings.
“DJs spend money on equipment and branding. They spend time practising and they often don’t get paid,” said Zwane.
“If we want to see our young up-and-coming DJs/artists flourish, we need to understand that is how they make a living. Thus, they need to be paid. This also presents an opportunity for event organisers to find and compare talent.”
They said the website had not yet received any bookings. They are currently promoting DJs’ events posted on Bookime.com. The website currently has about 1 600 DJs nationwide.
Zwane said they market their website through social media platforms as well as Google searches to advertise and drive traffic to the website.
“On weekends we go to local events and teach DJs, artists and event organisers how Bookime can help them. We also work with event organisers to promote their events if posted on Bookime,” added Zwane.
They want to connect entertainers with organisers and people with entertainment. The site will continuously launch new features to assist users, which will include ticket sales and streaming of DJ mixes.
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