People & HR

How to track open roles as Event Agency Founders

People & HRFor Event Agency Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You're juggling three weddings, a corporate retreat, and two holiday party inquiries simultaneously, and your 'open roles tracker' is a tab in the same Google Sheet that tracks vendor deposits. When you need a part-time day-of coordinator for a September wedding or a second AV tech for a conference, you're texting your network from memory, scribbling names on sticky notes, and forwarding Gmail threads to yourself as reminders. There's no single place that shows which roles are actively being filled, who's been contacted, which candidates you liked but didn't book yet, and which events still have staffing gaps three weeks out.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

People & HRFor Event Agency Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A live open-roles board that shows every staffing gap across every active event — coordinator, AV tech, photographer, florist, caterer — with status (searching, contacted, confirmed, declined) tied to the event it belongs to.

A task list that auto-creates follow-up reminders whenever a vendor or contractor hasn't responded within 48 hours, so nothing slips between your Gmail inbox and your next site visit.

A knowledge base of your go-to freelancers — name, specialty, past events they worked, your notes on reliability — so when you need a last-minute MC you're not scrolling through 400 contacts.

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Project Management Task Manager Knowledge Management

Data sources & config

Project Management and Task Manager run on Starch's built-in data layer — no external sync needed for the board itself. Connect Gmail from Starch's integration catalog so the agent can query your vendor threads live when you ask 'did Marcus ever reply about April 18th?' Connect Google Calendar so Starch syncs your event dates on a schedule and can flag roles tied to upcoming events. Freelancer contact data lives in Knowledge Management, built from whatever you paste in or describe.

Prompts to copy

Build me an open roles tracker for my event agency. Each role should have: event name, event date, role type (coordinator, AV, photographer, florist, MC, catering staff, etc.), status (open, contacted, negotiating, confirmed, declined), freelancer name if assigned, day rate, and my notes. Group roles by event. Flag any event with an open role that's fewer than 30 days out.

Create a task for me to follow up with Marcus at SoundWave Productions about AV tech availability for the April 18th conference — due tomorrow, P1.

Build me a freelancer wiki for my agency. Each entry should have: name, specialty, contact info, day rate range, events they've worked with us, and my reliability notes. Make it searchable so I can type 'wedding photographer under $500/day' and get a shortlist.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Install the Project Management app from the Starch App Store and tell Starch: 'Build me an open roles tracker for my event agency — each card is a staffing role, grouped by event, with fields for role type, status, day rate, freelancer assigned, and my notes.'

2 Add your current active events and their open roles manually the first time — type them in plain language: 'I have five events in the next 60 days; here are the open roles for each one' and paste your list. Starch structures it into the board.

3 Connect Google Calendar so Starch syncs your event dates on a schedule. Now the board knows which events are 7, 14, 30, and 60 days out, and it can surface roles that are still open as the date approaches.

4 Connect Gmail from Starch's integration catalog. When you ask 'have I heard back from any photographers about the June gala?', the agent queries your inbox live and tells you — no more manual scanning.

5 Install the Task Manager app and prompt: 'Create a recurring reminder: any role on my open roles board that's been in Contacted status for more than 48 hours should generate a P1 follow-up task for me.' This replaces the mental load of remembering who you pinged.

6 Install the Knowledge Management app and build your freelancer wiki: 'Create a database of my go-to freelancers. Fields: name, specialty, day rate range, events they've worked, my reliability rating (1–5), and notes. Start with these ten contacts...' Paste in your contacts and Starch structures them.

7 When a new event comes in, open the Project Management board and type: 'Add a new event — corporate product launch, March 12, 2026, at The Biltmore. Open roles: 1 lead coordinator, 2 registration staff, 1 AV tech, 1 photographer.' Starch adds the cards.

8 To find candidates for a role, ask Knowledge Management: 'Who are my available AV techs with a day rate under $600 who I've rated 4 or higher?' It searches your freelancer wiki and returns the shortlist.

9 When you confirm a freelancer, update the board in plain language: 'Mark the AV tech role for the March 12 launch as confirmed — assigned to Dana Reyes, $550 day rate.' The card updates.

10 Every Monday, ask Starch: 'Show me all open roles on events happening in the next 45 days.' This becomes your weekly staffing standup with yourself — or with any part-time coordinator you bring on.

11 After each event, update your freelancer wiki: 'Add a note to Marcus Webb's profile — he showed up early, handled a last-minute stage change without complaint, would book again. Rating: 5.' Your institutional knowledge is now searchable next season.

12 If you need to post a role to a job board or send a bulk outreach, prompt Starch: 'Draft an outreach email for a day-of coordinator role for a 200-person wedding on September 6th in Austin — include the event type, expected hours, and day rate of $350. Pull the event details from my open roles board.' Starch drafts it; you send it from Gmail.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

April 2026 Corporate Retreat — 12-Person Staffing Gap Caught in Week 3

Sample numbers from a real run

Lead Event Coordinator (confirmed)	750
AV Tech #1 (confirmed)	550
AV Tech #2 (open — 18 days out)	550
Catering Lead (negotiating — 18 days out)	480
Registration Staff x2 (open — 18 days out)	280
Florist (confirmed)	1,200

You're running a 120-person corporate retreat at a Hill Country resort on April 24th. It's April 6th — 18 days out. You pull up your Starch open roles board and ask: 'Show me all open or negotiating roles on the April 24th retreat.' Starch surfaces four: AV Tech #2, Catering Lead (stuck in negotiating for 5 days), and two registration staff. Your Task Manager has already pinged you with a P1 follow-up for the Catering Lead — you sent the initial rate email on April 1st and never heard back. You ask Gmail via Starch: 'Did Riverside Catering reply to my April 1st email?' The agent queries your inbox live and confirms no reply. You tell Starch: 'Draft a follow-up to Riverside Catering — we're 18 days out, I need a confirmed yes or no on the $480 day rate by April 8th, otherwise I'm going to my backup.' Starch drafts it in your tone. Meanwhile you open the freelancer wiki and ask: 'Who are my AV techs available for a full-day outdoor event with day rate under $600, rated 4 or higher, who I haven't already booked for April?' It returns two names. You confirm one. Total staffing budget for the retreat: $6,090 across eight roles. The two registration staff roles are still open — you create a task to post to your local hospitality Facebook group by end of day.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Open roles by event as of today — how many positions are still unfilled across your active pipeline

Days until event for any role still in Open or Contacted status — this is your risk metric

Freelancer response rate — what percentage of outreach to your go-to network converts to a confirmed booking

Average time-to-fill per role type (coordinator, AV, photographer) — so you know how far out to start recruiting each category

Events with a staffing gap inside 30 days — the number you want to keep at zero

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Google Sheets staffing tab

Free and you already have it, but it doesn't query your Gmail inbox, doesn't flag approaching events automatically, and gets out of sync the moment you're on-site and stop updating it.

HoneyBook or Dubsado

Great for client-facing workflows — proposals, contracts, invoices — but neither has an internal staffing roles board, so you're still running vendor and contractor tracking in a separate place.

Airtable

More flexible than Sheets and can be shaped into a roles tracker, but you're building the structure yourself, there's no AI authoring, and connecting it to your Gmail and Calendar requires additional setup that a solo founder rarely has time to maintain.

Notion

Good for a freelancer wiki, weaker as an active roles board; no native task escalation when a contacted vendor goes quiet, and you'd still be switching between Notion and Gmail manually.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — project management, task manager, knowledge management all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

I use Aisle Planner or HoneyBook for my client-facing work. Does Starch replace those?

No, and it's not trying to. Starch handles your internal staffing and operations layer — open roles, freelancer tracking, follow-up tasks — while HoneyBook or Aisle Planner keeps doing client proposals, contracts, and payments. Think of Starch as what you build for your team's view, not your client's view.

Can Starch pull my vendor contacts directly out of Gmail?

It can query your Gmail threads live — so you can ask 'did my photographer ever reply about the June gala?' and get an answer from your actual inbox. It won't automatically import every contact as a structured record, but you can describe your freelancers and Starch will build the wiki as you add them.

What if I need to post an open role to a job board or send a bulk outreach? Can Starch do that?

Starch can draft the outreach email from your event details and send it through Gmail. For actually posting to a job board's website — say, a local hospitality job board — Starch can automate that through your browser if the site doesn't have a direct integration. No separate API required.

Is my freelancer database private to me, or does it get shared?

Your Knowledge Management wiki and all Starch apps you build are private to your workspace. Nothing is shared unless you explicitly publish an app to the Starch marketplace, which is a deliberate action — not something that happens automatically.

I'm one person running this agency. Is Starch overkill?

The founders Starch is built for are mostly one to five people. The whole point is that you describe what you want and Starch builds it — you're not configuring a tool designed for a 20-person ops team. If your current system is sticky notes and a Gmail search bar, even a basic open roles board in Starch with one follow-up automation will save you real time before your next busy season.

Does Starch have SOC 2 certification?

Not yet — Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today. If your corporate clients require vendor SOC 2 compliance before you can store any data in a third-party tool, that's worth knowing upfront. It's on the roadmap.