GigUploader

Automate gig promotion by programmatically submitting to multiple online event services. User inputs details into a local .xls spreadsheet, and the data is uploaded publicly to Songkick, BandsInTown, Strumsy, and privately to Dubsado. Further integration propagates this information to Spotify, Google, a user's Google Calendar, and many more locations.

PROBLEM:

As a musician, it is vital to keep the public aware of your upcoming shows. There are multiple web services dedicated to helping, and with no integration between these competing apps, the musician is left with 2 options: spend extra time re-uploading gig time and time again to all of the sites individually, or simply picking the most effecgive one and potentially losing out on promotional reach. Each service has a different gig submission interface and process requiring multiple clicks and repetitive typing of the same information. Worse, many don't provide any option to bulk-upload multiple gigs at once.

SOLUTION:

Write some code that does it automatically!

PROCESS:

• Read in gigs from a local, user supplied excel (.xls) file.
• Create headless browser and log in to Songkick. Username and Password MUST be supplied by the user in the config.py file.
• Iterate over all gigs and manually submit gig info to Songkick.
• If venue doesn't exist on Songkick database, this program will create a new venue. It will then keep retrying to add the gig at that venue until the venue appears in the database (sometimes up to a minute).
• If the band already has a gig that day but at a different time/venue, Songkick questions you. This program assumes it's correct (that you have 2 shows the same day) and continues to submit the second gig.
• If the gig has already been added (same date/time/venue) Songkick alerts you, and this program does NOT add the duplicate gig.

FUTURE IDEAS:

• Create a deployed React user interface, and run Python script on a deployed backend server, allowing use of the app from anywhere.
• Integrate Google OAuth to secure sensitive user information. Ideally store user details on their own local computer in HTTP-only cookies, eliminating need to store user info in our database.

SETUP AND OPERATION:

• be sure you have Python and git installed on your computer
• clone this repo to your local machine; open terminal (or other command line interface) and enter git clone https://github.com/benhammondmusic/giguploader.git
• open the bit-upload.xls in Excel or other spreadsheet program. The top row is a header row; keep it. GigUploader expects all info in "string" form (plain text) EXCEPT the start time field which should be typed into Excel as HH:MM
• edit config.py using your favorite text editor (VSCode is hot right now) and store your username/email and password information
• run the Python script in your terminal with python gig_submitter.py
• watch as Chrome automagically flies through your gig submission process; saving you time and frustration!

KNOWN ISSUES:

• All websites frequently alter their code, therefor this (and any other web-scraping process) is extremely fragile. It may require some baby-sitting and adjustments to keep it functional. Further, web-scraping in general is ethically nebulous, and may be illegal in some situations. It is up to you to confirm you are operating this script in a way that doesn't harm others.