Our Story

Built by Performers, for Performers

OvationCRM grew out of a simple frustration: the business tools available to performers were built for someone else. So we built our own.

Our Mission

“Every performer deserves to run their business like a professional.”

We started as Kringle Tracker: a simple tool for Santa performers to manage their holiday bookings. It worked, people loved it, and it grew. Other performers started asking: “Does this work for magicians? For speakers? For musicians?”

The answer is OvationCRM. We took everything that made Kringle Tracker trusted by more than a hundred performers and built a real platform around it: one that works for every kind of entertainer, every season of the year.

The OvationCRM dashboard performers use day to day, showing upcoming bookings, revenue, and items needing attention

The Cast

A small team of working performers

OvationCRM is built and supported by a small, US-based team: performers and engineers who still take the stage and run their own businesses on the software they build. We started in the most compressed corner of entertainment, Santa performers, who do a year of business in six weeks. Software that survives that season can handle anyone's.

Roger Minton

Founder · Hypnotist, Speaker & Technology Leader

Roger has spent more than 25 years building software and a lifetime on stage: a comedy hypnotist and speaker today, a professional Santa for over 15 years, and a magician since age six. The through-line has never changed, making people's lives easier, whether through wonder or through well-built tools. The whole Minton household performs, from Renaissance faires to community theatre. In his own words: “I run my Santa and hypnosis businesses on OvationCRM every week. Contracts, invoices, follow-ups, all of it.”

Ross Epstein

Co-founder · Senior Developer & Musician

Ross performs as Luku the Mad Skald at Renaissance faires across the country and performs with multiple big name acts, as well as doing audio engineering. A Recording Academy member, class of 2026, he joined Roger's development team more than six years ago and has been building alongside him ever since.

Jeremy Rackley

Co-founder · Senior Developer

Jeremy is happiest with a guitar in his hands or a fairway in front of him, when he isn't building features that make performers' lives easier. He and Roger met on the same development team years ago and have been pooling their technical experience in service of performers ever since.

Ben Belhorn

Co-founder · Professional Santa Claus

Santa Ben knows the most demanding seasonal business in entertainment from the inside. He met Roger at professional Santa training and joined in Kringle Tracker's earliest days, shaping the platform around how working performers actually grow.

Supporting Cast

in alphabetical order

Erica Minton

Professional Clown & Renaissance Faire Performer

Brings the road-life perspective for performers who live tour date to tour date.

Melissa Parkins-Belhorn

Financial Consultant

Keeps the money side grounded, from pricing guidance to bookkeeping sanity.

Michael Howe

Professional Santa Claus

A full-time performer's perspective, with clients like Great Wolf Lodge and Coca-Cola.

Nathan Vandenbroek

Professor of Business & Finance · Professional Santa Claus

Shapes the business and financial thinking behind the platform: logistics, pricing, and tax-season reality, tailored to how performers actually earn.

How We Got Here

Our Journey

as told by Roger

2000–2011
On the road (and overwhelmed)
I was performing magic full-time, spending way too many late nights juggling spreadsheets, emails, and sticky-note systems just to keep bookings straight.
2011
The idea that wouldn't go away
There has to be a better way: something built for performers, not generic business software. The thought stayed with me for years while I kept performing and kept managing the hard way.
2019
Generic CRMs didn't fit
I gave tools like 17Hats an honest shot. They helped, but they weren't built for how entertainers actually book, schedule, and communicate.
2022
Kringle Tracker
I started building for the performers with the hardest season of all: Christmas entertainers. Kringle Tracker debuted at the International Santa Conference in Atlanta and officially launched that July.
2022–2025
Four seasons, proven
Season after season, performers wanted the same thing: simpler, faster, made for their world. Kringle Tracker grew to more than a hundred performers, over half of them still with us from day one.
2025
The vision expands
We were building more than a Santa tool. The foundation could support every kind of performer, and eventually other service-based industries too. That platform is OvationCRM.

What We Believe

Our Values

Performer-First

Every feature is designed around how entertainers actually book, perform, and grow their business, not how a generic SaaS company thinks they do.

Radical Simplicity

We believe the best software gets out of your way. OvationCRM is powerful where it needs to be and simple everywhere else.

Trust & Transparency

0% platform fee, no surprise pricing changes, no hidden fees. We communicate proactively, even when it's hard news.

Real Support

Email us, and a performer answers

No chatbots, no offshore ticket queue. Support is handled by the same small US-based team that builds the product: people who know what it means when a client is waiting on a contract. A real person replies within two to three business days, and usually sooner.

encore@ovationcrm.com

$1.9M+in bookings tracked

100+performers

7,000+bookings

4seasons and counting

More than half our customers have been with us since day one.

Stats from Kringle Tracker, OvationCRM’s predecessor platform, as of July 2026.

Turn Standing Ovations Into Repeat Bookings

Four seasons in, 44% of clients on the platform book again the next year. Waitlist members get in first.

Join the Waitlist →