From Kringle Tracker to OvationCRM

In 2008 I was performing magic full time. Weddings, grad parties, birthday parties, corporate events. I loved the shows. The business behind the shows was another story: quotes on sticky notes, booking details in my head, invoices built one at a time in a word processor at midnight.

There was software for magicians back then. I downloaded a trial, poked around, and figured out pretty quickly it wasn't for me. I wanted more than it could do, and in 2008, sending feedback to a software company mostly meant shouting into a void. So I told myself what I've told myself before every dumb-big project since: if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I opened up FileMaker Pro and built my own. Clients, bookings, invoices, expenses, a few reports. It helped. A lot.

Then my magic friends started asking questions.

"Can it track all the expenses?"

"Can you set up different shows and services?"

"What about contracts?"

I started asking questions back. How should a contract work? What do you actually want to see on a booking? Somewhere in those conversations, a thing I half-suspected turned into a thing I knew: I was not the only performer trying to solve this.

Then life did what life does. Family came, the project went to the back burner, and for years the problem sat there waiting for me every time I booked a show. I tried a pile of other software along the way. None of it stuck, and eventually I understood why: most software is built by developers who don't understand the nuances of this industry. They can code. They've never had a client call in October asking to move a December 14th booking.

I was a performer and a developer. So in 2022 I stopped waiting for someone else to build it.

The Christmas community said yes

Kringle Tracker launched in 2022, built for the Christmas performer community. Deliberately small, deliberately niche. I wanted a tight-knit group where I could listen, interview users, ship what they actually needed, and prove the idea before growing it.

Four seasons later, here's what that little niche platform has handled: 100+ performers. 7,000+ bookings. Over $1.9M in bookings tracked. More than half of our customers have been with us since day one, and one longtime user told me it damn near doubled his business. I won't take credit for anyone's bookings (his talent does the booking), but I'll admit I grinned about that one for a week.

Then the magicians showed up

Somewhere along the way, performers who had nothing to do with Christmas started signing up. Magicians first. Then a hypnotist. Then clowns, face painters, balloon twisters, and at some point I stopped being surprised. People running real entertainment businesses were choosing Santa-flavored software because nothing else fit how their world actually works.

I get it though. I've been on both sides of that shopping trip.

But Kringle Tracker was tailored to the Christmas community. The vocabulary, the seasonal rhythm, the workflows, all of it assumed December was the center of your year. A magician grinding through corporate season in June shouldn't run his business inside software that treats December like the center of the universe. And bolting a "generic mode" onto a Santa platform would have made it worse for everyone, including the Christmas community it was built for.

So we made the call: take everything four seasons of real bookings (and 20+ years of performing and software development) taught us and build the platform those lessons deserved. Not a rename. A rebuild. We took what worked and enhanced the shit out of it.

That's OvationCRM.

Where things stand today

OvationCRM is live and in production right now with a closed, invite-only group of performers running their actual businesses on it. Real bookings, real invoices, real contracts (real bug reports too, which is the point of a beta). Registrations open to the public down the road, and when they do, waitlist members get in first.

If you're a Kringle Tracker member

Every Kringle Tracker member got this news by email before this post went live. That was on purpose, and I want the promises from that email in public writing too:

Nothing changes for your season. Kringle Tracker stays up and stays supported through this Christmas season, exactly as you know it. Nobody gets moved mid-season. Asking a Christmas performer to switch software in November is madness, and I won't do it.

After the season, migration opens with a complete guide. Your clients, your bookings, your history, everything comes with you - when you decide. And Kringle Tracker members get a plan that exists for you alone: the features you rely on, plus plenty Kringle Tracker never had, at the price you pay today. It will not be for sale to the public.

New feature development happens in OvationCRM from here, which means Kringle Tracker's job through the season is to be boring and dependable. Going into December, boring and dependable is the finest compliment software can earn.

What's next

Eighteen years ago I couldn't find software that understood a performer's business, so I built my own. Turns out I wasn't the only one who needed it.

If you're a performer who wants a CRM built by somebody who has hauled gear through a service entrance, the waitlist is open. Waitlist members get in first.

Break a leg out there.