Artistic Collaboration, The Vision

The Original Idea

I am an artist. Specifically, I create photographs. Sometimes I play in front of the camera, and sometimes I play behind. Portrait photography almost always requires at least one other person, and in my community, I spend a lot of time organizing and attending events through Meetup.com. While I love the idea of their platform, I feel it's missing something for the types of events I want to plan. One of the problems we face when we plan events is that there are almost always a larger number of photographers than models. Meetup only allows us to specify how many individuals are attending an event, not break it down into types of attendees. My idea is to build an event platform where I can specify attendance numbers by category of attendee. For example, I want to host a photo shoot and invite 20 photographers and 10 models.

MVP

Based upon this, idea we are developing our MVP to support the following use cases:

• As an artist, I can create a profile in the system
• As an organizer, I can create an event with specified participant maximums
• As a collaborator, I can (view and) respond to events with open slots

The above use cases have generated user stories such as:

• As an artist, I want to register in the system with my email address so that I can log in again at a later time
• As an artist, I want to have an initial profile created with default information so that I can get started without detailed information
• As an artist, I want to update profile details so that I may connect with my target audience
• As an artist, I want my password verified so that I may maintain control of my personality
• As an artist, I want to select a unique username so that I may share my specific profile with other artists while protecting my email address
• As an artist, I want to select one or more roles so that I may respond to events
• As an organizer, I want to create an event so that I may invite collaborators
• As an organizer, I want to limit participants by type so that I may provide a positive experience through balanced representation
• As an organizer, I want to have a wait list managed for my events so that I may have backup attendees if RSVPs change
• As a collaborator, I want to respond to an event invitation so that I may maintain details
• As a collaborator, I want to be added to a wait list so that if someone drops out I may join an event
• As a collaborator, I want to remove my RSVP so that someone else may attend 

Roles

I envision this becoming an expansive tool covering collaboration among the following individuals (and more):

• Photography collaboration
• Photographers
• Models
• Hair stylists
• Makeup artists
• Body painters
• Musical collaboration
• Singers
• DJs
• Instrumentalists
• Sound engineers
• Songwriters
• Stage production
• Actors
• Directors
• Script writers
• Costume designers
• Set designers

Additional Features

Looking ahead at the bigger picture, some additional features include:

• As an artist, I can establish collaborative connections with individual users
• I envision this similar to Tinder's swipe functionality, where you are presented with a user (within some filter criteria), and if you want to collaborate you can swipe right to connect or swipe left to discard
• As a collaborator, I can communicate with my connections
• This would be a simple in-app chat functionality between anyone who has already established a connection
• As a venue coordinator, I can list recurring events for my venue
• This would allow groups to see venues where they might be able to perform
• As an artist, I can form "groups" with other collaborators (bands, stage productions, etc.)
• This would allow these groups to apply to perform at venue events
• As a promoter, I can list upcoming performances
• This can also link to external ticket vendors such as eventbrite and ticketmaster
• As an artist, I can solicit support for one-time projects; as a patron, I can support one-time projects
• This could add kickstarter-like functionality into the app
• As an artist, I can solicit recurring support for projects; as a patron, I can submit recurring support for projects
• This could add patreon-like functionality into the app

The long-term vision for this project becomes larger and larger every time I think about it, which I find really exciting! I would love to hear your thoughts!