Necessity is the mother of invention. Per most ‘how to write a blog’ tutorials, I’m not supposed to start a blog with a quote, but how can I go wrong with Plato? Besides, it is how DiaZam came to be.

I used to hate dealing with event layouts. First, they were drawn by hand, which is not really accurate and can be messy. Changes involved white out and a copier. Being proficient in Illustrator, I started doing them digitally. It wasn’t much easier. I hated converting pixels to feet to make sure things were to scale. Moving around object numbers wasn’t easy. When changes were made, numbering became more of a nightmare. Let’s not even talk about the spreadsheet where I was tracking all the details about every object. Using two different applications to track one layout leads to inconsistency and the need to make them match.

Several weeks before an event in 2014, it got worse. The graphic designer was trying to create a printable map as well as one for the mobile app. Changes made on the internal map had to be communicated to the graphic designer and he had to change everything he just finished. Needless to say, the graphic designer quit a couple weeks prior to the event because it was driving him crazy.

That’s when I thought…

What if a software program could manage this whole process?

I co-founded the MidPoint Music Festival in 2002. By year two, I approached programmer and friend – Olivier Fischer of Transmissions LLC – about an online solution for bands to submit their stage plots. Olivier’s simple and elegant solution saved the festival countless hours and made the stage managers’ jobs a lot easier.

Fast forward a decade to when I launched the Bunbury Music Festival. After the graphic designer quit on me, I turned to Olivier once again for a solution. Olivier was able to leverage the technology he developed years earlier and create DiaZam.

I hope you find DiaZam as fast and easy to use as I do. I’m excited to see all the different ways people use the software as well as the feedback they provide. I want to make sure we keep DiaZam incredibly simple, but add even more great features to help event planners spend more time doing what they need to do.