A private studio, not a public performer page

The internet is full of performer profiles. A headshot, a bio, a contact form that dumps enquiries into a shared inbox. That is marketing. It is a poor place to keep a host’s mobile number, a deposit, the method for a closer, or the fact that a child at table four must not be picked on.

Housecue is the opposite of a directory. After you sign in, you see your studio. Other visitors cannot. There is no public page for your clients, your fees, or your cue notes. About Housecue is the playbill. The books stay in the house.

What must stay inside

Client records: venues, producers, private hosts, emails, phones, addresses, the history of dates and invoices on each contact. Show notes that mention a stooge, a reset, a music sting, a line that only works if nobody reads it first. Prop values. Unpaid balances. The legal name behind the stage name.

A leak here is not “engagement.” It is someone else’s wedding and your livelihood. Per-account isolation is the product, not a setting buried under privacy. Every table in Housecue is scoped to the signed-in user. Other studios on the same software cannot read yours.

• No public performer directory.
• No shared client pool.
• Invoice links open one document, not the studio.
• Search engines are told to stay out of /app.

What you still send out

Hosts need an invoice. They get a private link to that sheet: letterhead, lines, due date. They do not get a login. You can email it, print it, and leave the rest of the book closed.

If you later want a public one-pager to book you, that should be opt-in and empty of the client list. Housecue does not publish you by default. Marketing pages — home, features, pricing, blog, support — are indexed. The desk is not.

Directories, marketplaces, and the quiet alternative

A directory wants you findable. A marketplace wants your Saturday in someone else’s feed. Both can fill a diary. Both also train hosts to treat acts as interchangeable tiles. If that is your business, use them as storefronts. Do not use them as the books.

The quiet alternative is a studio you sign into: cue sheets, inventory, holds, invoices, a run of show. Findable is a website. Operable is a desk. Housecue is the desk.

The house on your domain

thehousecue.com is the studio on the open web. You can point a custom domain at it. Sign-in still gates the books. Support still reaches the operator at admin@thehousecue.com. Nothing about a pretty URL makes a client list public.

Create a free account. Three entries in each book on Rehearsal. Studio Pro when the season grows. Your name on the letterhead. Nobody else in the room.

A website is marketing. A studio is operations.

You still need a public face: a site, a reel, a way for a stranger to find you. That face should hold your stage name, your craft, a way to enquire, maybe a press photo. It should not hold last Saturday’s host, the fee, or how the closer works. When an enquiry arrives, it enters Housecue as a client and an inquiry — not as a comment on a profile.

If a planner asks for a bio pack, send a pack. If they ask for a list of every wedding you have ever done, send a short, consented list — or say no. Your client book is not a brochure. Treating it as one is how rooms get called without asking.

Sign out, and the house goes dark

Shared laptops at venues, a partner’s browser, a hotel business centre — sign out. Housecue is only as private as the session. The software will not show your books to another account. It cannot help you if you leave yourself signed in on a club computer.

If you need the whole account removed, write to support. Deleting a client or a show in the studio is yours to do. Privacy is a practice, not a badge on the homepage.

Common mistakes that leak a studio

Posting a screenshot of the calendar with surnames visible. Forwarding an invoice PDF that includes another host on the same page. Leaving method notes in a shared Google doc with the venue. Using one password for the studio and the public site’s email. All of these are more common than a hacker.

Also: putting “client testimonials” on a public page with a child’s name and school. Ask, anonymise, or skip. Housecue will not stop you exporting a fact and pasting it somewhere foolish. The product keeps the books closed. You still have to keep your hands closed.

If you work with an assistant, decide whether they get their own login later or whether you print a run of show for them. Do not share your password. Shared passwords are how a studio stops being private without the software ever failing.