Case Study: How the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival Runs Its Gig Guide with Hot Giggity

By Ned Walker, Founder & CEO - Hot Giggity | May 31 2026

Key takeaways: The Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival used Hot Giggity to publish its full multi-venue program through a branded festival app and a website gig guide, both filterable by day and both driven from a single database. Artist photos, bios, dates, times and venues stayed accurate everywhere, even when the schedule changed. The festival will continue with Hot Giggity for the 2027 event, adding artist booking and super payments through HG Super Pay.

The Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival is one of Sydney's favourite free music weekends: dozens of artists playing across multiple venues in the beachside suburb of Cronulla. For the festival team, that scale created a very specific problem: how do you publish artist and schedule information across an entire suburb of venues, keep it accurate, and make it easy for punters to plan their weekend?

Hot Giggity's answer was a branded festival gig guide app and a matching website gig guide, both powered by the same database. This case study covers what the festival needed, what we delivered, and what happens next.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival logo

What Problem Did the Festival Need to Solve?

A multi-venue festival program is a moving target.

Artists get added late. Set times shift. Venues change. And every change has to be reflected everywhere the program is published: the website, the printed guide, social posts and anywhere else punters are looking.

Before working with Hot Giggity, that meant the festival team was facing the same challenge every multi-venue event faces:

• Multiple copies of the same information. Artist names, photos, bios, dates, times and venues maintained in more than one place.
• Manual updates. Every schedule change meant editing several documents and pages, with the risk that one copy gets missed.
• No easy way for punters to plan. With performances spread across multiple venues over several days, a static list makes it hard to answer the only question that matters: who is playing near me, today, and when?

The festival needed one source of truth for the entire program, and audience-friendly ways to browse it.

What Did Hot Giggity Deliver?

Hot Giggity delivered two connected products, both driven from the same database:

Because both the app and the website guide read from the same database, the festival team updates an artist, a time or a venue once, and the change flows through everywhere. No duplicated edits, no stale copies of the schedule.

Inside the Festival App

The app gave punters a complete gig guide in their pocket. A few of the screens we delivered:

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival official app splash screen with festival branding and sponsor logos

The festival's branded splash screen greets every user with the Cronulla Jazz & Blues identity, sponsor recognition and the Hot Giggity platform badge.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival app: Explore home screen with Events, Venues and Promotions tabs

The explore home is the entry point: Events, Venues and Promotions tabs, plus upcoming gigs right there on the landing screen.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival app: Explore Events screen showing the full program filterable by day, with real artist photos, set times and venues

The events screen shows every performance across the festival, filterable by day, with real artist photos, set times and venues at a glance.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival app: Event Detail screen with going and interested buttons, directions, share and Uber options

Each event page shows the artist photo and bio, date, time and venue, plus going and interested buttons, directions, share and Uber options.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival app: Explore Venues screen listing real participating venues around Cronulla and the Sutherland Shire

The venues screen lists real festival venues around Cronulla and the Sutherland Shire, so people can browse by location and see everything playing nearby.

Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival app: My Gigs screen showing a personal festival schedule of saved performances

And My Gigs turns the program into a personal festival schedule: punters save the acts they want to see and get their own itinerary across the weekend.

What Was the Outcome?

The festival published one accurate program everywhere its audience looked. The team stopped maintaining parallel copies of the schedule, late changes stopped being a publishing problem, and punters could plan their festival weekend by day, by artist or by venue.

Geoff Trio, the festival's key organiser, put it this way:

"Keeping the program accurate across that many venues used to be a constant worry. With Hot Giggity we updated an act once and it was right everywhere: the app and the website. It let a small team publish a big festival properly." - Geoff Trio, Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival

What Happens Next: The 2027 Festival

The Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival will continue working with Hot Giggity for the 2027 festival, and the partnership is expanding beyond the gig guide.

For 2027, the festival will also use the Hot Giggity platform to:

1. Book artists. Managing offers, confirmations and gig details for the whole program inside Hot Giggity, rather than through spreadsheets and email chains.
2. Manage super payments with HG Super Pay. With Payday Super in effect from 1 July 2026, festivals that pay sole trader performers must get super to each performer's fund within 7 business days of payment. HG Super Pay calculates super per performer and routes payments through a licensed clearing house from the festival's own bank account.

If you want the full picture of what Payday Super means for festival organisers, read our guide: Superannuation for Festivals: A Plain English Guide for Australian Festival Organisers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Hot Giggity build for the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival?

Hot Giggity delivered a branded festival gig guide app and a website gig guide for the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival. Both are filterable by day and show artist photos, bios, dates, times and venues across the festival's multiple venues, all driven from one database.

Can a festival get its own branded app through Hot Giggity?

Yes. Hot Giggity builds festival gig guide apps in the festival's own branding, like the one delivered for the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival, with event browsing by day, artist and venue pages, and a personal My Gigs schedule for attendees.

How does one database keep the app and website in sync?

The festival team maintains the program (artists, photos, bios, dates, times and venues) once in Hot Giggity. The branded app and the website gig guide both read from that same database, so any change is reflected in both places immediately, with no duplicated editing.

Is the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival continuing with Hot Giggity?

Yes. The festival will continue with Hot Giggity for the 2027 event, and is expanding its use of the platform to include booking artists and managing superannuation payments through HG Super Pay.

Do festivals really have to pay super for performers?

In many cases, yes. Under Section 12(8) of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992, sole trader performers paid to perform are treated as employees for super purposes, and from 1 July 2026 Payday Super requires contributions to reach each performer's fund within 7 business days of payment. See our Superannuation for Festivals guide for the details.

Key Takeaways

• Multi-venue festivals need one source of truth for the program. Maintaining parallel copies of artist and schedule information is where errors come from.
• Hot Giggity delivered the Cronulla Jazz & Blues Festival a branded gig guide app and a website gig guide, both filterable by day, with artist photos, bios, dates, times and venues.
• Both products run from one database, so the team updates the program once and it is correct everywhere.
• The festival continues with Hot Giggity for 2027, adding artist booking and super payments through HG Super Pay.

Want a branded gig guide app or website gig guide for your festival? Book a demo and we'll show you how Cronulla did it.