The current unemployment crisis in Hollywood has brought anxiety in the minds of the crew members who create most of the popular television and film shows. According to a survey, there is a particular gloom that prevails over freelancers who feel insecure as they are wholly dependent on the unstable work and unofficial stipends for salaries.

ShoBizzy is the latest professional networking app in the entertainment industry dedicated to solving that problem. And, with potentially more workers out of work, ShoBizzy has just expanded its offering to let users chase opportunities not only in the areas they already operate in, but also in live events and content creation.

It launched in January, as it was distinguished from other traditional job-post boards like Backstage and StaffMeUp because it would not make users apply on the apps. This would instead act as a social platform for the freelancers to create public profiles having the kind of exposure and expertise one has and form long-lasting connections with people in the business who can serve as valuable references for upcoming job opportunities.

"Freelancers have a very untraditional career path, in the sense that we never have a permanent employer, and it ends up being that your network is the most valuable piece to your career because of the fact that it's such a who-you-know business," co-founder Doug Weitzbuch told TechCrunch. Weitzbuch is a freelance TV producer with 20 years of experience in the industry, and his work has included producing "Duck Dynasty," "Hell's Kitchen," and "Lip Sync Battle.".

It only makes sense to give freelancers the freedom to expand their fields further than just TV and film. There has been a good level of interest in the creator economy, estimated to be a $250 billion business. There has also been an uptick in live events the past year. PwC predicts that revenue from live events in the U.S. will cross $68.7 billion by 2024.

The television industry has been in the downturn this past year, and a lot of people are struggling to find work," said co-founder Kevin Eberly, who earlier founded PayYourRent, the online rent payment software company. "As we're building [ShoBizzy], we had a lot of interest from two tangential verticals. One is live event production, so things like concerts, tours, and festivals.". The other is digital content, you know, YouTube creators and stuff like that… We are giving an opportunity to freelance crew that they probably would never have thought of on their own."

Eberly also pointed out that the company currently has "strong relationships with multiple companies in the live event vertical, including Red Light Management, that are eager to bring the platform to their productions and clients."

This alliance is therefore sizeable because Red Light Management represents a large number of the biggest names; that includes Luke Bryan, Sabrina Carpenter, The Black Keys, The Fray, The Strokes, and Tom Petty. This would give freelancers the chance to work on very high-profile jobs that would maybe advance their careers.

As growth ensued, ShoBizzy also introduced new features that assisted live event companies in managing hires more efficiently. The concert tours aligned production workflow of the app allows the companies to add multiple dates and locations in just one production. The app also lets the companies match with any vendors they may need, for instance, camera rental vendors.

Typically, ShoBizzy's production company hiring suite would streamline the hiring process for production companies. Because of the AI algorithm, the application identifies which users represent the best fits for certain roles based on some possible requirements related to the location of the production where they are currently available; and relevant IMDb credits. The app would then follow up with real-time updates on the actual hires as the crew is built. Companies may even message crew members in the app.

Since its launch, ShoBizzy has attracted 6,500 sign-ups and about 650 companies, such as A&E, Amazon, Disney+, Discovery Channel, Food Network, Netflix, Nike, and the WNBA, among others.
The company now raises a $2 million seed round.