ROSTR Unveils Plans to Simplify Venue Discovery, Partners With NIVA

ROSTR has announced its latest platform innovation, ROSTR Venues, coming later this year, unveiling it at today’s 2026 National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) conference.

Why it matters:

• ROSTR Venues will offer the largest and fastest venue directory in the world.

• It will move venue discovery out of scattered PDFs, one-off spreadsheets, and hardcopy directories into the same searchable, always-current platform tens of thousands of professionals already use to find artists and the teams behind them.

How it works:

• Bookers, agents, tour managers, promoters, and managers will be able to filter venues by capacity, type, setting, genre, and previous artists.

• They can then plot the venues on a map, and explore detailed profiles surfacing past performers, promoter and owner information, contact details, and similar rooms.

• Every venue is linked into ROSTR’s broader graph – tours, artists, agents, promoters – so users can pivot from a room to the team that booked it, to the artist playing there tonight, and out to other venues that consistently program the same genre.

• Venues can claim their own ROSTR profile, fill in any information ROSTR missed, and see data on how they’re being discovered through the platform.

NIVA partnership:

• Acknowledging the importance of independent venues, ROSTR has partnered with NIVA on the product’s Live Independent filter.

• This makes any NIVA venue a single click away in the directory.

• Every NIVA venue’s profile will carry the Live Independent seal.

The launch:

• ROSTR Venues will launch this quarter.

• Early registration is now open here.

• It will be included in every ROSTR plan, free and paid.

What they said:

• Mark Williamson, Co-Founder & CEO of ROSTR: “The music industry is reliant on getting artists on stages, in front of fans. But the professionals whose job it is to get them there are still reliant on PDFs, spreadsheets and word-of-mouth. ROSTR Venues will make finding the right room for an artist as easy as finding the right hotel room for your trip. A huge part of this is ensuring that independent venues – not just the most well-known venues – are just a click away. Our partnership with NIVA bakes that in from the very start.”

• Stephen Parker, Executive Director of NIVA: “ROSTR is making it easier for agents and managers to connect with venues and promoters on a platform that so many artist teams already use and trust every day, which will democratize touring for the entire industry. We are thrilled that they are elevating independent stages on this new platform by facilitating one click access to them, while highlighting the Certified Live Independent seal – so that agents and managers can easily prioritize booking these magical spaces.”