SUISA list¶
Collect a signed, itemised repertoire declaration from every act, review it, and file it with SUISA — without paper or chasing setlists by email.
SUISA is Switzerland's collective rights-management organisation for music. Swiss festivals must report the works performed at each show — the Programm Live declaration under Tarif K — so that composers, lyricists and publishers are paid their royalties. Festinato turns that into a per-show form the artist fills in and signs from their portal, the organiser approves, and the platform renders as a filing-ready PDF.
This page covers the whole lifecycle, from turning the feature on to exporting the bundle you send to SUISA.
Turning it on¶
SUISA submission is off by default — only Swiss festivals that file with SUISA need it. Switch it on under Festinato → Settings → SUISA list submission.
Once enabled, two things happen:
- the SUISA list page appears in the artist portal, and
- a draft list is created automatically for each confirmed performance, pre-filled with the act name, venue and show date.
International festivals can leave it off; the page and the back-office menu stay hidden.
How it fits together¶
- Draft is provisioned automatically. When an artist's slot is confirmed, Festinato creates an empty draft SUISA list for that show, pre-filled with the act, venue and date.
- The artist completes it from their portal — either by typing the setlist into the form, or by uploading a SUISA form they've already signed on paper.
- The artist signs (for the in-portal form) — a typed legal name, a drawn signature and a consent tick. This submits the list to the organiser.
- The organiser reviews and approves it from the back-office. On approval, Festinato renders the final signed PDF (or keeps the uploaded one).
- The organiser exports the bundle — a single ZIP of every approved list for the edition — and files it with SUISA.
The two ways an artist can submit¶
The SUISA list page offers two tabs. Either one results in a submitted list ready for the organiser.
The artist types the setlist directly into the form and signs it on screen. Festinato generates the SUISA-format PDF for them at approval time. This is the path most artists use.
If the artist already has a SUISA form signed offline, they upload it as a PDF (up to 10 MB). The list is marked as submitted straight away — the signature is already inside the document, so no on-screen signing is needed and nothing is re-rendered.
What the artist enters¶
For the in-portal form, each work performed is one row. A list can hold up to 80 songs.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | Required. The title of the work performed. |
| Composer | Komponist:in — who wrote the music. |
| Lyricist | Textautor:in — who wrote the words. |
| Arranger | Bearbeiter:in, where applicable. |
| Publisher | The work's publisher, if any. |
| Duration | Required. How long the work was played, entered as mm:ss. |
| Own work | Tick if the artist wrote or composed it. |
| Protected | On by default; clear it only for genuinely public-domain works. |
| Performances | How many times the work was played (defaults to 1). |
The form keeps a running song count and total duration as rows are added. The artist can Save draft as often as they like before signing — each save replaces the whole list, so the latest save is the complete picture.
Signing¶
When the setlist is ready, the artist signs in a dialog:
- types their legal name,
- draws their signature on the canvas (mouse or touch),
- ticks "I confirm this setlist is correct and complete."
Signing records the name, signature image, timestamp, the signer's email and the request's IP and device — a legal audit trail — and moves the list to submitted. After that the setlist is read-only for the artist; if a change is needed, the organiser reopens it (below).
States¶
A SUISA list moves through three states. The artist sees the current state as a badge on their overview; the organiser sees the same states, colour-coded, in the back-office list.
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | The artist is still filling in the setlist. (Shown as missing on the overview until they start.) |
| Submitted | The artist has signed the form or uploaded a signed PDF. Awaiting the organiser's approval. |
| Approved | The organiser has confirmed the list. The signed PDF is final and ready to file. |
Reviewing and approving (back-office)¶
The organiser works from Festinato → Programme → SUISA Lists. The list view can be filtered by state (draft, awaiting approval, approved) and by source (filled in portal vs uploaded PDF), and grouped by edition, state or artist.
Opening a submitted list shows the setlist, the signature and the signing details. From here the organiser can:
- Approve — confirm the list is fileable. For an in-portal form this
renders the final signed PDF named like
SUISA-2026-07-12-Sasha-Bloom.pdf; for an uploaded PDF it confirms the attached document. Approval records who approved it and when. - Regenerate PDF — after fixing a typo in the setlist, re-render the PDF from the corrected rows (in-portal forms only).
- Reopen for editing — send the list back to draft so the artist can amend and re-sign. The old PDF is dropped and regenerated on the next approval.
Every state change — signature, approval, reopen — is logged on the record's history.
The operator can correct the setlist
Header fields (act name, venue, date) and the song rows stay editable in the back-office so the organiser can fix obvious typos or stage-name variants before approving, then regenerate the PDF.
The generated PDF¶
For in-portal forms, approval produces a SUISA Programm Live PDF (Aufführungsmeldung gemäss Tarif K) carrying the act, event, venue and date header, the numbered setlist with composer, arranger, duration and performance count, the totals, any notes, and the artist's drawn signature with name and date.
Exporting for SUISA¶
When the shows are done and the lists are approved, the organiser exports an edition bundle — a single ZIP containing the signed PDF of every approved list for that edition, each keeping its descriptive filename. That ZIP is what you submit to SUISA.
Limits and reminders¶
| Songs per list | Up to 80 |
| Signature image | Up to 1 MB |
| Uploaded PDF | Up to 10 MB, application/pdf only |
There are no automated email reminders or hard deadlines built in. The portal prompts the artist to file before the show — "We need the repertoire report by the day of the concert" — and the back-office list, filtered to awaiting approval, is the organiser's worklist for what's still outstanding.
