The Pending vs Airtable for Casting

The Pending Agency is an AI-powered platform that connects managers, bookers, and casting professionals with artists and creatives. It combines talent discovery, application management, and AI-assisted workflows in one place.

The platform serves two groups: managers, bookers, and casting professionals who post projects and discover artists; and artists and creatives who apply to opportunities and manage their careers. Both sides benefit from AI-powered tools built specifically for the creative industry.

The Talent Finder uses semantic search powered by vector embeddings and Claude (via AWS Bedrock) to match your natural language query against artist profiles. You can combine filters (skills, location, language) with a free-text description of who you're looking for — the AI handles the rest

Create a listing under Jobs, define your requirements via a Briefing, and publish — for free. Share it via your project email address or custom landing page with your own network, and reach our talent database of 10,000+ creatives at the same time.

All applications in one place — no email chaos, no scattered attachments. Set your criteria via Briefings, then choose how candidates apply: a dedicated project email address or a custom landing page with your own form. Both feed directly into your Application Manager, where incoming applications can optionally be matched and sorted based on your criteria. Clarity and efficiency, even at scale. On Professional, accepted applicants are automatically added to your Roster.

The Roster is your talent database — a CRM built for agencies and bookers. Add artists you've worked with, discovered through the platform, or sourced externally. Filter and organize by whatever matters to your workflow (projects, skills, pipeline status, and more). On Professional, applicants you accept are automatically added to your Roster, assigned to the listing or project you cast for — no manual transfer needed.

Yes. Your team shares everything at project level — files, Application Manager, and Roster. Collaborate on castings, manage talent together, and stay aligned in your day-to-day without friction.

Yes — it's built right in. Each project comes with a full dashboard: moodboard, notes, file storage, and a task and ticket board — everything to run a casting or production project without switching apps.
Set up departments, assign priorities, and track tasks across different stages — for your whole team. Your personal board keeps an overview across all projects at once.
No Trello. No Notion. No folder chaos. One place, for everything.

Spotty is The Pending Agency's AI assistant. For managers, Spotty can review applications, update roster entries, draft emails, and take actions within the platform on your behalf — via the in-app chat or by emailing your unique Spotty address. For artists, Spotty helps with job discovery, application drafting, and career management.

All data is stored on AWS infrastructure in the EU (eu-central-1, Frankfurt, Germany). The platform is operated by The Pending GmbH, a German company — for us, data protection is not an afterthought. For full details on data processing, see our Privacy Policy.

Yes — if casting is your core workflow. Airtable is a powerful general-purpose database, but it requires significant setup and ongoing maintenance to work for casting. The Pending Agency is purpose-built: application management, talent roster, project tools, and ethical AI are all ready from day one — no configuration needed.

Airtable's paid plans start at $20/month per user — but you still need to build and maintain your casting system yourself, on top of your subscription. The Pending Agency starts at €19.99/month for a complete, purpose-built casting platform. No setup time, no workarounds, no per-user fees on most plans.

Yes. Simply upload your existing files — applications, talent data, and project info are imported in seconds. No IT support, no manual data entry, no hassle.