Backstage Reviews 140

What the heck happened to them? ... I was an active member since 2020, getting offers for voiceovers, commercials, and regional projects that paid decently per unrepped industry base (though I am repped) Then recently EVERY. And I mean EVERY email alert was either spam/nonexistent, or local hires only. Paying $12/mo. for that nonsense? Why. Even AA and CN vet better sending you notices WITHIN your perimeters! Just smh. Backstage used to be the IT. NOT ANYMORE.

They refuse to help no reason why they close my account without my approval refusing to pay my £25 back I was unable to use therefore they should give me a full refund. They refuse to help I have reported to trading standards and the FCA

BE CAREFUL THIS COMPANY COMMITS FRAUD AND IF YOU HAVE THE APP THEY HAVE SOFTWARE TO TAKE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION, I WAS NOT AWARE THEY WAS TAKING LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY FROM MY ACCOUNT UNTIL THE BANK HAD FLAGGED IT, WHEN I FIRST EVER SIGNED UP WAS A TRIAL AND EMAILED TO CANCEL AUTO ENROLMENT WHICH THEY CONFIRMED BUT THEY KEPT MY INFORMATION AND SEVERAL MONTHS LATER STARTED TAKING MONEY WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT , WILL BE REPORTING THIS COMPANY FOR BREAKING CONSUMER LAWS AND PRIVACY POLICY

I got my account banned from starnow for no reason. Since backstage bought Mandy and Starnow, I also got my Mandy account removed as well as my actor subscription permanmently. My first hand experience fully justifies why everyone hate them with such a low rating in trustpilot.

is allowing NMW on actor website actors can not work fom a minimum national wage , as theit job is saltuary and also need preparation , so is it not just a day you turn up, that is why most of now days production doing rubish job!! underpaid evem crew . when managing directors or people in th pannel get the real salary !! i am ending in food bank despite work and refusing job doesnt even paid then traveling !!! is a shame!!!

ABSOLUTE SCAM cancelled a year ago & still they try for more money 💰 great business 👍 FOR fools
I NEED A JUDGE & Compensation but where is the JUSTICE?
NO WAY OUT ?

They charge your card automatically, MISLEAD on casting posts e.g. sending you info about castings in the USA but inviting you to it when you are a UK based performer, then refuse to refund you. Disrespectful imho business practices in the industry already filled with many scams. NOT RECOMMENDED.

If a customer wants to cancel a service it does not mean that that lack agency not does it mean that the company should berate the individual. It means that I lack a desire to continue with your service. I quit my acting aspirations after my experience with this company, tried it regret it, staying out where I am. I wish them well, but no more.

This mega American company is just dire. They took over Mandy.com (which used to be Casting Call Pro) and have since been 'upgrading' that site. It's taking forever and the 'service' is very much less than adequate. Features that were useful for actors have been removed in order to make way for "whizz bang, wonderful, all singing, all dancing features" which actors have - according to Backstage - been asking for. Absolute rubbish. Mandy went downhill rapidly once Backstage took it over and it's getting worse by the day. If you want a decent online casting site - avoid! Actually, the date of experience has been around 6-12 months but there's no facility to put that expanse of time on the 'date of experience' space.

If I could give ot less than 1 star I would.

When Mandy seperate from Casting Call Pro and Voices Pro, it was fine.

When Mandy took over Casting Call Pro and Voices Pro, it was still fine.

When Backstage took over Mandy everytjing went to sh!t.

After being Premium Member for many years, I refuse to give Backstage (its no longer Mandy) any money for an increasingly p!ss poor service.

They permanently banned my account because I complained with my bank (and got my money back) that they had charged me a subscription fee that I did not authorize after I had canceled my account. I contacted Backstage on Instagram about this but they never responded (since there’s no customer service you can call and I wanted to give my side of the story). I had canceled my account because I couldn’t find any work there and I just wanted to give it one more chance. If you want to work with a site that bans customers without even listening to their concerns first, work with them.

so bad, probably the worst acting website out there. they need to shut down.

Absolute waste of time.I'm an actor and got no gigs via backstage for the last 2 years , applied maybe to 200 calls, most of them is fake.They also SPAM you with e-mail and useless articles instead of improving their website and making sure they select serious providers.

My teenage daughter ( who attends film and acting school) signed up for this early last year, a ‘ legit company’ with an approved tick ( as assigned by Backstage for verification on the company’ reached out to her about an audition for a YouTube series aimed at younger children, her audition tape was accepted and she was told her filming would be done at home ( self recorded) a simple contract was sent and she had to send a variety of pictures of herself in various outfits, the man in charge of this job, would contact her via Skype but he would never turn his camera on, communication however was never cause for concern, this ‘ job’ never materialised, although they kept wanting more pictures of her, their ‘ verified’ website was basic and I started to have doubts, on contacting Backstage via Instagram they totally ignored me, read the message and didn’t respond, I emailed my concern to them and received a timely response from a lady who wanted all the company details etc and correspondence by my daughter, having sent over all the details, the lady asked for all the details again, clearly they had no details of this company they had verified, after 2 weeks they sent me an alarming email stating ‘ for your daughter’s safety do not send any more correspondence to this company as we cannot verify any information on them ‘ just what every parent wants to hear…..the fact that this company had a verification from backstage, they clearly had kept no information on their files about the company and never even apologised or really showed much concern/ interest, PLEASE do not let any minors on this site, in fact PLEASE beware of Backstage, they will take your money but I do not believe they check who they are putting on their website, I have cancelled my subscription let’s see if that results in a problem 😳🙄, as a parent it sickens me that what was an ‘ exciting’ opportunity for my daughter has perhaps an unsavoury undertone, I believe Backstage only removed this ‘ company’ from its website after I made a complaint of concern about it, so there are probably quite a few other younger teenaged who have had the same experience.

Who are they and why am I receiving daily emails from them?
I think my email address was sold.
!!!!!SPAM!!!!!

I started to receive emails from them 2 days ago even though I haven't subscribed. I wonder if Starnow has sold my email address, I used starnow for the last time around 10 years ago and I deleted my account. Are they aware of GDPR?
I am reporting them as spam

A few months ago, I had signed up for a year's access to Backstage.com via an Instagram ad that promised ample paid background acting gigs.

I filled out my profile with my measurements/skills/headshots, and I haven't gotten a single background gig on Backstage -- despite having applied to gigs daily for the past few months.

Plus, I've noticed that almost 95% of their paid NYC background gigs are from Grant Wilfey Casting, and you can apply to those for free via Grant Wilfey's website.

If you live in NYC, given the free agencies -- particularly Grant Wilfey and Central Casting -- you absolutely do not need to pay for access to Backstage. I get a gig from Central at least once every 2 weeks.

Like I mentioned, I haven't gotten a single gig from Backstage -- and customer support won't give me a refund, not even a prorated one for the remaining months of my annual membership. Feeling cheating and hoping others don't make the same mistake I did.

Unfortunately not a pleasant experience. As a professional musical theatre performer and hearing of this site, I expected so much more. As a company they should be supporting actors - however my experience is that they just want money. Customer service - errrr NEEDS HELP. The robotic, unfriendly responses. Not nice. Not willing to understand or provide any customer satisfaction. The subscription - complete waste of money. I’m gutted i stayed on the site for six months. I can guarantee if you join (for the expensive monthly price) you’ll be extremely disappointed. I found a HUGE lack of prospective jobs. Scrolling a bunch of nothingness. Underpaid / unpaid work. No thank you. Just a massive waste. I contacted customer service regarding my unhappiness and unused membership, and it was responded with a blunt NO REFUNDS. I only requested a refund for the one month as I felt seriously robbed. When in retrospect I actually need a full refund for the £115 I wasted. But here we are. There are “no refunds” so please just don’t bother.

This site is outdated and the staff doesn't know anything or care to do anything. Me and 4 other people signed up and did casting calls and what we got were people who weren't legit. They will let anyone post anything up there. So unprofessional. People with no acting experience or anything and expecting to get paid for their first time. Backstage doesn't do anything about the people who post unprofessional resumes on there! I heard they ban casting directors because other actors and actresses complain because they don't get picked. Then backstage bans them. How logical is that? This site is bad! I would not recommend it to anyone!

Frauds, it's a scam. Avoid this sham of a company! No customer service. Should be investigated and closed down.