For some of us, summer music festivals bring to mind relaxation and enjoyment. For Darren Gallop, they mean a heavy workload and more revenue for his company, Marcato Digital Solutions.

Based in Sydney, Marcato provides organizational software to music festival organizers around the world. The Software-as-a-Service platform will be used by 146 events this year, the first year it’s handled more than 100. Some clients run several events and therefore get a discount, so Gallop said that overall the company’s revenues have risen by a respectable 30 to 35 per cent year-on-year.

“It’s a really busy time of year for us and we’re busier than we’ve ever been before,” Gallop, the company’s founder and CEO, said in an interview last week. “Luckily we have introduced new features and capacity and functionality.”

The big change for Marcato, whose flagship product had been Marcato Festival, came last December when the company released an enterprise version of its software — that is, a product designed for a large organization or company. Marcato Enterprise has helped the company meet the needs of larger clients and is now being used by about 20 festivals.

Marcato began in 2008 when Gallop (a former drummer and music manager) and chief technical officer Morgan Currie had the idea of a software product that would handle all the administrative tasks that burden musicians. They perceived a platform in which musicians could book engagements and hotels, keep their financial records and the like. They decided to add a product for music festivals. Though they still offer the product for musicians, that second platform became the focus of the business. The music users include such household names as Blue Rodeo, Joel Plaskett and Gordie Sampson.

Marcato now has clients in 26 countries — most in the U.S., but also several in Europe, Canada and Australia. The company is developing relationships in South America. Eight per cent of its business is in Atlantic Canada.

Along the way, the company has had two major funding events. In 2011, it raised $500,000 including debt from a range of backers, including $250,000 from Innovacorp and $95,000 from Enterprise Cape Breton (now part of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency). Last year, it raised about $700,000 from New Dawn Enterprises, which raises money through the Community Economic Development Investment Fund program, and ACOA.

Gallop said the company is now close to being cash flow positive — which means the company is bringing in enough cash to cover expenses. And the revenue should be sufficient to allow the company to continue growing. Having added four software developers in the last half year, Marcato Digital now employs 17 people, all in Sydney except for one in Halifax.

This team will spend the summer handling the flood of festivals. The introduction of the enterprise product has meant that some of the larger clients need help as they learn to use the software. Marcato also has a development team working on a stream of improvements.

“The other exciting thing is we are working on lots of new software tools as well as some significant reworking of our old staple tools,” said Gallop. “It’s become very busy.”