Terms of service

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") form a binding agreement between you and ShareTheStage ("ShareTheStage," "we," "us," or "our"), the operator of the ShareTheStage.com website, mobile applications, and related services (collectively, the "Platform"). By creating an account, using the Platform, or accepting an invitation to the beta, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, our Acceptable Use Policy, our Copyright Policy, and, when you book a performer for a private event or are booked for one, our Booking Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract under the laws of your jurisdiction.
• If you create an account on behalf of an organization (a venue, agency, label, or band), you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.
• You must not be barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction where we operate, and you must not be on any U.S. government denied-party list.

ShareTheStage is a marketplace that helps venues discover performers and helps performers find paid gigs. We provide tools for discovery, communication, offer negotiation, lightweight booking agreements, and reputation signals (verification badges, reliability scores, reviews).

We are not a party to any booking, agreement, or transaction between users. We do not employ performers; we are not an agent, manager, talent agency, broker, or fiduciary for any user. Bookings arranged through the Platform are independent contracts between the venue and the performer (or their agent). Each user is solely responsible for their own obligations — payment, taxes, insurance, work-permit status, health-and-safety compliance, and the actual performance of the gig.

• Be honest. Don't misrepresent yourself, your venue, your act, or anyone you don't represent.
• One account per identity. Verified status assumes a single real human or organization behind a profile. Don't create duplicate accounts to evade restrictions.
• Keep credentials private. You're responsible for all activity on your account. Notify us immediately at security@sharethestage.com if you suspect unauthorized access.
• Accurate contact info. Keep your email up to date so we can send legal notices, security alerts, and booking-related communications.

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use the Platform for its intended purpose — namely, to discover, communicate with, and transact with other users. This license terminates automatically if you violate these Terms or if your account is suspended or terminated.

You retain ownership of content you submit to the Platform — profile copy, photos, audio, video, bios, applications, messages, reviews, and so on ("Your Content"). You represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to submit Your Content and that it does not violate any third party's rights.

By submitting Your Content, you grant ShareTheStage a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, modify (for formatting, security scanning, and content moderation), publish, publicly display, and distribute Your Content — solely as necessary to operate, provide, promote, and improve the Platform. This license survives termination of your account only to the extent necessary for archival, dispute resolution, or legal compliance.

Feedback. Any suggestions, bug reports, or ideas you send us are non-confidential. We may use them without restriction or compensation.

See the Acceptable Use Policy for the full list. In short: don't harass anyone, don't scrape, don't spam, don't commit fraud, don't impersonate, don't upload illegal content. We may remove content and suspend accounts that violate the AUP at our sole discretion.

Verified status is a human-reviewed signal of likelihood, not a guarantee. We check social profiles, business presence, and submitted documents. We do not run background checks, criminal-record searches, credit checks, or financial audits.

Reliability scores, reviews, and no-show records are user-generated or user-triggered signals computed from Platform activity. We don't guarantee their accuracy. Always do your own due diligence before signing contracts, sending payment, or appearing at a venue.

The Platform is free during the private beta, and paid plans are not sold during it. After the beta we may offer paid tiers (e.g., Pro outreach, advanced analytics). Before any paid tier is offered we will update these Terms with its price, how it is billed, and its refund and cancellation rules, and give you at least 30 days' notice. Nothing you use during the beta will be charged retroactively.

Payments through the Platform. Card payments on ShareTheStage are processed by Stripe. To receive money, a venue or performer connects a Stripe account, and Stripe's own terms, including its Connected Account Agreement, apply to that account. Payouts go to the bank account you give Stripe; we do not store card or bank details.

Bookings. A venue can pay an accepted booking through the Platform. The venue pays the performer's agreed fee plus a 5% booking service fee, rounded to the cent. The performer pays no commission and receives 100% of the fee: a deposit (the share of the fee the performer sets) once the payment clears and their Stripe account can receive payouts, and the balance a day after the show. If the venue cancels, the performer keeps the deposit and the venue is refunded the balance and the service fee charged on it. If the performer cancels, the venue is refunded in full. Bookings paid outside the Platform are between the venue and the performer.

Tickets. A venue that sells tickets through the Platform is the seller of those tickets and decides whether to refund them; cancelling a show's ticket sales refunds every order. Fans pay a service fee of $1 plus 4% of the ticket price on each paid ticket, which is always included in the price shown, and a venue may choose to cover it. Free tickets and guest-list tickets carry no fee. A refund returns the full price paid, fees included, and the refunded tickets stop working. If a fan disputes a ticket charge with their bank, the venue is responsible for the dispute and for any amount the bank takes back, which we may recover from the venue's payouts.

Taxes. You are responsible for any sales, income, or other taxes arising from your activity on the Platform.

The Platform offers tools to record cancellations and no-shows, which feed into a reliability score. We are not arbiters of disputes between users. If you and another user disagree about a booking, payment, no-show, or performance, you are responsible for resolving it directly. We may, at our discretion, offer non-binding mediation or moderation; participation is voluntary on both sides.

Severe violations (threats, fraud, repeated no-shows) may trigger account suspension or removal under Section 13 — Suspension and termination.

The Platform — including its design, code, logos, trademarks, and content we ourselves produce (the "ShareTheStage IP") — is owned by ShareTheStage and protected by U.S. and international copyright, trademark, and other laws. Nothing in these Terms grants you any right to use the ShareTheStage IP except as expressly permitted in Section 5.

If you believe content on the Platform infringes your copyright, follow the takedown procedure in our Copyright (DMCA) Policy.

The Platform integrates with third-party services — Stripe (payments), Resend (email), Cloudflare R2 (storage), Google (calendar + sign-in), Apple (sign-in), Sentry (error reporting), and Cloudflare Turnstile (anti-bot). Your use of these services is governed by their own terms. We are not responsible for third-party services and disclaim any warranties about them.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate your account at any time and for any reason, including but not limited to: violation of these Terms or the AUP, fraud or suspected fraud, threats to user safety, repeated complaints from other users, failure to pay fees, or a legal requirement to do so. Where practical, we'll notify you and provide an opportunity to appeal; for severe violations (threats, illegal content, CSAM) action is immediate.

You may delete your account at any time from Settings → Account. Some data (safety-critical audit logs, fraud signals) may be retained as described in the Privacy Policy.

THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SHARETHESTAGE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE PLATFORM WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT ANY DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED. WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES ABOUT THE CONDUCT, QUALIFICATIONS, OR IDENTITY OF ANY OTHER USER, OR ABOUT THE QUALITY, SAFETY, OR LEGALITY OF ANY BOOKING OR PERFORMANCE ARRANGED THROUGH THE PLATFORM.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL SHARETHESTAGE OR ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, BUSINESS, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE PLATFORM, ANY CONDUCT OR CONTENT OF ANY OTHER USER, OR ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO YOUR DATA, REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT, STATUTE, OR OTHERWISE) AND EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATED TO THE PLATFORM IN ANY 12-MONTH PERIOD WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE FEES YOU PAID US DURING THAT PERIOD OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US$100). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES; IN THOSE JURISDICTIONS OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless ShareTheStage and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from or related to: (i) your use of the Platform, (ii) Your Content, (iii) your violation of these Terms or any applicable law, (iv) your violation of any third party's rights, or (v) any booking or transaction you arrange through the Platform.

Informal resolution first. Before filing any claim, you agree to contact us at legal@sharethestage.com and attempt to resolve the dispute informally for at least 60 days.

Binding arbitration. If we can't resolve a dispute informally, any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Platform will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, in the English language, in Ohio, United States. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class action waiver. You and ShareTheStage agree that disputes will be resolved on an individual basis only and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate claims of multiple parties.

Carve-outs. Either party may bring an individual action in small-claims court if it qualifies, and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual-property rights.

If you are a resident of a jurisdiction that prohibits pre-dispute arbitration agreements, the arbitration provisions above do not apply to you to the extent prohibited by law.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. For any matter not subject to arbitration above, you and ShareTheStage submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and waive any objection based on inconvenient forum.

We'll update these Terms occasionally. Material changes get an email notice and a banner on the site for at least 30 days. Continuing to use the Platform after a change means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept, you may terminate your account.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, AUP, DMCA Policy and, for private event bookings, the Booking Terms, are the entire agreement between you and ShareTheStage regarding the Platform and supersede any prior agreements.

Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right or provision.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control (natural disasters, war, pandemics, infrastructure outages).

Notices. Legal notices to us must be sent to legal@sharethestage.com and to our mailing address (ShareTheStage LLC, Cleveland, OH). Notices to you may be sent to the email on your account.

Relationship. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between us.

Questions, disputes, or legal notices: legal@sharethestage.com.