Terms of Service

These Terms are a starting draft. Before relying on them — especially the limitation of liability, indemnification, arbitration, and paid-placement sections — have qualified counsel review them.

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of BlackEvents.us (the “Site”), operated by BlackEvents.us (“BlackEvents,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). By using the Site, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.

1. Who can use the Site

You must be at least 13 years old (or the minimum age required in your country) to use the Site. By using the Site, you represent that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms.

2. Accounts

Some features require an account. You are responsible for the information associated with your account and for activity that occurs through it. Keep your sign-in email and any access codes confidential. Notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorized use.

3. Event listings; accuracy disclaimer

The Site is a directory. We compile event information from organizers, public sources, and user submissions, and we use automated tools to gather and summarize information.

We do not host, produce, sponsor, or guarantee any event. Event details — including dates, times, locations, prices, lineups, age restrictions, and admission policies — may change without notice or be inaccurate. Always confirm details directly with the organizer before traveling or paying.

We are not responsible for, and disclaim all liability arising from, the conduct of event organizers, vendors, venues, or attendees, or for anything that happens at or in connection with an event.

4. User submissions and content license

When you submit an event, tip, vendor or organizer profile, image, comment, or other content (“User Content”), you represent and warrant that:

• You own the User Content or have all necessary rights and permissions to submit it.
• The User Content does not infringe any third party’s intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
• The User Content is accurate and not misleading.
• You comply with our acceptable-use rules in Section 6.

You grant BlackEvents a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, reproduce, modify (e.g., for formatting, translation, summarization, or thumbnails), publish, distribute, perform, display, and create derivative works of your User Content in connection with operating, promoting, and improving the Site and our newsletters, social channels, and partner syndications. This license continues for content already published even if you later remove your account, to the extent reasonably necessary for archival, legal, backup, or analytics purposes.

You are responsible for your User Content. We may, but are not obligated to, review, moderate, edit, decline to publish, or remove User Content at any time and for any reason, including content that violates these Terms.

5. Paid placement and featured listings

We offer paid placement options (for example, featured listings, promoted slots, and advertising units). Paid placement does not guarantee any particular result, traffic level, conversion, or outcome. Fees, terms, and packages may change. Specific paid placements are governed by the order confirmation we send you, which together with these Terms forms the agreement for that placement.

Unless an order confirmation says otherwise, paid-placement fees are non-refundable once the placement goes live. We may suspend or remove paid content that violates these Terms, applicable law, or our advertising partners’ policies, without refund.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Post unlawful, harassing, discriminatory, threatening, defamatory, hateful, sexually explicit, or violent content.
• Infringe intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or contractual rights of others.
• Submit false, misleading, deceptive, or duplicate listings, or impersonate any person or organization.
• Use the Site to send spam or unsolicited marketing.
• Scrape, crawl, or harvest data from the Site except as permitted by our robots.txt, or use the Site to train machine-learning models without our written permission.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Site, other accounts, or our infrastructure, or interfere with the Site’s operation or security.
• Use the Site to facilitate illegal activity or sell illegal goods or services.

7. Copyright and DMCA

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe content on the Site infringes your copyright, please follow the procedure in our DMCA Policy. Repeat infringers may have their accounts terminated.

8. Third-party links and services

The Site contains links to organizer pages, ticket vendors, and other third-party sites and services. We do not control and are not responsible for third-party content, terms, or practices. Your dealings with third parties are solely between you and them.

9. Disclaimer of warranties

The Site and all content are provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranties arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, secure, accurate, error-free, or that defects will be corrected.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, BlackEvents and its affiliates, officers, employees, agents, and licensors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or related to your use of the Site, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or relating to the Site or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100) or (b) the total amount you paid us in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain of these limitations, so they may not apply to you in full.

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless BlackEvents and its affiliates from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to (a) your use of the Site, (b) your User Content, (c) your violation of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any law or third-party right.

12. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Site at any time, with or without notice, for any reason — including if we believe you have violated these Terms. You may stop using the Site at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including Sections 4 (license), 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 14.

13. Governing law; dispute resolution

13.1 Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) governs the interpretation and enforcement of Section 13.2 (Arbitration).

13.2 Binding individual arbitration

Please read this section carefully. It requires you and BlackEvents to resolve most disputes through binding individual arbitration instead of in court, and it waives your right to participate in a class action.

You and BlackEvents agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Site, or our services (a “Dispute”) will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, as modified by these Terms. The AAA Rules are available at adr.org. The arbitrator — not any court — will decide all issues, including the scope, enforceability, and arbitrability of this Section 13.2.

The arbitration will be conducted in English. For claims under $25,000 and at your election, the arbitration may be conducted by telephone, video, or written submissions only. For larger claims, the hearing will take place in Prince George’s County, Maryland, or another location the parties agree to. The arbitrator’s decision will follow these Terms and will be final and binding, and judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

13.3 Class-action waiver

You and BlackEvents agree to bring claims against each other only in an individual capacity, not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate claims, preside over any form of representative or class proceeding, or award relief to anyone other than the individual parties to the arbitration.

If a court decides that this class-action waiver is unenforceable as to a particular claim or remedy (such as a public-injunctive-relief claim), that claim or remedy will be severed from arbitration and litigated in the courts identified in Section 13.6, and the remaining claims will proceed in arbitration.

13.4 Exceptions

This arbitration agreement does not apply to:

• Claims that may be brought in small-claims court, so long as the claim stays in that court and is brought on an individual basis.
• Actions seeking injunctive or other equitable relief to stop infringement or misuse of intellectual property rights.

13.5 30-day right to opt out

You may opt out of Section 13.2 (Arbitration) and Section 13.3 (Class-Action Waiver) by sending us written notice through our contact page with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” within 30 days of the date you first accept these Terms (or, for users who already have accounts, within 30 days of the “Last updated” date at the top of this page). Your notice must include your name, the email address associated with your account, and a clear statement that you want to opt out of arbitration. Opting out will not affect any other part of these Terms.

13.6 Court venue for non-arbitrable matters

For Disputes that are not subject to arbitration (including under Section 13.4 or for users who timely opt out under Section 13.5), the state and federal courts located in Prince George’s County, Maryland have exclusive jurisdiction and venue, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

13.7 Time limit; severability

Any Dispute must be brought within one (1) year after the cause of action arises, or it is permanently barred. If any portion of this Section 13 is found unenforceable, the remaining portions will remain in effect.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be posted here with an updated “Last updated” date and, where appropriate, notified by email or on-Site notice. Your continued use of the Site after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

15. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any order confirmations for paid placement, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Site. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may.

16. Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Reach us via our contact page.