Terms and Conditions

§ 1 Scope

1. These General Terms and Conditions apply to all contracts for the use of the BSTAGE platform at bstage.studio between BSTAGE UG (haftungsbeschränkt) in formation, Unterer Ahlenbergweg 39a, 58313 Herdecke (hereinafter the “Provider”), and its customers.
2. The offer is directed exclusively at entrepreneurs (Unternehmer) within the meaning of § 14 BGB (German Civil Code) – natural or legal persons and partnerships with legal capacity who act in the exercise of their commercial or independent professional activity, such as promoters, booking agencies and artists. By registering, customers confirm that they are acting as entrepreneurs. Consumers (Verbraucher) within the meaning of § 13 BGB are excluded from use.
3. Deviating or supplementary terms and conditions of customers do not become part of the contract, even if the Provider does not expressly object to them.

§ 2 Services

1. BSTAGE is a web-based platform for booking and event management. With one account, one or more workspaces can be used: Event, Agency and Artist.
2. The scope of functions depends on the plan selected for each area (§ 4) and on the service description on bstage.studio at the time of purchase. Functions that a plan does not include remain accessible in the navigation: data already recorded there can be read, but nothing new can be created or edited. Where no own data has been recorded yet, the platform shows sample content marked as such, which can be neither edited nor used.
3. The Provider continues to develop BSTAGE. It may change, supplement or replace functions, provided that the core of the agreed service is preserved and the change is reasonable for customers.
4. BSTAGE provides tools for requests, contracts, invoices and the planning of events. The platform does not process payments between users and does not sell tickets.

§ 3 Registration and account

1. Use requires an account. Information provided during registration must be true and complete and must be kept up to date.
2. Upon completion of registration, a contract of use for the selected area in the Free plan is concluded. Paid plans are purchased within the platform. During the beta phase, § 5a applies in addition.
3. Access credentials must be kept secret. If misuse is suspected, customers inform the Provider without undue delay. The Provider recommends two-factor authentication.
4. There is no entitlement to registration.

§ 4 Plans and prices

1. Each workspace is held in one of the Free, Basic or Pro plans and billed separately. If an account uses several areas in paid plans, the charge applies to each of these areas.
2. The prices in the price overview on bstage.studio at the time of purchase apply. All prices are net, plus statutory VAT.
3. In the Agency area, a charge applies in addition to the base fee for each active artist in the roster whose artist share the agency covers. For artists who pay their share themselves, the agency incurs no charge. In the Basic plan, a maximum of seven active artists is possible, regardless of who pays their share. A switch from Pro to Basic requires that no more than seven artists are active; any further artists must be removed from the roster beforehand. Archived artists do not incur a charge.
4. The agency chooses for each artist, when inviting them, who pays the artist share: the agency covers it, or the artist pays it themselves. A later change only takes effect once the artist agrees to it; until then the previous arrangement applies.
5. Only artists who have booked the Basic or Pro plan for their own artist area can join an agency; the trial (§ 5) is not sufficient. This also applies if the agency covers the artist share.
6. Artists who belong to an agency’s roster receive the Pro plan for their artist area. If the agency covers the artist share, it bears the charge in accordance with paragraph 3, and the artist pays nothing for it. If the artist pays their share themselves, they pay the price for artists in an agency shown in the price overview for the Pro plan. A paid subscription held by the artist themselves is suspended during this time and continues after the artist leaves the agency. After leaving, the artist retains the Pro plan until the end of the agency’s current billing period. The Pro plan through the agency and the price for artists in an agency apply only as long as the agency itself uses the Basic or Pro plan, including during its trial. If the agency continues on the Free plan, the artist’s own plan applies again immediately at the regular price, and a paused subscription resumes; membership of the roster remains. If the agency books Basic or Pro again, the artists in its roster receive the Pro plan again.
7. The agency retains its plan even if no artist is active any longer.

§ 5 Trial

1. For each area, the Pro plan can be used free of charge once for 14 days.
2. The trial ends automatically. If no paid plan is purchased during the trial, the area continues in the Free plan. The trial does not give rise to any payment obligation; it does not renew into a paid plan.

§ 5a Beta phase

1. Until the official launch, the Provider operates BSTAGE as a beta version (beta phase). The Provider determines the official launch and thus the end of the beta phase; it informs beta testers of it by email.
2. During the beta phase, use of the platform requires approval by the Provider. After registering, customers apply with brief details about themselves or their company; the Provider selects beta testers at its own discretion. There is no entitlement to approval. Applications that the Provider does not approve are placed on a waiting list; accounts on the waiting list are activated at the latest at the official launch. Anyone who registers with a valid invitation code from the Provider, or who, as an artist without an existing account, was invited via the platform by an agency or promoter and takes over the profile created for them via this invitation, is approved without an application. Until approval, only the application, account management, data export and deletion of the account are possible.
3. Use is free of charge during the beta phase. The platform may contain errors during this time. Availability and scope of functions are not guaranteed; functions may change, be discontinued or be temporarily unavailable. § 12 remains unaffected.
4. Approved beta testers bindingly receive the following benefits for all areas of their account, including areas added later: the Pro plan free of charge until the official launch; six further months of the Pro plan free of charge from the official launch; thereafter, for three months, 50% off the regular price of a paid plan then booked, as shown in the price overview. In the Agency area, the charge per artist under § 4(3) also does not apply during the free use. A trial under § 5 does not apply during this time.
5. After the free use ends, each area continues in the plan previously booked, or in the Free plan if no plan has been booked. A payment obligation only arises if customers book a paid plan. The Provider sends an email reminder 14 days before the free use ends.
6. After the official launch, registration is possible without an application. Only customers approved as beta testers by then receive the benefits under paragraph 4. Accounts on the waiting list and applications still pending at that time are activated at the official launch without these benefits; the Provider notifies them by email.

§ 6 Term and termination

1. The Free plan runs for an indefinite period. Customers can end it at any time by deleting the account.
2. Paid plans are purchased with monthly or annual payment. The term is one month or twelve months respectively from purchase and is extended in each case by the same period unless notice of termination is given before it expires.
3. Customers can terminate at any time with effect from the end of the current billing period, in the platform or in text form (Textform). After the end of the term, the area continues in the Free plan.
4. The right of both parties to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Good cause exists for the Provider in particular if customers are in default with charges due despite a reminder, or repeatedly or seriously breach § 8.

§ 7 Payment

1. Charges are due in advance for the respective billing period.
2. Payment is made via the payment service provider Stripe. The available payment methods are displayed at the time of purchase. The Provider makes invoices available electronically.
3. If customers are in default of payment, the Provider may, after a reminder setting a reasonable period, downgrade the affected area to the Free plan.

§ 8 Customers’ obligations

1. Customers use BSTAGE within the framework of the applicable laws. Prohibited in particular are content that infringes the rights of third parties or is offensive, discriminatory or punishable by law, and unsolicited advertising.
2. Customers are responsible for the content and data they upload – including personal data of third parties such as guest lists, staff or contact persons. They ensure that they are permitted to process this data and to enter it into BSTAGE.
3. Interfering with the technical functioning, circumventing security or plan restrictions and automated retrieval outside approved interfaces are prohibited.
4. Customers are themselves responsible for the substantive, legal and tax accuracy of contracts and invoices that they create with BSTAGE. Templates provided by the platform do not replace legal or tax advice.

§ 9 Content, visibility and moderation

1. Rights to uploaded content remain with the customers. For the duration of the contract, they grant the Provider the non-exclusive right (einfaches Recht) to store and reproduce the content and to make it publicly accessible to the extent selected, insofar as this is necessary for operating the platform.
2. Customers determine in the settings which profiles, availabilities and posts are publicly visible.
3. Content can be reported via the reporting function. The Provider reviews reports and may hide or remove content that is unlawful or violates these Terms and Conditions, and may block accounts. Those affected are informed of the decision and the reasons for it insofar as Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act) provides for this.

§ 10 Contracts between users

Requests, offers, applications, contracts and invoices that arise via BSTAGE between promoters, agencies and artists establish legal relationships exclusively between these parties. The Provider does not become a contracting party and does not owe their performance.

§ 11 Availability

1. The Provider makes BSTAGE available within the limits of what is technically and economically reasonable. It does not owe uninterrupted availability.
2. The Provider announces maintenance work that leads to longer interruptions in advance where possible.

§ 12 Liability

1. The Provider is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the Produkthaftungsgesetz (German Product Liability Act) and to the extent of any guarantee it has assumed.
2. In the case of slight negligence, the Provider is liable only for the breach of material contractual obligations (wesentliche Vertragspflichten) – obligations whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance customers may regularly rely. In this case, liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract.
3. The Provider is liable for the loss of data only to the extent that would also have arisen if customers had backed up their data regularly and in a manner appropriate to the risk – for example via the platform’s export functions.
4. In the Free plan, during the trial and during the free use under § 5a, the Provider, in deviation from paragraph 2, is not liable for slight negligence; paragraph 1 remains unaffected.
5. No-fault liability for defects already existing at the time the contract is concluded under § 536a(1) BGB is excluded.

§ 13 Data protection and commissioned processing

1. The Provider processes personal data in accordance with its privacy policy.
2. Insofar as customers process personal data of third parties in BSTAGE, the Provider acts as a processor under Art. 28 GDPR. For this, the data processing agreement (Vertrag zur Auftragsverarbeitung) applies, which becomes part of the contract upon acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.

§ 14 End of contract and data

1. When the account is deleted, the Provider deletes the customer’s account and profile data. Content in the workspaces – events, bookings, contracts, invoices, messages and files – remains stored because the customer’s business partners continue to work with it. Irrespective of this, the Provider deletes messages in chats and booking threads three years after the last message in the respective thread. Customers can delete content themselves beforehand or request its deletion in text form after the end of the contract; the Provider then deletes it within 30 days, insofar as it is not also assigned to business partners and no statutory retention obligations prevent this.
2. Customers export data that they are required to retain themselves – such as their own invoices and contracts – before deletion. The export in the account settings contains all data and files of the account.
3. If an area continues in a plan with a smaller scope – after the end of the trial (§ 5), after termination (§ 6) or after a downgrade due to default of payment (§ 7) –, data already recorded is retained and remains readable. In functions that the new plan does not include, nothing can be created or edited until a renewed upgrade (§ 2). The export in the account settings remains available at any time.

§ 15 Amendments to these Terms and Conditions

1. The Provider may amend these Terms and Conditions with effect for the future if there is a valid reason – such as a change in the legal situation or new functions – and the amendment does not unreasonably disadvantage customers.
2. The Provider notifies customers of amendments in text form at least six weeks before they take effect. If customers do not object by the time the amendments take effect, they are deemed accepted; the notification expressly points out this consequence. In the event of an objection, either party may terminate the contract with effect from the time the amendments take effect.
3. Price changes for current paid plans apply at the earliest from the next billing period and entitle customers to terminate with effect from that time.

§ 16 Final provisions

1. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).
2. To the extent permitted by law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from this contract is the Provider’s registered office in Herdecke. The Provider may also sue customers at their general place of jurisdiction.
3. Should individual provisions be or become invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions remains unaffected.