Terms of Use

These terms apply when you use MassARTS: the website at massarts.com, its apps and its API (together, “MassARTS”, “we” or “us”). By using MassARTS you agree to them. If you don’t agree, please don’t use it.

If you buy a sponsored listing, section 9 applies to that purchase as well.

MassARTS is a free listing of theatre, dance, music and visual art events across the United States, with the venues and groups behind them. We gather listings from the organizers’ own websites and other authoritative sources, and people can suggest websites to add and report problems with a listing.

We don’t sell tickets or run the events. Tickets, sign-ups and other details are handled by the organizers and the websites we link to.

• You can search and read listings without an account. Following listings, suggesting websites, reporting problems and some other things need one.
• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
• Give a real email address and keep your password to yourself. You’re responsible for what happens under your account.
• Your @handle is chosen once. It must follow our rules (no offensive, misleading or reserved names). Only MassARTS admins can change it, and we may clear one that breaks the rules.
• To delete your account, email us at admin@massarts.com. Listings you added stay on the site without your name.

Please don’t:

• copy the listings in bulk, or collect them automatically (scraping, crawling, or using the site or API to build your own copy of our listings). Search engines may index the site as allowed by our robots file, and tools we’ve given API access may use the API as we’ve agreed with them;
• get around the limits on searches and requests, or the need to search near a place;
• send false reports, spam, or suggestions and reports that aren’t made in good faith;
• try to get into accounts or parts of the site that aren’t yours, or interfere with how it runs;
• use MassARTS to break the law or to harass anyone.

We limit how often some things can be done (for example, suggestions and reports per day for new accounts).

When you send us something (a suggestion, a report, a note, or later comments and posts), you confirm it’s yours to send and that it’s accurate as far as you know. You keep any rights you have in it, and you give MassARTS permission to use, store, copy, adapt and show it to run and improve MassARTS. That permission is free, worldwide and doesn’t end, but we won’t publish your email address.

We may decline or remove anything you send. A correction needs a link to where the right information is published; without one we may not be able to make the change.

• Listings come from organizers and other sources we don’t control. We work to keep them accurate, but dates, prices, places and other details can change or be wrong. Check with the organizer before you go or buy.
• A listing on MassARTS doesn’t mean we recommend or check the event, venue or group.
• If something is wrong, use Report a problem on the listing. If you run a venue or group and want a listing changed or removed, email us at admin@massarts.com.
• We may edit, update, combine or remove listings at any time.

If you perform, make or crew, you can start an artist page: your name, what you do, a short bio, links and the shows you’ve been part of. What you put on it is public, except what you keep on your resume only (below).

• It must be you. One page per account, under the name you’re billed as (a stage name is fine). Don’t start a page for someone else or pretend to be another person.
• Your name is chosen once. Only MassARTS can change it later, for example when your billed name changes: email us at admin@massarts.com.
• Credits you add are your own statement, shown as “Added by” you. Only add shows you really took part in, in the role you had. When a credit is tagged with a show on MassARTS, the show’s title, group, venue and year come from its listing. When the name on your page (allowing for accents and common nicknames) is on the show’s cast list from its group’s or venue’s website, the credit is marked On the cast list and takes the role as the cast list gives it. A name on a cast list shows that someone of that name was in the show; it never shows that a page is theirs. A credit is marked Confirmed, and your page is linked from the show, only once your page is verified, people from the show have confirmed it, or MassARTS has checked the credit. If two pages match the same name in a show, a verified page comes first and we decide the rest. Starting a page in someone else’s name is impersonation (see below).
• Confirming each other’s credits. You can ask people from a show to confirm a credit of yours: people with confirmed credits in the same show, or in other shows by the same group, are asked whether you were in it, and answer Yes, No or Don’t know. If you’re asked, answer only what you know. Visitors see only whether a credit is confirmed, never who answered or how. MassARTS keeps a record of every answer and who gave it, weighs answers by people’s own confirmed record, and sends a No to an admin. Answers we find to be wrong count against the person who gave them, and someone who keeps giving them, or who is found to be pretending, can no longer confirm credits; we then re-check the credits they helped confirm. The Verified artist badge comes from enough confirmed credits, with different groups, confirmed by different people, or from MassARTS. It says the page is run by the artist in those shows; it doesn’t vouch for anything else on the page. A new page with the same name as a verified artist, or a name we protect, is checked by us before it goes live.
• You’re responsible for what you write. Keep it accurate and yours to share, and leave out anything offensive. Artist pages have no photos, and we don’t show contact details.
• Artist pages aren’t for selling or advertising. Links can go only to well-known sites artists use (such as Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Backstage and IMDb), and a link to your own website only once you’re a verified artist. Visitors see your links once your page is verified or has a confirmed credit. Web addresses, email addresses and phone numbers can’t go in the text of your page (your bio, credits or sections); contact details belong on your resume. Report a page that sells, advertises or links to a scam with Report a problem.
• Your resume. The same information also makes a resume that only you can download, as a PDF or as text. You choose, for each credit and each section you add (training, awards, skills and so on), whether it goes on your artist page and your resume, or on your resume only. Contact details, unions, voice, height, hair and eyes are only ever on your resume. Sections you add are your own statement and are never confirmed.
• You can make your whole artist page private. Then only you (and MassARTS, to run the site) can see it: it isn’t found in search, shows don’t link to it, and followers hear nothing about it until you make it public again. A show’s own cast list still shows the names on it. Your resume works either way.
• Anyone can report an artist page with Report a problem. A page reported for pretending to be someone else is hidden while we review it. We may hide, change or remove a page, or any credit on it, that breaks these terms or that we can’t confirm. An artist can’t change a confirmed credit, but can make it Resume only or remove it; added again, it has to be confirmed again.
• A page started by its artist isn’t listed in search engines until the artist is verified; anyone with its link can open it.
• Anyone with an account can follow your page without asking you, since credits are public. Followers are told when you’re in a show still to come, but only for credits marked Confirmed or On the cast list, never for credits you added yourself. We don’t show who follows you.
• You can delete your artist page at any time from MyARTS: the page, its link and its credits go for good and can’t be restored. Deleting your account deletes your artist page too.

MassARTS links to other websites, such as ticket sellers, organizers’ websites and maps. They have their own terms and privacy policies, and we’re not responsible for them or for what you buy there.

Organizers can pay to have an event, venue or group sponsored. These terms apply to every sponsored listing, along with the rest of these Terms of Use.

What a sponsored listing is

• Sponsored listings are advertising. Each one is labelled “Sponsored” wherever it appears as sponsored, so visitors can tell it was paid for.
• A sponsored listing covers an area: the zip codes within a chosen distance of a zip code (5, 10, 25 or 50 miles). It can appear first, above other results, when someone searches from inside that area.
• It only appears when it matches what the visitor searched for (the kind of event, type, dates, words and other choices). It can come from further away than the distance the visitor chose.
• Up to two sponsored listings show at the top of a search. When more qualify, they take turns, so a sponsored listing won’t appear at the top of every search in its area.
• A sponsored event runs until its last performance. A sponsored venue or group sponsors all of its upcoming events for the weeks bought.

No guarantees of position or results

• We don’t guarantee a position beyond the sponsored places at the top of the results, a number of times it will be shown or clicked, or any ticket sales or attendance. Any estimate of searches we give is a guide based on past searches, not a promise.
• We’ll give you a report of how often your listing was shown and opened, on request.

Prices and payment

• The price depends on the area (each zip code’s price band), the length, and the venue’s size (seats). We tell you the price before you buy, and a quote is kept as it is when you ask.
• For now, payment is arranged directly with MassARTS. A sponsored listing starts once it’s paid and an admin has approved it.
• We set and may change prices; a change doesn’t affect a placement you’ve already bought.
• A renewal keeps its price for the period we tell you when you buy, then may rise by no more than the limit we tell you.
• Coupon codes and credits, when offered, work only for what they say and can’t be exchanged for cash.

When we pause, decline or remove one

• The listing must be accurate and allowed by these terms. We may decline a request, or pause or remove a sponsored listing, if it isn’t accurate, breaks these terms or the law, or could mislead visitors.
• A sponsored listing doesn’t show while its listing is off the site (for example, an event that’s cancelled or has no upcoming dates). That time doesn’t extend its end date.

Refunds and credits

• If we remove a sponsored listing for a reason that isn’t your fault, or it can’t run because of a problem on our side, we’ll refund or credit the part that didn’t run.
• If the event is cancelled, ask us at admin@massarts.com. We’ll credit the unused part toward a future sponsored listing, or refund it if you’d rather.
• We may also give a credit if a sponsored listing does less well than hoped. Credits are at our discretion, are used once on a future purchase by the same buyer, and don’t mean we’ve promised a result.
• Otherwise, sponsored listings aren’t refundable once they’ve started.

A full Privacy Notice is coming. Until then, in short:

• For an account we keep your email address, display name, @handle and what you save or send us.
• If you start an artist page, what you put on it is public until you delete it.
• Signing in uses cookies to keep you signed in. Our visitor statistics don’t use cookies and don’t identify you.
• If you haven’t told us where you are, we use your IP address to guess your town so we can show nearby events. We don’t store the address.
• We count searches by zip code and day, and how often sponsored listings are shown and opened, without recording who made them.
• We send account emails (such as confirming your email) through an email service, and keep records of errors to fix them.
• We don’t sell your personal information.

Questions about your information? Email us at admin@massarts.com.

The MassARTS name, logo and the design and software of the site are ours. Facts about events (titles, dates, places) belong to no one, but please follow section 4 on copying the listings. Names and marks of venues, groups and events belong to their owners. IP geolocation by DB-IP.

MassARTS is provided “as is” and “as available”. As far as the law allows, we make no promises about it (including that it will be accurate, complete, available or free of errors), and we aren’t responsible for events, venues, groups, ticket sellers or other websites.

As far as the law allows, MassARTS isn’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost profits, data or opportunities, arising from your use of the site. Our total liability to you for anything to do with MassARTS is limited to the greater of what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and US$100.

You agree to cover MassARTS for claims and costs that arise from what you send us or from your breaking these terms.

Some places don’t allow some of these limits; where that’s so, they apply as far as the law there allows.

We may suspend or close an account, remove content, or stop someone using MassARTS if they break these terms or the law, or to protect MassARTS and the people who use it. You can stop using MassARTS at any time.

We may update these terms. The version and the date it took effect are at the top of this page. If we make a change that matters, we’ll say so on the site, and for account holders we may ask you to accept it. Using MassARTS after a change means you accept it.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States, and disputes will be decided in the courts there, unless the law where you live says otherwise. If part of these terms can’t be enforced, the rest still applies.

Questions about these terms, or about a listing or sponsored listing? Email admin@massarts.com. To report a problem with a listing, use Report a problem on its page. To suggest a website, suggest it here.