Memories Guidelines

In addition to our general community guidelines, we have specific posting guidelines for review or reviews (“memory” or “memories”).  Reviews are posted to a profile page and are associated with a rating between 1 and 5. Ratings selected may have an impact on the event’s position in Soundclub’s popularity rankings and/or how an event appears on our platform. 

We broadly define an event as a concert, festival, party or any artist live performance and as such it can involve the review (“memory”) of a festival, event, venue or artist profile present on our site.

Second-Hand Experiences

A review on Soundclub  should be an honest account of a fan’s personal experience at an event listed on our site. As reviews are associated with a rating and impact a event’s position within Soundclub ’s popularity ranking they should include relevant, helpful tips for other fans and members of our community and must be based on a first-hand experience.

In order to ensure each review reflects a first-hand experience, each user must have their own account and may not write on behalf of others or use another’s account to submit, unless you’re writing about the experience of someone in your group at the same event as part of your experience.

The author of the review should be the person who experienced the event directly – either via a trip there, a booking, or by experiencing the event or some other service interaction. 

If you did not experience the event we will not post your review. 

To ensure that fans are aware of serious safety incidents at events we do have a few exceptions to our policy requiring a review to be first-hand:

• Death. In the unfortunate case of a death involving an event listed on Soundclub, one family member may write a review on behalf of the deceased. If more than one review is submitted, we will post the first review submitted until a more immediate family member submits a review. If at any time a member of the traveling party posts a review describing the incident, we will remove the submission from the non-travelling family member.
• Minors Involved in a Serious Safety Incident. Parents or guardians of children under the age of 18 when the minor is involved in a serious safety incident, such as an assault or serious physical injury, may write a review on behalf of the minor.

Second-Hand Information

As we want the experience you write about to be your own, we do not allow information attributed to a third-party to be posted as part of your review.  Specifically we will remove reviews that contain the following (no matter how minor of a mention):

• Quotes or descriptions from the media, internet or another guest/person that is not part of your group. This includes, among many others, excerpts of laws, quotes from government agencies, food ratings or a news story.
• Information that you receive from a third-party after your experience with the event.

Exceptions to this guidance are (as long as they pertain to your experience):

• Anything communicated to you by a staff member of the event you are reviewing.
• Opinions or experiences of those in your group.
• Minor references to recommendations received from other fans or locals – but not media – prior to experiencing the event.
• Opinions, advice or diagnoses from your lawyer or doctor pertaining to your experience with the event.
• References to well-known (i) facts, (ii) news stories, (iii) public opinions, or (iv) world events (“well-known” is defined as those things that would be known by most international fans traveling to that event.)
• Incidental mentions of another fan’s experience, either (i) reported directly to you by that guest, but which you did not witness yourself, or (ii) reported directly to staff which you witnessed.

It must relate directly to something you or your group experienced. 

For example, we would not post a review that states, “Another fan at the event told me that the festival owner doesn’t pay her employees on-time.”

We would post a review that states, “Another fan at the event told me they also had the best pina colada at the event”

The fans must have experienced the event at the same time as you.

Irrelevant to Event Experiences

Political, Ethical, Religious Views

Reviews are not the place to discuss political preferences, ethical differences, religion or your perspective on wider social issues. We understand fan experiences can be deeply personal and may incite perspectives around politics and religion – and we will post such commentary as long as it is directly relevant to the location or event you are reviewing and meets our other content posting guidelines. Any such commentary that evolves into a rant may be removed.

If the political, religious, ethical or social views of the owner or employees of the event listed on our site directly impact the experience you are reviewing, you may elaborate on this but not expand to include your personal, non-event related perspective. We also will post comments and advice that relates to local customs which impact the event, as long as your personal event experience with the event you are reviewing is detailed.  For example, if a specific event is not LGBT+ friendly due to local laws or owner behavior, we encourage contributors to share this information with our fans community.

Review Length and Ratings

It is important that your review offers fan guidance to those planning future event participations! For that reason, if your review does not contain enough substantial information about the event you are reviewing, we may ask you to provide additional information about your experience.

Reviews that contain very little context in them will be removed.

Our rating is from 1 to 5, with 1 being defined as “Bad” and 5 being defined as “Excellent.”  Also, we ask you to rate specific aspects of your experience.

Irrelevant to Your Experience

If your review contains excessive commentary on other reviews, event owners or Soundclub policies we will ask you to resubmit a review that primarily focuses on your experience with that event.

If you believe a review has been written by the owner or competitor of a listing on Soundclub, please use the reporting function on our site to let us know. Reviews that allege other posted reviews are fraudulent will not be posted as that information does not relate to your fan experience. If you are concerned a particular event is engaged in multiple incidents of fraud please email us at fraud.reviews@soundclub.com. You can also contact us with any other fraud-related questions you may have.

Listed on our Site

We list all events relevant to fans, however we don’t accept reviews for events that are not listed. Your review will be removed if it is submitted on an event that does not correlate with a listed event on Soundclub. If you would like to submit a review for a business that is not listed, we ask that you submit a request for a new listing first. 

Unique & Recent Experiences

Recent Experience

To ensure reviews are fresh and current, all reviews must be submitted within one year of your experience.

You may write one review on any given event listed on Soundclub per experience or visit. This means one review per event. If you would like to amend your original review you will need to delete that review and submit a new one.

Unique Experience

We will not post a review that describes the same experience to two events; we will post it to the most relevant event.

We will allow multiple fans to write about the same experience. For example, if you and your partner each choose to write a review from your own individual perspectives, we will post both reviews.  We also allow reviews from multiple members of a large group. Please just make sure the content is written in your own words and from your own perspective.

Reviewers may only have one account on Soundclub, except in exceptional circumstances determined at Soundclub’s sole discretion. If you submit a review to the same listing from multiple accounts, we may remove duplicate submissions.

Bias & Attempts to Manipulate Soundclub Rankings

Soundclub  does not allow content on our site that is biased or submitted in an attempt to manipulate rankings or ratings on our site. Violations of these guidelines may result in penalties to your Soundclub  listing page.

Furthermore, not abiding by these guidelines may violate local, national and/or international laws and can lead to legal action – including civil and criminal penalties.

Biased Content

Soundclub  strives to ensure that all reviews are submitted from an authentic fan’s perspective. This means any person affiliated with an event listed on our site, in any way, may not write a review of that event.

Specifically we will not accept reviews from users who:

• Are currently employed or have been employed at an event at any point in time.  This includes reviews from people who have volunteered at or for an event listed on our site.
• Are related to or are friends with a current employee or owner.
• Receive any goods or services or provide goods or services to an event.  
• Are employed at an affiliated company.

Attempts to Manipulate Event Ranking 

Soundclub  is staunchly opposed to any and all attempts at artificially manipulating a event’s ranking on our site. These include, but are not limited to, the following actions:

• Reviews submitted by event representatives. We reserve the right to remove content and/or penalize events should we receive content submissions from anyone who owns, is employed by, or is affiliated with the reviewed event, or any umbrella or parent companies with which that event may be affiliated, in any way. This includes (but is not limited to) content from users who are upfront about their affiliation in addition to users who are impersonating fans, competitors, or any other individuals or entities.  It is also prohibited for representatives of an event to submit reviews on behalf of fans, regardless of whether the opinion is genuine or not.
• Paid Reviews/Review Exchanges. Soundclub  is staunchly opposed to the selling, purchasing, or quid-pro-quo exchange of reviews. Any reviews submitted in this manner are considered inherently fraudulent and will be met with penalties for not only the event or events involved, but the reviewers as well. If you have been contacted by anyone offering these services, or you know of anyone involved in this behavior, please let our team know at fraud.reviews@soundclub.com
• Incentives for Reviews. It is against our guidelines to offer or promise anything in exchange for any reviews, irrespective of rating. Examples include offers for free drinks, discounts, entry into a contest, making donations to a cause in the name of a customer, etc.
• Incentives for Review Removals. attempts by an individual representing an event to offer anything in exchange for the removal of a published review are against our guidelines and will be met with penalties.
• Pressuring Users to Remove Reviews. attempts by anyone affiliated with an event to pressure, threaten, or otherwise coerce a user into removing their review for that event are a violation of our guidelines and will be met with penalties. 
• Employee Incentives. It is a violation of our guidelines for an event to offer incentives designed to reward employees for encouraging reviews, e.g., a bonus for being mentioned in a review, or a contest for the highest number of reviews achieved within a certain timeframe.  Such programs are against our guidelines and may be met with penalties to an event’s ranking. If you are aware of such programs at any event, please let our team know by emailing fraud.reviews@soundclub.com
• Review Gating. We prohibit the practice of selectively soliciting positive content and/or rejecting moderate or negative content. If any survey or external website ultimately directs users to submit a review on Soundclub , the user interface and experience for submitting positive and negative reviews must be identical. For example, directing a fan to one review page if they indicate a positive experience but directing them to another path (such as an internal customer support channel) if they indicate a negative experience is against our review guidelines.
• Restrictions.  We do not allow events to contractually prohibit or discourage fans from posting negative or critical reviews of their experience. 
• Vandalism.  Any attempts, made by individuals affiliated with one event, to damage the reputation of a competing event are considered to be violations of our guidelines. This includes (but is not limited to) submitting negative reviews, attempting to falsely register as an owner of the competing listing, or similar behaviors.

User Attempts to Manipulate an Event’s Ranking

Any users who attempt to manipulate an event’s ranking, even if not affiliated with that event, may be banned from our site due to such actions. The actions may be, but are not limited to:

• Blackmail. Soundclub classifies any attempt made in bad faith by a fan to obtain something of value from an event by threatening to post a negative review on Soundclub , or promising to remove a published negative review, as blackmail. It is not considered blackmail if a fan mentions they plan to write a review due to a negative experience but is not making a bad faith demand. Examples would include a fan trying to rectify a situation.
• Review Bombing Events. Reviews must describe a first-hand experience; users who are submitting reviews to an event due to a personal or political agenda, or reviews submitted solely due to news or social media exposure of an event which do not describe first-hand experiences will not be published. If a significant amount of such content is detected on a listing, we reserve the right to temporarily suspend publishing all content for that listing.
• Impersonation of Soundclub Employees. Soundclub  does not employ anyone to physically visit and rate events (also known as “secret shoppers” or “mystery shoppers”). Event owners should not trust anyone representing themselves as such and should alert us to this behavior immediately by contacting fraud.reviews@soundclub.com.

Ineligible Experience

There are some scenarios where we do not allow a review to be posted even if there might have been some contact with the event. You are invited to share such comments in the Wall section of our site where members of our community discuss event-related topics.

Some examples of this may include:

• Comments solely on an event’s policy.  While it may be helpful for a fan to know certain policies, it is unfair to an event to be rated negatively based solely on these types of policies that occur regularly in the event industry.  We will remove reviews that simply describe an interaction that is a disagreement on the stated policies.  If you describe a more substantial customer service interaction with the business, beyond the stated policies, we will post the interaction because we believe that customer service experience may be helpful to travelers.
• Commenting on a event due to media coverage. If you wish to comment on a recent event at that event which attracted media attention but at which you were not present, we will not post your review. 
• Comments solely on event hours or closures. we will not post reviews commenting solely on event hours or closures unless the official information posted by the event created an expectation of service.
• Unsuccessful attempts to contact an event. We do not consider unanswered calls or emails to be a valid description of the service provided by the event.
• Experiencing an event from the “outside.” If you visit an event with only the intent to view its architecture or decor, we will only post a review if a main component of the event is that visual element alone.