Frequently Asked Questions
Business Model
Is Plug.events a for-profit business?
Yes.. we are a purpose-driven company created by people with a shared vision. We prioritize civic integrity and social responsibility over profits to the greatest extent possible. As such, we may in the future transition to a non-profit foundation if our revenue is sufficient to fund development.
How does Plug.events make money?
Initially, we are self-funded. Our intention is to develop revenue based on financial transactions between people and organizations in the community, with Plug earning our keep from those transactions, these transactions may be for such things as subscription and ticket services. Our revenue will therefore be proportional to the strength and activity of the communities, which ensures that we continue to treat communities as the customer.
We have carefully aligned our company interests with those of our partners, supporters, and patrons, so that we minimize the risk of conflicts of interest or the chances that our business model can become exploitative.
What will your commission be on monthly revenue?
We have yet to determine the precise percentage, but it will likely vary based on different tiers of service and the value that different partners bring to the platform. In other words, the rate of commission will be directly proportional to community activity – as an organiser the more you support and promote Plug.events to grow new users the lower the commission.
Will you ever add paid advertising?
No, never… ever.
Will organizers have to pay?
No, not to use the platform or to publish events. To use our services that incorporate financial transactions, yes we will charge a small commission per transaction. There will be some notable exceptions who will not pay or may get a reduced rate, such as our ambassadors. To learn more about our ambassador programme please contact us.
Are you supported by venture capital?
As of January 2024 no, we are not.
We have chosen to bootstrap the project ourselves and forgo personal income for some years, thus retaining our ethical integrity, our freedom from commercially-driven and contractual obligations, and avoiding a lot of time-wasting meetings. The game of growth for growth’s sake is largely responsible for the current social media paradigm, with all of its flaws, and many, but not all, venture capitalists are part of this problem.
Having said that, if a venture capital firm came to us, and demonstrated that they have a high degree of ethical integrity and respect our values, we would consider their proposal.
Will you sponsor, promote, or support my events?
We will never sponsor events since we want to remain altruist and agnostic encouraging all types of community to use Plug.events. We are happy to publish and promote all legitimate events them across our channels, including our website, email, messaging apps, and social media. We believe that if we support you, the development of your community by supporting organisers and other event service-providers with a stable recurring income from their community the Plug.events community will expand organically to other members and other communities outside of your network.
How can I partner with Plug?
Unsure of where you go from here? Sign up, or reach out to us directly. We want to learn about you and your community, and are happy to take it step-by-step.
Features and Information
What communities do you support today?
Anyone from any community can join and use the rich features today your interests can be as diverse as rock climbing, chess, model railways, knitting and personal events such as anniversaries. Any interest can be added and used to describe and search for any events and organisations.
Currently, we actively curate events and cultivate partnerships within forró, balfolk, fusions and tango, particularly in Europe.
What communities do you intend to support in the future / When will you support my community?
We intend to extend this active support soon, both geographically and to related dance and martial arts communities. Beyond that our platform is designed to be agnostic, to support any community, whether professional networks, sports, religious communities, and more, whether they be local or internationally oriented.
If you feel that your community would benefit by migrating to our website, please reach out to us. We love to meet fellow altruists dedicated to culture and community.
How can I migrate my events and related information to Plug?
We are keen to work with anyone that would like to migrate their information and community to Plug.events. There are several ways of doing this, they are usually variations on:
a) You providing all data on structured spreadsheets and using a standard plug-it-in migration, normally this is a free service
b) Us doing a custom migration from your existing site or system to Plug.events, normally there is a fee for this which will depend on the scale and complexity of the job
Every migration is unique and we like to proceed slowly but surely to ensure that we avoid misunderstanding and can ultimately load your data as accurately and effectively as possible.
As an organizer, artist, or teacher, how and where will you promote my events?
Plug.events promotes your events in a number of ways:
- In our search engine on Plug.events
- In our personalized calendar app on Plug.fyi
- We suggest events to our users that we think they will be interested in
- We will email users event updates and calendars based upon their preferences
- We will allow users to find events published on Plug directly from their favorite messaging apps
- We will publish your events automatically to relevant social media groups and pages
- We will develop relationships with a number of partner sites that your events will automatically be published to.
Can I sell tickets for my event through Plug.events?
No not yet, but soon!
We are developing a fully featured ticketing service that will be available to organizers who will pay a small commission for the financial transactions.
Where do you get all the events from?
For those communities that we are actively curating we use a mix of manual and automated curation. We collaborate with local organizers and associations to catalogue organizers, artists, teachers etc., we then use this information plus other websites with event-related information to populate Plug.events. This is a labor-intensive process as we are still working on the system to remove duplicates and organize the information into the structure that we need.
We encourage organizers and curators to add events and organisations and to claim their own events and organisations so that they can maintain them. Once a community and its organizers are very active we will reduce the level of our curation activities and then concentrate on another community. In this way, each community will become self-sufficient and we can grow the users and communities on Plug.events
User Privacy
Do I need an account to use Plug?
No, we have designed this site so that people can get a lot of value out of it without signing up or giving us any information you are not comfortable sharing.
Having said that, if you do create an account there are various benefits such as detailed information, your own menus and saved searches etc. Organisers, bands, teachers, DJs etc can be created and owned by people with a plug account, they will have their own detail page and events can be organized by an Org (which is the term we use for these)
Do I need to use my real name?
No, we will have a number of ways to verify that users are real people and are not creating multiple accounts, but as a privacy first social networking site we do not need to know anything you are not comfortable sharing with us. We use peer-verification, and assume that your peers will know you by your nickname and personal style.
Do you verify users or organizations?
We primarily rely on peer-verification.
We will provide various degrees verification as an option for users, although likely through a non-profit third party. For organizations, we will verify the ownership of events and organization pages when they are claimed, and may also provide organization verification as an option in future.
Note that for Orgs that use our future financial-related services such as ticketing the payment processor has a requirement to verify due to the banking regulations known as KYC (know your customer).
Will I be pressured to verify by ID?
Not by us, we respect user privacy deeply and will do everything possible to avoid invasive practices. Other users may choose to interact with ID-verified users outside their core communities, which fall outside our peer-verification system. We intend to use a privacy-first, third-party non-profit for strictly optional SMS and ID verification, and will never charge you directly or make a profit from ID verification.
May I have more than one account?
You may’
We work on the principle that the more difficult it is to maintain numerous accounts and grow their reach the more healthy digital spaces are. Therefore, whilst this not against our rules, our intention is to make it difficult to maintain multiple accounts to avoid what are commonly called ‘sockpuppets’, ‘brigading’, ‘review bombing’, ‘astroturfing’, ‘bot spamming’, or ‘mass gaslighting’.
people that provider event related services can separate their activities by have their personal account and any number of ‘Orgs’ such as Organiser, Band, Teacher, Performer, Masseur, Association etc.
Do you sell user data?
No, never.
We barely collect any user data, and make it easy to delete your account and personal data if you wish to disconnect from our service. Our business model is based upon a mutually beneficial partnership with the core members of real-world communities, allowing their fans to support them through monthly subscriptions and ticket and membership sales.
How secure is my data?
We take the security and privacy of your account and data very seriously, using the latest encryption and authentication technologies to keep your information safe.
What does Plug.events do with personal information?
The short answer is: only what we need to in order to administer and facilitate your account, and so you can get the most out of our service. The long answer is comprehensively detailed in our privacy policy.
Does Plug have private groups?
Today we do not have private groups, and will likely not develop them in the way you are familiar with on platforms like Facebook, Slack, Discord, or messaging apps.
Plug has a range of novel privacy controls, and we intend to create ways for moderated communities to communicate in private and controlled spaces. The reason for this is that we want to avoid the siloing effects of other social platforms, where communities become difficult to find from the outside.
Can I hide or control the visibility of my profile?
Yes, we adopt a private-by-default model in accordance with GDPR, the European regulatory standards.
As the platform develops we are planning to add novel means of controlling your privacy, so that you can make yourself or your content visible only to specific communities, or individuals who meet a certain criteria set by you.
Do you have a dedicated person responsible for privacy?
Yes, check out our team page for a full list of contributors and responsibilities.
Will you send me emails, and how often?
We do, but only if you want to receive or there is something that you must know – such as when you first sign-up when we will send an email confirmation.
We will be adding features to allow you to control the frequency and types of emails we send to you, but until then we will try to keep it within sensible limits, while ensuring that you get the most out of the site and don’t miss out on anything we definitely think you need to know about.
How long do you keep my data after I delete my account?
We are legally allowed to keep this data for 30 days after account deletion, and we do hold to this 30 day policy in order to give you time to change your mind. Account deletions are final, after all!