I am doing an order bump on a virtual event, so that purchasers can add a friend for a discounted price. How do I need to amend my terms and conditions for this and do I need the additional person to sign anything?
The additional person does not need to sign the full terms and conditions as you do not for example need terms as to payment etc, but there are some key things that you need to provide for and as such I would have some simplified terms for the second person to agree to, including the following key protections:
- The ability to remove the person if causing disruption, without any obligation to refund;
- Protection of your IP so that the additional person cannot use your IP in a way that you don’t want them to eg sharing a recording of the sessions on their website;
- Giving yourself the right to record the sessions and putting the onus on the person to opt out by using a pseudonym and not going on camera if they do not want to be shown on the recording;
- Confidentiality provisions if what is being discussed has a confidential nature and on the flip side you being able to disclose any information that you need to for supervisory / duty of care purposes;
- Limiting your liability to the second person – this would be in relation to any duty of care rather than contractual obligations.
You should also amend your main terms and conditions with the main purchaser to make it clear that if the second person cannot attend, there is no refund for this part of the purchase.
If you were doing this order bump in relation to an in-person event, rather than a virtual event, you would also include provisions in relation to compliance with the health and safety policy of the venue, putting the responsibility onto the attendee for care of their personal belongings and obtaining an indemnity from them in relation to any damage to person or property that they may cause.
In addition, you should consider GDPR and ideally how you should structure it is that on the thank you page of the main purchase there would be an important information note to ask the purchaser to arrange for the second attendee to contact you at x email address for access to the virtual event. In this case, you will be receiving the personal data from the second attendee directly, and when you reply to them with the details for the event, you should provide them with a link to your privacy notice with the phrase “we process your personal data in accordance with our privacy notice“ (and then link to your privacy notice).
In relation to ongoing marketing to the second attendee, strictly this would not fall under the soft opt in exemption, as they have not themselves purchased the services. You should therefore by the letter of the law obtain opt in consent to future marketing. However, you may consider this low risk and decide to offer them the chance to opt out of your marketing instead.
There is a template in the Small Business Legal Academy for terms to be signed “at the event” that you can use to cover this. You can also amend them for virtual events by cutting out the bits that aren’t relevant to virtual events.
© Suzanne Dibble 2013-2023
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