Why does Groupmuse ask for so much personal information?
In general, we try to only collect what we need to run Groupmuse. However, our hosts are opening their home to total strangers, so our requirements to keep everyone safe are higher than your average website.
Pictures
If you're trying to reserve a spot at a groupmuse and you don't already know the host, we will require a picture with your face in it be added to your account. Hosts feel much safer when they can see that you are more than just a name and an email address.
If you already know the host, then ask them to send you an invite through our invite system. Reservations placed through an invite do not require you to upload a picture.
Phone numbers
Phone numbers are not required to reserve a spot at a groupmuse. However, if you want to receive text message notifications about that event (like the exact address when it's released), you may optionally add a phone number to your account. You can also opt to receive text messages from us about upcoming events in your neighborhood.
Contact info for +1s
When you add +1s onto your reservation, we'll ask for their contact info. This is so that we can send them updates about the event you're attending.
- The date and time of the groupmuse.
- Our audience member expectations.
- The exact address of the groupmuse, 24 hours before the show.
- Communication from the host via the comments section.
We may also send them emails related to other nearby events, but if we do, we'll make it extremely clear in both our original email, as well as any subsequent email, that they can easily unsubscribe from such emails.
Credit cards
Credit cards are the only way we have of collecting payments online. We use this to collect the $3 reservation fee from each attendee, and also any ticket purchases for ticketed events. We'd love to integrate more services like PayPal, but currently we are a small team of ~10 and don't have the bandwidth. We totally understand why people are worried about giving their credit card details online, but this is our only option right now.
Please know that we use a supremely secure credit card processor, Stripe, to handle all sensitive data. Your credit card data will literally never touch our servers (it is securely encrypted by Stripe before we touch it).
Credit cards also allow us to offer a very convenient feature: paying musicians through your phone. As fewer and fewer people carry cash around with them, we are happy to offer online musician payments on our Mobile app, and at groupmuse.com/pay, so that musicians can always get paid.
Birthdays
Many hosts ask us to confirm that all attendees coming to their groupmuse are 21 years or older. This is usually because there will be alcohol at the event, and they are worried about minors drinking. For this reason, we started collected
Social media accounts
Connecting Groupmuse with your social media accounts is completely optional, and mainly there for convenience (e.g. Login with Facebook), and to add trust (hosts can see that an attendee has connected social media accounts).