Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 9, 2026

Scope. This Privacy Policy explains how Firsthand Event, Inc. (“we,” “us,” or “our”), the company behind Firsthand Gala, handles your information. It covers www.firsthandgala.com, backstage.firsthandgala.com, and tickets.firsthandgala.com, together with the ticketing, registration, and checkout sites we use for our events that link to this policy rather than publishing their own — referred to here as the “Sites.” Everything described below, including your privacy rights, applies identically across all of them.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly to us, such as when you register for our event, attend one of our events, subscribe to our newsletter, submit a speaking proposal, enter into a sponsorship agreement, or contact us. The categories below are examples rather than an exhaustive list, and the specific fields we ask for may vary by event, ticket type, and registration form:

• Name and contact information, such as email address, phone number, and postal or business address
• Professional information, such as company, job title, seniority, industry, and links to your professional or social profiles (for example LinkedIn)
• Payment information for ticket purchases
• Communication preferences
• Registration and attendance details, such as ticket type, discount or access codes, sessions and sponsored events you register for or attend
• Any other information you choose to provide to us, or that a registration, application, or survey form asks for in connection with an event

Speaking proposals. If you submit a proposal to us, we collect the content of that submission — session title, abstract, and description — together with your biography, headshot, job title and organization, links to your professional or social profiles, details of prior speaking experience, and the contact details you give us. If your proposal is accepted, we also collect the presentation materials you share with us. Selected speakers’ names, biographies, headshots, job titles, and session details are published on our public event pages and used in event promotion; the rest of a submission is used only to evaluate it and to run the event.

Sponsorship agreements. If your organization enters into a sponsorship agreement with us, we collect the business contact details of the people representing it (name, job title, email address, phone number), the name of the person signing on its behalf and the electronic signature they provide, and the agreement itself along with related correspondence. Sponsorship invoicing and payment are handled entirely by our payment processor, Stripe, which collects billing and tax details directly — we receive transaction records, not full payment credentials. Sponsor logos, company names, and descriptions supplied to us are published on our event pages and in event materials. Business contact information is treated as personal information under this policy, and the rights described in section 7 apply to it.

Dietary and accessibility requirements. When you register or complete your attendee details, we may ask about dietary requirements and accessibility needs. This applies to all ticket holders and attendees, speakers included. These fields are optional, and we ask for them only to arrange catering and on-site accommodations. Because this information can reveal health conditions or religious beliefs, we treat it as a special category of personal data: where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on your explicit consent, which you may withdraw at any time. We share it only with the venue, caterers, and accessibility providers who need it to deliver those arrangements, and we delete it after the event it relates to.

Sign in with Google. Where our sign-in page offers it, you can choose to sign in with your Google account. This is optional: you can always sign in with a one-time code sent to your email instead. If you choose Google, Google shares your name, email address, profile picture, whether Google has verified your email address, and an account identifier (plus, for Google Workspace accounts, your organization’s domain). We use only your email address and these verification signals, to confirm that you control that address, find your existing registration, and sign you in. Google sign-in works only for email addresses already registered for one of our events; it never creates a registration. We do not store your name, profile picture, or Google account identifier, and we do not share anything received from Google with anyone or use it for advertising or analytics. We never receive your Google password, and we request no access to your Gmail, contacts, calendar, or any other Google data. You can remove our access at any time at myaccount.google.com/connections. Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Process your event registration and ticket purchases
• Evaluate speaking proposals and select the event program
• Publish speaker profiles, session details, and sponsor listings on our event pages and in event materials
• Administer sponsorship agreements, including invoicing and payment
• Arrange catering and on-site accessibility accommodations
• Send you event updates and important information
• Respond to your inquiries and provide customer support
• Improve our services and event experience
• Send you marketing communications (with your consent)
• Share your details with a sponsor as a sales lead where you have consented under section 4
• Operate, secure, and troubleshoot our sites and systems, including preventing and investigating fraud, abuse, ticket resale outside our portal, and breaches of our Terms of Service
• Comply with our legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims
• Carry out any other purpose described to you at the point we collect the information, or that you otherwise consent to

3. Information Sharing

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as described in this policy. We may share your information with:

• Service providers who assist us in operating our event and website
• Our payment processor, Stripe, for ticket and sponsorship transactions
• Our accounting and contract-management providers, for sponsorship agreements
• The venue, caterers, and accessibility providers, limited to the dietary and accessibility requirements needed to deliver those arrangements
• Event sponsors and partners, where you have consented as described in section 4
• Legal authorities, regulators, and our professional advisers, where required by law or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims
• An acquirer or successor entity, in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of all or part of our business or assets

Information we receive from Google when you sign in with Google is not shared with anyone.

Information you provide to us for publication — speaker profiles and session details, sponsor logos and company descriptions — is publicly available once published, and may be indexed by search engines or reproduced by third parties. Contact us if you need a published profile corrected or removed.

4. Event Attendees and Sponsored Events

Sponsors and partners take part in our events in order to meet potential customers, and some activities at an event are run or funded by them. Those activities may share your information with the sponsor concerned.

Some activities around the event — such as sponsored talks, sessions, workshops, roundtables, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, receptions, happy hours, side events, prize draws, and similar activities — are hosted or sponsored by a third party. Signing up for, registering for, pre-registering for, expressing interest in, saving or adding one to your calendar, or attending one of these is voluntary.

By signing up for, registering for, pre-registering for, saving or adding to your calendar, or attending a sponsored activity, you consent to our sharing your registration information with that sponsor as a sales lead, and you opt in to receiving follow-up marketing from them. The information shared typically includes your name, job title, company, professional or social profile links (for example LinkedIn), email address, and the event or activity concerned, and may include other registration details you have given us. Where a sponsor co-hosts an activity with us, we and that sponsor act as independent controllers of the information shared.

Once your information has been shared, that sponsor is responsible for it and handles it under its own privacy policy, which we do not control. Requests to access, correct, or delete the information a sponsor holds, and requests to unsubscribe from a sponsor’s marketing, must be made to that sponsor directly; we cannot make them on your behalf, and withdrawing consent with us does not withdraw information a sponsor has already received. We are not responsible for a sponsor’s use of your information or for its compliance with applicable law.

If you do not want your information shared with a sponsor, simply do not sign up for, register or pre-register for, save to your calendar, or attend that sponsor’s activity. Separately, your name, job title, and company may be shown to other attendees through any networking or attendee-directory features we offer, where you have opted into them.

5. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the internet and no method of electronic storage is completely secure, so while we work to protect your information we cannot guarantee its absolute security. You are responsible for keeping any account credentials, ticket links, and access codes we issue to you confidential.

6. Data Retention

How long we keep your information depends on what it is:

• Speaking proposals and related materials — retained indefinitely, including proposals we do not accept, so that we can keep a record of past programs and consider submissions for future editions. You can ask us to delete your submission at any time and we will do so.
• Dietary and accessibility requirements — deleted after the event they relate to.
• Order and sponsorship records — kept for as long as we need them to meet our accounting, tax, and legal obligations.
• Newsletter and marketing subscriptions — kept until you unsubscribe.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access and update your personal information
• Request deletion of your personal information
• Opt-out of marketing communications
• Request a copy of your personal information

8. Third-Party Links

Our sites, emails, and event materials may contain links to, or integrations with, third-party websites and services — including sponsors, partners, the venue, ticketing and payment providers, and social platforms. Those third parties are independent of us and handle any information you give them under their own privacy policies. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, their content, or their compliance with applicable law, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies before providing information to them.

9. Children's Privacy

Our services are not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

10. International Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal information.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page and updating the effective date.

12. Contact Us

For questions about this Privacy Policy, or to exercise any of your privacy rights, email gala [at] firsthand [dot] vc.

Firsthand Event, Inc. · New York City, NY