Terms for venues

Rules for escape room operators who are listed in our directory or have claimed their profile.

1. Who we are and what we do

Escape Beacon is operated by ERI - Slovakia, s.r.o., Masarykovo nám. 259/13, 695 01 Hodonín, Czech Republic, company number 28284682, registered in the Commercial Register kept by the Regional Court in Brno, Section C, Insert 58124. Full details are on the Platform operator page.

We are an intermediary. The contract for providing the game arises between the player and you; we only arrange it. We do not provide the game, we are not liable for how it is run, and we are not a party to that contract.

2. Where your data comes from and what we do with it

We create the profile from publicly available sources — your website and escape room directories — even without your request. We state only what you have published yourself. Where a directory and your website disagree, your website prevails.

Any detail we cannot verify we leave empty; we do not fill it in by guesswork. A profile you have not claimed is marked as unclaimed, and for such games we warn players that prices and times are indicative.

You can request correction of the data or removal of the profile at any time — an e-mail to the contact address is enough. We remove it unconditionally and without asking anything of you.

When you confirm to us that the details about your games are correct, we show the label "Details confirmed by the venue" with the date of confirmation next to them. The label says only who confirmed the details and when — it is not our rating of the game and it has no effect on the order of results. It is valid for a year and refreshes whenever you confirm the details or edit them yourself in the profile. After a year it does not disappear; it is shown as older, so that it is visible when you last confirmed it.

3. What is free

The profile, claiming it, appearing in results and the link to your own booking system are free and with no time limit. We charge nothing for the listing itself and take no commission from bookings that reach you.

Only the extra features you order yourself are paid — their scope, billing and termination are described in Article 4. We do not move you into any of them automatically.

4. Paid services and billing

Two services are paid, both optional:

• Booking system — managing time slots, confirmations, overviews. It is charged as a monthly fee based on the number of rooms, not as a share of your revenue.
• Visibility (in preparation, not yet for sale) — we send a tip about your game to players who consent to it. It will be paid promotion and every such message will say so. It will not influence the order of results even then — that is a different matter and it is not for sale here (Article 5). Until we launch the service, it can be neither ordered nor paid for.

We take no commission from bookings that come through us. This is not a temporary promotion; it is how the platform is built. If we ever wanted to change it, that would be a change to these terms under Article 11 — announced in advance and with your right to delete the profile before it takes effect. Such a change would not apply to a period already paid for.

The price list published on the platform at the time of your order applies. Prices are in euros and stated without VAT, because the buyer is a business and the final amount depends on where they are established and whether they are VAT-registered. On the invoice we apply one of these regimes:

• a venue established in the Czech Republic — we add Czech VAT;
• a venue in another EU country with a valid VAT ID — an invoice without tax, with the reverse charge applying to you;
• a venue in another EU country without a VAT ID — we add the VAT applicable in your country and remit it through the One Stop Shop (OSS).

That is why we need your VAT ID before the first invoice and verify it in the VIES system. If you do not provide it, or verification fails, we invoice with VAT under the third point. We send the invoice electronically to the e-mail address you claimed the profile with.

The first ten bookings are free. The booking system is free until you accept the tenth booking through it. Only bookings you have confirmed and which were not cancelled count. Anyone who never reaches the tenth booking never pays anything. We issue the first invoice only for the period after that point, and we tell you by e-mail at least 14 days in advance.

Six months free for referrals. After claiming your profile you get your own link. When twenty players register through it, you get the booking system free for six months; the period starts on the day the twentieth account is verified. Only accounts verified by a one-time code sent to an e-mail address count — accounts that do not complete verification do not. You see the running total in the portal, so you know when you qualify even before we apply it.

We may end or change the offer in the previous paragraph for new venues at any time; we will announce it on this page. A free period you have already earned is unaffected and you will use all of it.

Other trial and discounted periods. If we offer you a free period or a discount beyond the above, we state its scope and length in writing when you order. After a free period ends we notify you by e-mail at least 14 days in advance, and the service becomes paid only if you have not cancelled it by then — without that notice we start charging you nothing.

Billing. The fee is paid in advance for the billing period and we send the invoice to the e-mail address you claimed the profile with. If the number of rooms changes, the fee is adjusted from the following period — we charge nothing extra for a room added mid-period.

If a payment fails. We notify you and give you at least 14 days to put it right. Only then do we suspend the booking system. The profile, the listing in results and the link to your own booking system stay free even then — an unpaid service does not mean we remove you from the platform. Bookings already confirmed remain valid and accessible.

Termination. You can cancel a paid service at any time, with no notice period and no penalty. It runs to the end of the paid period and does not renew; we do not refund the proportionate part of a period already paid for, unless the service failed through our fault. There is no lock-in and no minimum term.

Your data after termination. On request we will provide an export of bookings and time slots in a common machine-readable format, including after the paid service has ended.

5. How we rank results

This is the description of the main ranking parameters required by Regulation (EU) 2019/1150.

Ranking cannot be bought here. We offer no paid placement or preferential display, and no payment affects the order. We do not favour our own services either.

The player first chooses a city, a date, the number of players and a budget. Games that do not match are not shown — a game with an unknown price is not excluded, so that unclaimed profiles are not disadvantaged.

The remaining games are ranked by a match score made up of two parts:

• 65 % match with the query — how well the game matches what the player is looking for (genre, number of players, length, price, theme).
• 35 % the game's rating. If the game has reviews from our players, their average is used; otherwise a rating from public sources, where we have one. For a game with no rating the match alone is used — a missing rating therefore does not lower the ranking.

The review average is not taken raw. Until a game has at least eight reviews, its average is pulled towards the average of all games — otherwise a game with a single five-star review would jump ahead of one with fifty four-star ratings. The more reviews there are, the more the game's own average counts.

A player can switch the order to distance from their location; distance alone then decides. For games without a verified address we do not know the distance and they are placed last.

6. Player reviews

Players can publish reviews on games — a rating from one to five stars and a text. A review may be written by a signed-in player who has marked the game as played, and only one per game.

How we verify whether the player actually played. This has to be disclosed and we do it as follows:

• If the player booked through us and you confirmed the booking, we know they were at your venue. We label such a review "verified booking".
• Other reviews are the player's own statement that they played the game — we cannot verify this, and it is stated with every such review. We do not present them as verified.

We do not order, write or pay for reviews. We will never publish a review that was not written by the genuine user of the account.

We do not hide negative reviews or push them to the back. Reviews are ordered newest first and the rating has no effect on that.

We hide a review only if it is unlawful, unrelated to the game, discloses personal data or is a duplicate. We record the reason for hiding it so that it can be evidenced. A bad rating is not among those reasons, and we will not act on a request to delete a negative review where there is no other reason.

You have the right to reply publicly. You can write a reply to every review of your game in the partner portal, and it appears directly beneath it. A reply neither replaces nor hides the review.

If a player deletes their account, their reviews and the replies to them are deleted too.

7. Claiming the profile

We verify ownership with a code sent to the e-mail address published on your website. The code is valid for one hour and allows a limited number of attempts. If we have no such address, we confirm the claim after an individual check.

By claiming the profile you confirm that you are authorised to act for the venue. You are responsible for the accuracy of the data you add or change after claiming it.

8. Bookings

We arrange a booking with you only if you have claimed the profile. Depending on your settings, it is either a request for a time slot, which you confirm — and the player receives confirmation only after yours — or a direct booking, if you have set up time slots with us and switched direct bookings on.

You are obliged to honour a confirmed booking. If you cannot accept it, decline it — the player will be told, along with your contact details. Silence is worse than a refusal.

We do not prevent you from offering the same games elsewhere on any terms. We apply no best-price clause.

9. What data we hold about you and from you

You have access to the data in your profile and to bookings that came through us, including the player's contact details — without them you could not contact them. For this data each of us is a separate controller within the meaning of the GDPR: we for arranging the booking, you for using it further when providing the game.

We make visitor statistics for your profile available in the partner portal. We do not provide data about players to third parties and we do not sell it.

10. Restriction, suspension and termination

We may restrict or suspend a profile if it contains demonstrably false information, if you repeatedly fail to confirm or honour bookings, or if the venue has closed. We will tell you the reason and give you the chance to respond; if the matter can be put right, we will wait.

You can delete your profile at any time and without giving a reason. We remove it from the listing without delay. Any paid features end at the end of the paid period.

We may end the cooperation with 30 days' notice. This does not apply where the law requires otherwise or where there are repeated breaches.

11. Changes to these terms

We will notify you of a change to these terms at least 15 days in advance at the e-mail address you claimed the profile with. If you do not agree with the change, you can delete the profile before it takes effect. A shorter period applies only where the law requires it.

12. Complaints and disputes

Send complaints to the contact address; we reply within 30 days. We are a small enterprise, so we are not required to operate an internal complaint-handling system or to name mediators under Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 — that does not stop us from trying to resolve the matter, and we can agree on mediation.

The law of the Czech Republic applies. Jurisdiction follows the general rules.