Couchsurfing Events are a forum where travelers and locals can meet up, explore a place, or experience an event together. It is not meant to be used to find hosts/surfers, hangouts, rent rooms, ask for advice or advertise for commercial or business purposes.
If your event was removed, it is because it did not meet our Event Guidelines:
1. Commercial Events
Commercial events are any event where the creator is attempting to use Couchsurfing for financial gain (either directly or indirectly) or to grow a business, organization, or brand. We do not allow any commercial or promotional event on Couchsurfing.
What is not allowed:
- Bar, Club or Party promotion, where the organizer is attempting to gain financially. This includes entrance 'covers', minimum consumptions, entrance passwords or any 'club promoter' activity
- Business promotions, where the organizer is attempting to attract members to their website, blogs, shops, classes, etc.
- Tours that charge a fee or ask for a donation
- Any event that includes a cover charge, or if the organizer is collecting or receiving a percentage of the cover charge
- Lessons, classes, meetings, etc. that cost money to attend or where the organizer is collecting the money
What is allowed:
- Splitting gas/food costs (this should be clearly outlined in the event description beforehand and the final bill must be publicly visible)
- Letting members know that the event has an official cover charge or fee for attending. The fee must be paid to the official venue (like a concert ticket or museum visit where tickets are purchased from the official website)
- Organizing meetings in bars or public places where purchasing food or drinks is not mandatory.
Please note that event removal is up to the discretion of the Couchsurfing Support and Safety team and is not usually reversed. If you have questions about how to create appropriate events in the future, please contact us by filling out a support ticket here. We only remove events for commercial reasons if we have adequate proof. If reporting an event to us, please include as much proof as possible. We can not accept third party reports, so make sure that the member who experienced the violation of our commercial policy is the person reporting the event.
2. Cross Promotional Events
Couchsurfing Events must not be copies of Facebook, Meet-Up, or other externally posted events. Couchsurfing Events must be specifically tailored to the Couchsurfing Community and can not be external events advertising on the Couchsurfing Platform.
3. WhatsApp or External Chat Links
We do not allow external chat links (i.e. WhatsApp groups) to be posted on Couchsurfing, as this is a safety risk. We ask that all communication is kept in the Couchsurfing system. You may not post WhatsApp group links, ask members for phone numbers or direct members to external communication services in your event
4. Events that should be Public Trips
Events are not a place for you to look for a host or post about an upcoming trip. If you would like to find a host in the location you are traveling to, please create a Public Trip, not an Event. When you create a Public Trip, your request can be found by other members (Hosts) in that location through the Travelers Search section of the website. Hosts can then choose to invite you to stay with them.
To create a Public Trip, you can click the "Create a Public Trip" link in the "My Travel Plans" section of your dashboard.
5. Recycled Events
A 'Recycled Event' is an event in which the date is changed before the event ends, thus re-using an old event to advertise an event in the future. We do not allow members to change the dates of their events in this way because it misrepresents the event and the number of people who plan to attend, it also keeps outdated information in the comments section. Members should have an accurate estimate of how many members will be at an event and have the most up to date information. For this reason we do not allow members to re-use their events by changing the date to the future. For recurring events, you may use the recurring feature, otherwise you should create new events for each date in which the event will take place.
6. Location Spam
We understand that virtual events don’t require a physical address, but we still ask that events be hosted in the same city as their organizer. Copying/pasting an event in multiple cities is considered spam and is a violation of our Terms of Use. If you’d to like expand your event’s attendance, you can reach out to other members about co-hosting the event in their city or post about it in a related group, such as this one here: https://www.couchsurfing.com/groups/amazing-e-vents
Comments