Privacy Policy

Introduction 

Opera Prelude is committed to protecting your personal information. It’s your information, it’s personal, and we respect that. We also want to maintain the trust and confidence of every one of our audience members and supporters, as well as users of our website.

Our Privacy Policy gives you detailed information on when and why we collect your personal information, how we use it and how we keep it secure.

Aside from helping us deliver truly exceptional performances and events, the information you share with us means you’ll receive a more personalised and rewarding experience e.g. information about performances that may interest you as well as a smoother ticket-buying process.

Registering for Opera Prelude’s e-newsletter has many benefits, not least the opportunity to receive information about our work and our young artist’s performances with other companies. You can register with us at any time by emailing us or via our website.

How We Collect Your Personal Information 

Generally, we collect your information when you decide to interact with us. This could include purchasing tickets online, over the phone or in person or it could be where you sign up to receive emails from us.

We collect information when you contact us in a number of ways which are listed below:

1. Buy tickets online including Friends Membership

2. Contact us by phone to book tickets

3. Make a donation

4. Contact us by post, e.g. application forms for Friends membership

The Types of Information We Collect 

We only collect the information that’s necessary to carry out our business, provide the particular service you’ve requested and to keep you informed. There are occasions when you can choose not to give us certain information, but this for example, may limit the level of personalisation we offer e.g. you may not get to hear about an event you would have loved to have attended.

The type of information we collect depends on where and when it is gathered:

Information we obtain directly from you:

When you purchase tickets or other items from us online, by post or phone we need to collect information from you in order to provide the service you are

requesting. We may collect:

  • Prefix and name

  • Email address

  • Contact phone number(s)

  • Delivery address(s)

  • Billing address

Social Media

  • Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you may give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.

Why We Collect Personal Information and How We Use It 

The information we hold on you will be used in a number of ways. Here are the main ones: to provide a service you have requested, offer you a personalised experience and understand our audience’s needs better, inform you of events or updates you’ve asked for or contact you if we need to obtain or provide additional information (e.g. cast changes).

Specifically, we use your information we collect in the following ways:

  • To carry out our business and to provide a service or carry out a contract with you

  • To fulfil ticket, donation and membership requests.

  • Process payments. Please note that Opera Prelude does not store any Credit Card or other payment information.

  • Provide the best possible customer services and to help us with internal administration.

  • Contact you with important information relating to your booking or purchase, such as confirming your order, reminding you of an upcoming performance you’ve booked for or letting you know about cast changes or any other issues that may affect your visit.

Where we have your consent: 

  • Send you updates via email about what’s on, offers and news or about supporting us.

  • Email or post information to you about a specific topic you’ve requested to hear more about

Where we have justifiable reason, including legal obligation and legitimate interest: 

  • Learn about your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information that is relevant to you.

  • Help us target our marketing communications and adverts so that they’re more relevant to you.

  • For classifying our audience into groups or segments, using booking and publicly available information. These segments help us to understand our audience better and ensure we’re sending relevant messages to each group.

  • Measure and understand how our audiences respond to a variety of marketing activity so we can ensure our activity is well targeted, relevant and effective.

  • Analyse and continually improve the services we offer including our artistic output, our website and our other products.

  • To keep our database accurate and relevant, for example, using National Change of Address.

How We Handle Your Information and Other Organisations 

Opera Prelude will never share, sell, rent or trade your personal information to any third parties for marketing purposes without your prior consent. We will ask for your consent to share personal information with like-minded arts organisations whose shows you will have seen here via Opera Prelude or in collaboration with us at another venue.

Opera Prelude is not responsible for the privacy notices and practices of other websites even if accessed using links from www.operaprelude.org and recommends that you check the policy of each website you visit and contact its owner or Data Protection Manager if you have any concerns or questions. Despite all our precautions, no data transmission over the internet is 100% secure. So, we cannot guarantee the security of any information which you disclose to us and so wish to draw your attention to the fact that you do so at your own risk.

How We Protect Your Data 

Opera Prelude is committed to protecting the personal information you entrust to us. We adopt robust and appropriate technologies and policies, so the information we have about you is protected from unauthorised access and improper use.

As part of the services offered to you through Opera Prelude’s website, the personal information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). By way of example, this may happen if any of the computer servers used to host the website are located in a country outside of the EEA. If Opera Prelude transfers your personal information outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this privacy notice.

We will keep your information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and to fulfil our legal obligations. We will not keep more information than we need. The retention period will vary according to the purpose, for example if purchasing a ticket only, we will typically keep your data for up to ten years from the date of your last transaction whereas if you have pledged a legacy to Opera Prelude, we will hold your details until notified by your executors. For further information about how long we will keep your information, please contact the Marketing Manager using the contact details marketing@operaprelude.org outlined in this notice.

If you ask us to stop sending direct marketing communications to you, we will keep the minimum amount of information (e.g. name, address or email address) to ensure we adhere with such requests.

Analytics

The Opera Prelude website collects personal data to power our site analytics, including:

  • Information about your browser, network, and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Your IP address

  • This information may also include details about your use of this website, including:

  • Clicks

  • Internal links

  • Pages visited

  • Scrolling

  • Searches

  • Timestamps

We share this information with Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity.

Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses.

These functional and required cookies are always used, which allow Squarespace, our hosting platform, to securely serve this website to you.

These analytics and performance cookies are used on this website, as described below, only when you acknowledge our cookie banner. This website uses analytics and performance cookies to view site traffic, activity, and other data.

Visitor Data

When you buy something on this website, we collect personal information from you to fulfill the order. We may collect information like your:

  • Billing and shipping address

  • Details relating to your purchase (for example, your shirt size)

  • Email address

  • Name

  • Phone number

We share this information with Squarespace, our online store hosting provider, so that they can provide website services to us.

As you go through checkout, this site may auto-complete your shipping and billing address by sharing what you type with the Google Places API and returning suggestions to you to improve your checkout experience.

For Website Visitors

This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when you visit this website, including:

  • Information about your browser, network and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Web pages you view while on this website

  • Your IP address

Squarespace needs the data to run this website, and to protect and improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyzes the data in a de-personalized form.

Customer Accounts

If you create a customer account on this website, we collect personal information to improve our checkout experience and customer service.

This information may include your:

  • Billing and shipping address(es)

  • Details about your orders (for example, your shirt size)

  • Email address

  • Name

  • Phone number

We share this information with Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so they can provide website services to us.

Payment details 

Payment is handled separately, and securely, through Stripe, our Payment Processor. Your payment card details are never collected by us and we never have access to them. You should refer to the Payment Processor’s own privacy notice for information about how they process your personal data.

Lawful Basis for Processing 

We rely on “performance of a contract with the data subject” as the lawful basis of processing your information where we do this so that we can provide you with our tickets and services. We rely on legitimate interest as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data for the purposes of direct marketing.

How do we process this information, and for what purpose? 

We require these personal details for the following reasons:

  • We need your full name and e-mail address so we may be able to send you tickets electronically, so We can re-issue you tickets and offer refunds if necessary.

  • We require this information for our own record keeping

  • Where you are an existing customer or have previously enquired about our products and services, we may use your personal information to send you promotional material about other related services or products.

  • You always have the right to “opt out” of such communications if they are not of interest to you. If you wish to be removed from the mailing list, simply send us an email request or check the relevant box during the booking process.

Who will we share this information with? 

We may pass your information to our third party service providers and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf, including The Little Box Office, who host the online ticketing platform, and the Payment Processor.

We may also disclose your personal data to third parties:

  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions; or

  • to protect our rights, property, or safety or that of our affiliated entities and our users and any third party we interact with.

Other than as set out above, and save insofar as is necessary in order for us to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, we will not share your data with third parties unless we have procured your express consent to do so.

How do we protect your information? 

We take appropriate measures to ensure that any personal data are kept secure, including security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Our Payment Processor use their own security measures to keep your personal banking details safe, including safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption. Please see the Payment Processor’s own privacy notice for more information about how they protect your personal data.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

How long we keep your personal data 

  • Where you have made a purchase we will hold all your data in relation to that purchase for 7 years. We are required to retain this information by applicable UK tax law.

  • If you have opted-in to receive email marketing information from us, we will hold your contact details for seven years for marketing purposes. You will be given the option to opt-out (unsubscribe) from each marketing email you receive from us.

Where we store your personal data 

All information we hold about you is stored by the Little Box Office on their secure servers, which may be at a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA").

Countries outside the EEA do not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA. Whilst the European Commission has not given a formal decision that such countries provide an adequate level of data protection similar to those which apply in the United Kingdom and EEA, any transfer of your personal data will be subject to a European Commission approved contract (as permitted under Article 46(5) of the General Data Protection Regulation, or such other approved mechanism that is designed to help safeguard your privacy rights and give you remedies in the unlikely event of a misuse of your personal data.

We will not otherwise transfer your personal data outside of the United Kingdom OR EEA or to any organisation (or subordinate bodies) governed by public international law or which is set up under any agreement between two or more countries.

nal data in accordance with all applicable data protections laws, as set out in our Privacy Notice.

Limitation of Liability 

  • If we fail to comply with these Terms, we shall only be liable to you for the Price of the tickets and, subject to clause 9b, any loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our negligence, but We are not responsible for any loss, damages, costs or expenses you suffer which were not reasonably foreseeable to be incurred by you and could not have been reasonably foreseeable by you or us on entering these Terms. Loss or damage is foreseeable if they were an obvious consequence of our breach or if they were contemplated by you and us at the time we entered into this Contract.

  • We only supply tickets for private use. You agree not to use the tickets for any business or re-sale purposes and, notwithstanding clause 9a, we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity, howsoever arising.

  • We do not in any way exclude or limit our liability for:

    • death or personal injury caused by our negligence;

    • fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;

    • any breach of the terms implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 or section 2 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (title and quiet possession);

    • any breach of the terms implied by section 13 to 15 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and sections 3 to 5 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (description, satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and samples);

    • any other matter for which it would be illegal for Us to exclude or attempt to exclude Our liability.

Events Outside Our Control 

  • We will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations under these terms that is caused by events outside our reasonable control, which may include strikes, lock-outs or other industrial action, civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack, war (whether declared or not) or threat or preparation for war, fire, explosion, storm, flood, earthquake, subsidence, epidemic or other natural disaster, impossibility of the use of railways, shipping, aircraft, motor transport or other means of public or private transport, impossibility of the use of public or private telecommunications networks and the acts, decrees, legislation, regulations or restrictions of any government (“Force Majeure Event”).

  • Our performance under these Terms is deemed to be suspended for the period that the Force Majeure Event continues, and we will have an extension of time for performance for the duration of that period. We will use our reasonable endeavours to bring the Force Majeure Event to a close or to find a solution by which our obligations under these Terms may be performed despite the Force Majeure Event.

Variation Of The Terms 

We have the right to revise and amend these Terms from time to time, including but not limited to making changes to reflect current market conditions affecting our business, changes in technology, changes in payment methods and changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements.

General 

  • If any of these Terms are determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, such term, condition or provision will to that extent be severed from the remaining terms, conditions and provisions which shall continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

  • These Terms and any document expressly referred to in them represent the entire agreement between you and us in respect of your use of the website and your use of the Tickets, and shall supersede any prior agreement, understanding or arrangement between you and us, whether oral or in writing.

  • You acknowledge that in entering into these Terms, you have not relied on any representations, undertaking or promise given by or implied from anything said or written whether on the website, the internet or in negotiation between you and us except as expressly set out in these Terms.

  • These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with English law. The Courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes arising out of these Terms.

Your Choices 

We want you to feel in control of the data that we hold. Every email we send to you will include details on how to unsubscribe from future communications. You can request full details of personal information we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998, or after 25 May 2018, The General Data Protection Regulation, by contacting the Marketing Manager. Please send a description of the information you would like to see, together with proof of your identity to: marketing@operaprelude.org

At any time you have the right to ask Opera Prelude to amend or stop how it uses your personal information including for marketing purposes. You can do this by contacting us by phoning or emailing using our contact details below.

You have the right to get information held about you by us corrected. If you have any concern about the accuracy of your personal data, please let us know using the below contact details.

If you would like us to remove the personal information we hold about you, please contact us using the below contact details.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority, The Information Commissioner’s Office – www.ico.org.uk

By email: marketing@operaprelude.org

By phone: +44 (0)20 7183 7323

Updates or Changes to Privacy Policy & Further Information 

This notice was updated on 24th November 2023. It may be updated to take into account changes at Opera Prelude or for example to reflect changes to regulation or legislation.

Updates to this policy will be posted on this page – please check back from time to time. We may also inform you of any changes where we hold an appropriate email address for you.

When your data is provided to us by another person (for example a recommendation) or a publicly accessible sources (such as Google) we will tell you where we obtained the information within a month of getting it.

Further information on data protection regulations and laws can be found here:

Data Protection:

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public

Fundraising regulator:

www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/code-of-fundraising-practice/code-of-fundraising-practice

Policy updated 24/05/2024