Last updated: 30 October 2026

Please read this Privacy Notice carefully. It explains how we collect, use, store and share personal data when you use our websites, products and services.

1. Who we are

This Privacy Notice applies to Playbook Media Trading Company Limited, trading as The Stage.

Playbook Media Trading Company Limited is registered in England and Wales under company number 02316307. Our registered office is Stage House, 47 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XT. Our VAT number is GB547887578.

When we refer to “The Stage”, “Playbook Media”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this Privacy Notice, we mean Playbook Media Trading Company Limited.

For the purposes of data protection law, Playbook Media Trading Company Limited is the controller of your personal data.

We process personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

2. How to contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or how we use your personal data, you can contact us at:

Data Protection Contact
Playbook Media Trading Company Limited
Stage House
47 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3XT
Email: dpo@thestage.co.uk

You can also contact us if you want to exercise any of your data protection rights.

3. What this Privacy Notice covers

This Privacy Notice explains how we use personal data in connection with:

• our websites, including www.thestage.co.uk;
• print and digital subscriptions;
• newsletters and email communications;
• customer accounts and registered-user services;
• events, awards, webinars and conferences;
• advertising, commercial and partnership content and enquiries;
• customer service and support;
• competitions, surveys and research;
• marketing and audience analysis;
• our journalism, publishing and editorial services;
• our social media accounts and online communities.

Some services may have additional privacy information where needed.

4. Personal data we collect

We may collect and use the following types of personal data.

Contact and identity details

This may include your name, postal address, email address, telephone number, company name, job title, industry sector, username, account ID and subscription number.

Account and subscription details

This may include your registration details, subscription type, renewal date, payment status, delivery preferences, customer-service records, access permissions, login activity and communication preferences.

Payment and transaction details

This may include billing address, transaction references, payment status, Direct Debit status, invoice details, order history and limited payment-card information such as the last four digits of a card.

Payments are processed by our payment service providers. We do not normally store full payment-card details ourselves.

Website, device and usage data

When you use our websites or digital services, we may collect information such as your IP address, device type, browser type, operating system, pages viewed, content accessed, links clicked, access times, approximate location and cookie or similar technology identifiers.

Marketing and preference data

This may include your marketing preferences, newsletter subscriptions, event interests, email engagement, survey responses, audience segment and communication history.

Event and awards data

If you attend, enter, sponsor or participate in one of our events or awards, we may collect details such as your name, job title, organisation, contact details, ticket type, attendance, dietary requirements, access requirements and submitted entry information.

Where dietary, accessibility or health-related information is provided, we will only use it for the purpose of supporting your attendance or participation and will handle it with appropriate care.

User-generated content

If you post comments, contribute to forums, submit content, respond to surveys, enter competitions or otherwise upload information to our services, we may process the personal data included in that content.

Business and commercial contact data

If you are an advertiser, sponsor, agency, supplier, partner, freelancer, contributor, PR contact or other business contact, we may collect your business contact details, role, organisation, correspondence, commercial interests and records of our interactions.

5. How we collect personal data

We collect personal data in several ways, including:

• directly from you when you create an account, buy a subscription, contact us, attend an event, enter an award, sign up to a newsletter or complete a form;
• automatically when you use our websites or digital services;
• from payment, subscription, fulfilment, event or customer-service providers;
• from corporate subscription administrators or group account holders;
• from advertisers, agencies, sponsors, partners and suppliers;
• from publicly available sources, such as company websites, professional directories or public social media profiles, where relevant to our business activities;
• from editorial, commercial, event or industry contacts where appropriate;
• from analytics, advertising, social media and technology partners, where permitted by law.

Some information is required to provide our services. For example, we need your email address to manage a digital subscription and your postal address to deliver a print product. Other information, such as marketing preferences or optional profile details, is voluntary.

6. How and why we use personal data

We use personal data for the following purposes.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we only do so where we have considered the impact on individuals and believe our interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.

Our legitimate interests may include operating and improving our business, providing journalism and publishing services, managing customer relationships, preventing fraud, protecting our websites, developing our products, understanding our audiences, promoting relevant products and services, and maintaining commercial relationships.

7. Marketing communications

We may send you marketing communications about our products, services, events, awards, subscriptions, offers and relevant industry updates.

We may send marketing by email where:

• you have consented to receive it;
• you have bought or enquired about similar products or services from us and we are permitted to rely on the “soft opt-in” under PECR;
• you are a corporate subscriber or business contact and we are permitted to contact you under applicable marketing rules.

We will not hide our identity in marketing communications. We will provide a clear way to opt out of marketing, including an unsubscribe link in marketing emails.

You can opt out of marketing at any time by using the unsubscribe link in our emails, from within your online account, or by contacting us at dpo@thestage.co.uk.

Opting out of marketing does not stop us from sending you service messages, such as subscription renewal notices, account updates, payment confirmations, delivery updates or legally required information.

8. Email tracking and marketing analytics

We may use tracking technologies in our marketing emails to understand whether emails have been delivered, opened and clicked, and to understand which content is most useful to our audiences.

This may include web beacons, pixels, tracked links or similar technologies. We may use this information to measure campaign performance, improve our communications and tailor future emails.

9. Profiling, segmentation and personalisation

We may use limited profiling or segmentation to understand our audiences and make our communications, services, content recommendations and advertising more relevant.

For example, we may use your subscription status, job role, sector, event attendance, email engagement or website activity to decide which updates, offers or content may be most relevant to you.

We do not use this information to make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you without human involvement.

You can object to direct marketing and related profiling at any time.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies on our websites. These may include pixels, tags, scripts, local storage, advertising identifiers and other technologies that store information on, or access information from, your device.

Some cookies are strictly necessary for our websites and services to work. These may include cookies used for security, login, subscription access, payment, load balancing and remembering your cookie choices.

We only use non-essential cookies, such as analytics, advertising, personalisation and social media cookies, where we have obtained any consent required by law.

Our Cookie Notice explains what cookies and similar technologies we use, why we use them, how long they last, and how you can change your choices.

You can change your cookie choices at any time using the Cookie Settings link at the bottom of every page of our website.

11. Advertising, analytics and identity matching

To support our journalism and publishing services, we may use advertising, analytics, measurement and identity-matching technologies.

These technologies may help us:

• measure website and content performance;
• understand audience behaviour;
• measure advertising effectiveness;
• show, support or measure relevant advertising;
• limit how often you see particular adverts;
• understand whether advertising has led to engagement, registration, subscription or purchase;
• support audience insights and commercial reporting;
• prevent fraud and maintain website security.

Where permitted by law and, where required, with your consent, we may work with advertising and measurement partners. This may involve using or sharing limited information such as cookie identifiers, device information, IP address, mobile advertising IDs, browser information or hashed/pseudonymised email addresses.

A hashed or pseudonymised identifier is designed to avoid sharing your email address in plain text. However, depending on the context, it may still be treated as personal data under data protection law.

Advertising and measurement partners may use this information to help recognise your browser or device, support interest-based advertising, measure campaigns or create audience segments. They may also combine this information with information they receive from other sources, where permitted by law.

If you consent, we may also use remarketing services provided by companies such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google and LinkedIn to show you our advertising on other websites and apps after you have visited our website. To do this, visitors are grouped according to how they have used our website, for example which pages they visited or how long they stayed. This allows us to show you adverts that are more likely to be relevant to you.

Where required by law, we will only use advertising, analytics, matching or tracking technologies with your consent. You can manage your choices using the Cookie Settings link at the bottom of every page of our website.

Our advertising and measurement partners include Google, Meta and LinkedIn. Further details are provided in our Cookie Notice.

12. Events, webinars, awards and sponsor sharing

If you register for, attend, enter or participate in one of our events, webinars, awards or conferences, we may use your personal data to administer your participation, manage attendance, provide access, send event information, manage entries, produce delegate lists, support networking, and follow up after the event.

Our events, webinars, awards or sponsored content may be supported by a sponsor or commercial partner. We will inform you if your details will be shared with that named sponsor or partner.

Where required by law, we will ask for your consent before sharing your personal data with sponsors or partners for their own marketing purposes.

Sponsors and partners may use your personal data in accordance with their own privacy notices. We are not responsible for how a sponsor or partner uses your personal data when they act as a separate controller.

13. Social media, community features and third-party platforms

We operate accounts on social media platforms and may provide community features, comments, forums or similar interactive services.

If you interact with us on social media, we may see information from your public profile and any information you send to us, tag us in, comment on or otherwise make available through the platform.

The platform will also process your personal data in accordance with its own privacy notice and terms.

We may receive aggregated analytics from social media platforms to understand engagement with our content and improve our communications.

If you use a third-party platform to access our content, register for an event, watch a webinar or interact with us, that platform may also process your personal data for its own purposes.

14. Advertising and aggregated reporting

We may share aggregated or anonymised audience information with advertisers, sponsors and commercial partners. This may include information such as audience size, engagement, industry sector, broad location, job function or campaign performance.

Aggregated or anonymised information does not directly identify you.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

15. Who we share personal data with

We may share personal data with trusted third parties where necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.

These may include:

• payment processors and Direct Debit providers;
• subscription management and fulfilment providers;
• print, mailing and delivery partners;
• website hosting and IT service providers;
• email service providers and marketing platforms;
• customer-service systems;
• CRM and database providers;
• analytics and advertising technology providers;
• event registration, ticketing, webinar and awards platforms;
• event sponsors and commercial partners, where clearly explained;
• survey and research providers;
• professional advisers, such as lawyers, auditors and accountants;
• insurers;
• regulators, law enforcement bodies, courts or public authorities where required by law;
• potential buyers, investors or advisers in connection with a business sale, merger, restructuring or transfer.

Where third parties process personal data on our behalf, we put appropriate contractual safeguards in place.

Where third parties use personal data for their own purposes, they will be responsible for their own compliance with data protection law and should provide their own privacy information where required.

16. International transfers

Some of our service providers may process personal data outside the UK.

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include:

• an adequacy regulation;
• the UK International Data Transfer Agreement;
• the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses;
• another lawful safeguard permitted under UK data protection law.

17. How long we keep personal data

We hold personal data for a variety of different purposes and the length of time we keep your data will vary depending on the services or products we are providing. We will only keep your data for a reasonable period of time, which is based on the purpose for which we are using your data.

Once that purpose has been fulfilled, we will securely delete that data or anonymise your information (so that we, or anyone else, can no longer tell that data relates to you) unless we are required to retain the data longer for legal, tax or accounting reasons.

When deciding how long to keep personal data, we consider the purpose for which we hold it, whether you still have an account or subscription with us, any legal, tax or accounting requirements (for example, we keep financial records for at least six years), and whether we may need the data to deal with complaints or legal claims.

18. How we protect personal data

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data.

These may include access controls, encryption where appropriate, secure systems, supplier due diligence, staff confidentiality obligations, training, physical security measures, and procedures for dealing with suspected data breaches.

No website, system or transmission is completely secure. However, we take reasonable steps to protect personal data from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or disclosure.

19. Your rights

You have rights under data protection law. These may include:

• the right to be informed about how we use your personal data;
• the right to access your personal data;
• the right to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data;
• the right to request deletion of your personal data;
• the right to restrict how we use your personal data;
• the right to object to certain uses of your personal data;
• the right to data portability, where applicable;
• the right to withdraw consent, where we rely on consent;
• rights relating to automated decision-making, where applicable;
• the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every situation.

To exercise your rights, contact us at dpo@thestage.co.uk. You can also ask for a copy of your personal data using our online request form.

We may need to verify your identity before responding. We will usually respond within one month, unless the request is complex or we receive a number of requests, in which case we may extend the response period as permitted by law.

20. Your right to object to marketing

You have an absolute right to object to direct marketing at any time.

You can opt out by clicking the unsubscribe link in our marketing emails or by contacting us at dpo@thestage.co.uk.

If you opt out of marketing, we may keep a suppression record so that we can respect your choice.

21. Children

Our websites and services are not directed at children. You must be 16 or over to create an account or buy a subscription, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you believe that a child has given us their personal data, please contact us at dpo@thestage.co.uk and we will delete it.

22. Links to other websites

Our websites may contain links to third-party websites, platforms, social media sites or services.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. You should read their privacy notices before providing them with personal data.

23. Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time.

The latest version will be published on our website with the date it was last updated. If we make a significant change to how we use personal data, we will take appropriate steps to bring the change to your attention and, where required, seek your consent.

24. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data, you can complain to us by emailing dpo@thestage.co.uk or by writing to us at the address in section 2. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection.

You can contact the ICO through its website at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.