Things the big platforms do — and we refuse. In writing, on this page, forever.
Local businesses can sponsor named, opt-in placements (a venue's own profile, a clearly-labeled 'Sponsored' card on its city page) — never injected into your feed, never re-ranked into search results, never disguised as recommendations. Organizers pay flat take-rate fees, not for distribution.
Your RSVPs, DMs, location, friend graph — never sold, never leased, never shared with advertisers or data brokers.
Presence is neighborhood-level only. Check-ins are opt-in and visible only to mutual friends.
Curated lanes and editor's picks are hand-selected by local humans. No generative titles, no synthetic venues, no sponsored stuffing.
Every line item shown on checkout. We reject drip pricing. If we charge 3% + $0.30, the screen says 3% + $0.30 — and we show your Ticketmaster delta.
Privacy architecture
Four concentric layers. You control who's in each. Most platforms make you opt out; we make you opt in.
Export or delete any layer at any time from Settings. Full data export available in a structured JSON archive within 24 hours.
Not a policy page you hope nobody ever reads — tools that actually live inside the app.
Long-press any event card to pre-draft a 'my friend needs me' excuse and auto-summon a rideshare. Nothing posts publicly.
Accessibility, well-lit paths, active bystander training, identity verified — ratings from women, solo travelers, and LGBTQ+ flockmates are surfaced separately.
Every organizer behind a ticketed event is identity-verified + reviewed before their first Flock publish. Recurring organizers get a public trust badge.
At the end of a night out, Flock can ping you: 'Make it home?' One tap back. If you miss two pings, your chosen contact gets notified.
For events where you don't want randoms sliding in, flip the crew-only toggle. The event is invisible to strangers and encrypted to your group.
Upload a photo from a Flock night and every recognizable face gets a one-tap remove request — before the photo goes anywhere.
Anti-scalping infrastructure
Every Flock event has a configurable per-person purchase limit — default 4 tickets per user. Organizers can set their own cap. Enforcement happens at the API layer, not just the UI — so bots can't bypass it.
Why this matters on resale
Resale markup exists because bots buy in bulk and resell at 2–5× face value. Purchase limits cut off the supply source. Combined with Flock's face-value resale cap (max 15% markup), scalpers have no economic upside on Flock events.
4×
Default max per person
15%
Max resale markup cap
Cryptographic transfer security
When you transfer a Flock ticket, your QR code is permanently voided. The recipient receives a brand-new, unique credential — cryptographically generated at the moment of transfer. The old screenshot, the old QR, the old anything: it'll never scan in.
The transfer flow
You initiate transfer
Enter recipient's Flock email. We verify they have an account before anything changes.
Your QR is voided instantly
Your ticket_code is invalidated the moment you confirm. Any existing screenshot is now worthless.
New credential issued
The recipient receives a fresh cryptographic code — a new unique QR only they can scan in with.
Email sent. Done.
Recipient is notified. Ticket leaves your wallet. No manual steps, no grey-area handoffs.
Honest economics
A $30 ticket is a $30 ticket plus a small, visible platform fee. No "service fee," no "order processing," no "delivery charge" on a digital PDF. If we charge it, we name it.
Flock fee
Visible on checkout
Payment processing
Passed through at cost
Refund processing
No clawbacks, no gotchas
Payout speed for organizers
Not 7 days after event
Data royalty to organizers
They're not sold to
Comparison — $30 ticket × 100 attendees
Flock organizers keep up to 94% of face value — the industry's highest.
Curation independence
Flock's revenue comes from a 3% + $0.30 ticket take-rate. The curation algorithm is structurally firewalled from that revenue stream — an organizer paying Flock for ticket processing has zero effect on how their events rank in discovery. We call this an anti-issuer-pay firewall, borrowed from financial auditing.
How the firewall works
Revenue layer
Flock earns when tickets are sold. Revenue is independent of which events we surface.
Curation layer
The 12-factor match engine scores events on relevance, social proof, and user fit. No revenue signal enters this layer.
Ad layer (separate product)
Organizers can buy clearly-labeled Sponsored placements. These are excluded from organic ranking by architectural constraint, not policy.
Moderation philosophy
We don't run a faceless algorithmic feed. Every city has at least one local editor — a real person Flock hires and trains — who reviews reports, curates lanes, and keeps the tone of the city honest.
< 2h
Median response to a safety report
24/7
On-call moderator coverage
17
Cities with dedicated local ops
When we get it wrong — and we will — you can appeal any moderation decision and talk to a human in under 24 hours.
Report a user, a venue, an event, or a Flock decision. Every report routes to a human moderator within 2 hours, 24/7.
Same terms. The no-ads, no-data-sale clauses are in our founding docs and protected by a user advocate seat on the board — they do not change when we raise money.
Only with a valid legal request for a specific individual, and we publish a transparency report every six months. We do not provide bulk access.
We use first-party analytics only. No Google Analytics, no Meta Pixel, no third-party session replay. Open-source Plausible-style telemetry, stripped of identifiers.
Organizers see: ticket holder name on check-in, and aggregate demographics you opted into sharing. They never see your friend graph, other events you attend, or personal data.
Never on private content. Public venue and event data helps our recommendation engine — you can opt that out too without losing the product.
Flock requires 18+. Age-gated events (21+ bars, for example) carry an additional verification check before ticket release.
Email trust@flock.city, tag @flock, or post it publicly. Accountability is the point.