Frequently Asked Questions

On the Discover page, tap "Near Me" to enable location-based search. You can adjust the radius from 1km to 500km, or browse by city or country. Filter by category (12 main categories, 236+ subcategories), date, price (free or paid), and more. Events are powered by Algolia search for instant results.

Find an event on the Discover page and tap RSVP. Free events confirm instantly. Paid events go through secure Stripe checkout, where you can pay with credit/debit cards in 12 currencies (CAD, USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, JPY, KRW, and more). After joining, you'll get access to the event chat and can add it to your calendar.

Yes. After purchasing a ticket, you can add it to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet directly from the app or web. Your ticket includes a QR code for check-in at the door. You can also download an ICS file to add the event to Apple Calendar, Outlook, or Google Calendar.

Organizers can make an event repeat daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. Each date is its own event that you join separately, and upcoming dates are created automatically about two weeks ahead.

Yes. ESCAPE sends automatic push notifications 1–2 hours before events you've RSVPed to. You can toggle reminders on or off per event in the app.

After an event ends, attendees can share photos and stories in the Memories section. These are visible to other attendees and serve as a visual timeline of past events. Privacy controls let you choose who can see your memories.

ESCAPE has 12 main categories: Sports & Fitness, Activities, Art & Culture, Food & Drink, Hobbies & Crafts, Social & Networking, Parties & Celebrations, Travel & Outdoors, Learning & Self-Development, Career & Business, Pet, and Diversity & Inclusion. Each category has dozens of subcategories, over 236 in total.

ESCAPE supports 5 community types: Groups (social clubs, hobby teams), Venues (cafes, studios, gyms), Businesses (brands, agencies, promoters), Universities (campus organizations, student groups), and Instructors (coaches, tutors, workshop leaders). Each type comes with tailored capabilities: venues get map listings and booking tools, instructors get class management, etc.

Browse communities on the Communities page: search by name, filter by category, or use Near Me. Communities have different join policies: some are open (join instantly), some require approval (submit a request), and some are invite-only. Some communities may ask you to fill out a questionnaire when joining.

Yes. In the mobile app, tap the create button and choose your community type. You'll set up a profile with name, description, photos, and category. As the owner, you get full management tools: member roles, moderation, analytics (coming in the next app update), announcements, event hosting, and more.

Community owners and admins get: hierarchical member roles (Owner, Admin, Manager, Moderator, Member; Manager coming in the next app update), custom member types (VIP, Alumni, Staff, etc.), join approval workflows, broadcast announcements, community chat, polls and voting, registration questionnaires with conditional logic, moderation tools (reports, plus bans and audit logs, coming in the next app update), member analytics (coming in the next app update), and full event hosting within the community.

Many venues are already on ESCAPE through our Mapbox-powered point-of-interest database. Search for your business on the map. If it's there, tap "Claim" to take ownership. If not, you can add it manually. Once claimed, you can manage your profile, photos, hours, and amenities.

After claiming your venue, you can verify it through domain email verification (we'll send a code to your business email) or document verification (upload your business license or incorporation papers for manual review). Verified venues get a badge, higher search ranking, and increased trust from users.

Yes. When organizers create events, they can select your venue as the location. This creates automatic cross-promotion: the event appears on your venue's page, and your venue details (photos, hours, directions) appear on the event page. It's free exposure for your business.

Venue owners can manage: business profile (photos, hours, amenities, contact info), service listings with payment processing, customer and booking management, reviews and photo contributions from visitors, and event listings at your location. All integrated into the map for maximum discoverability.

In the mobile app, create an event and toggle "Paid Event." Set up ticket types (e.g., General, VIP, Student) with individual pricing and capacity. Connect your Stripe account to receive payouts. You can sell tickets in 12 currencies (CAD, USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, JPY, KRW, SGD, INR, MXN, BRL, NZD) across 32+ countries.

You choose how fees are handled: "Host pays all" (you absorb all fees, attendees pay the ticket price), "Attendee pays service fees" (attendees pay ticket + service fee), or "Attendee pays all" (attendees pay ticket + all fees). The fee model is set per event and shown to attendees at checkout.

Yes. Create percentage or fixed-amount discount codes with optional usage limits and expiry dates. You can restrict codes to specific ticket types or make them work for all types. Real-time validation ensures codes can't be over-redeemed. You can also disable codes without deleting them.

ESCAPE automatically enables a waitlist for sold-out ticket types. Users join the waitlist and receive a push notification when spots become available (e.g., if someone cancels or you increase capacity). Waitlist positions are first-come, first-served.

Each ticket generates a unique, tamper-proof QR code. Use the ESCAPE app to scan QR codes at the door. It validates the ticket and marks the attendee as checked in. Your check-in dashboard shows real-time counts and who has arrived vs. who hasn't.

Yes. The organizer dashboard shows total revenue, sales by ticket type, payout history, and attendee details (name, email, ticket type, payment status, check-in status). You can export your attendee list to CSV for accounting, email campaigns, or post-event analysis.

Yes. Build questionnaires with 10 question types (text, paragraph, dropdown, radio, checkbox, number, date, scale, terms acceptance, file upload). Add conditional logic so questions appear based on previous answers. Scope questions to specific ticket types. Reuse forms via templates across events.

Each event sets its own refund cutoff. ESCAPE has 7 refund policies: refunds until the event starts, until 24 hours or 3, 7, 14 or 30 days before it, or no refunds. The policy is locked at purchase time and shown to attendees before they buy. Service and processing fees aren't refunded. If you need to cancel an event that has paid attendees, contact us at general@esc-ape.ca.

Vibe is ESCAPE's mutual-interest matching feature, and it's anonymous until mutual. You can send a Vibe to someone on the same event's attendee list and choose your intent: Connect (networking), Hang Out (friendship), or Interested (romantic). Connect and Hang Out match each other; Interested matches only Interested. The person you vibe gets a notification that someone vibed them, but not who, and the Vibe count on their profile goes up by one. If they vibe you back with a matching intent, you both find out and a chat opens. A Vibe comes with no read receipts and no rejection signal.

ESCAPE scores compatibility across 8 dimensions: shared interests, social proximity (mutual connections), location, professional background, language overlap, event co-attendance patterns, bio similarity (via AI embeddings), and preference alignment. Scores are explainable, so you can see why someone is a good match. All scoring is privacy-safe; your raw answers are never exposed.

You get 3 free vibes per event (one per intent type). Additional vibes are available as in-app purchases: 3 vibes for US$6.99, 12 for US$17.99 (36% off), or 50 for US$49.99 (57% off); the App Store or Google Play shows the price in your currency. Super Vibes, which match any intent, are never free: they come in their own packs in the app, and the person you send one to is told which event it came from.

Paid events accept credit and debit cards through Stripe: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and other major brands. Payments are processed securely with PCI-compliant infrastructure. ESCAPE supports 12 currencies for global events.

Refunds follow the event's refund policy, which you see before you buy. Service and processing fees aren't refunded. Eligible refunds go back to your original payment method through Stripe. If an event is cancelled, contact us at general@esc-ape.ca.

Organizers connect a Stripe account during event setup. Payments use Stripe Connect's destination charge model, so funds go directly to the organizer's account after the platform fee. Payouts follow Stripe's standard schedule (typically weekly for established accounts). Multi-currency payouts are supported.

Yes. ESCAPE never stores your card details. All payment processing is handled by Stripe, a PCI Level 1 certified payment processor. Additional security includes Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA on web forms, server-side amount validation to prevent tampering, and correlation IDs for full payment traceability.