PRIVACY POLICY AND DATA USAGE AGREEMENT

Effective Date: July 14, 2026

Last Updated: July 14, 2026

Hicks Convention Services and Special Events, Inc. (“Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and secure information gathered from visitors to our website, https://hicksconventions.com (the “Site”).

IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS: This policy establishes explicit, prior, contractual consent for the deployment of essential and analytical website technologies under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). If you do not agree to these terms, you must terminate your use of the Site immediately.

By continuing to browse, interact with, or utilize this Site, you grant your prior, express, and explicit written consent to the data collection, routing, logging, and analytical processing detailed herein.

A. Governing Law and Forum Selection

Regardless of your physical location or residency, you agree that this Privacy Policy and your use of the Site are governed exclusively by the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to website tracking, data privacy, or alleged statutory violations (including claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act) shall be brought solely and exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Shelby County, Tennessee. You hereby irrevocably waive any objection to personal jurisdiction or inconvenient forum in such courts.

B. Class Action Waiver

YOU AND THE COMPANY AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

2. Information We Collect and How We Collect It

We collect information through automated technologies the exact microsecond you access our Site, as well as information you voluntarily provide.

A. Essential Operations, Routing, and Security Logging

To deliver the Site to your browser, protect our infrastructure, and prevent fraudulent actions or spam, our servers automatically log signaling and routing data. This includes:

  • Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses

  • Browser User Agent Strings

  • HTTP Referrer Fields

  • Date and Time Stamps of Access

Legal Disclosure & Consent: The routing of your IP address and browser specifications is strictly a technical necessity to establish a secure, encrypted connection between your device and our servers. You explicitly authorize this routing and logging for the operational and security purposes defined below in Section 4.

B. User-Submitted Information

  • Comments and Forms: When visitors leave comments or submit rental inquiries via forms on the Site, we collect all data entered into the form field, along with the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to facilitate automated spam detection.

  • Media Uploads: If you upload images to the Site, you must ensure that all embedded location data (EXIF GPS) is removed. The Company is not liable for data extracted from uploaded files by third-party visitors.

3. Digital Tracking Technologies, Pixels, and “Pen Register” Disclosures

To continuously optimize our event and rental planning resources, we utilize standard digital tracking technologies, which may include cookies, web beacons, tracking pixels, and scripts (e.g., Google Analytics, Meta Pixel).

For the purposes of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and similar state wiretapping laws, you are hereby notified and expressly agree that:

  1. All third-party analytics vendors, tracking pixel providers, and optimization scripts operating on this Site act strictly as our contracted data processors, service providers, and extensions of our internal software infrastructure.

  2. These tools do not act as independent third-party eavesdroppers. They operate solely as automated tools to record, compile, and analyze data on our behalf to improve our business services.

  3. We do not authorize these vendors to use your signaling, routing, or behavioral data for their own independent commercial purposes or to sell your data to external third parties.

  4. To the extent that any tracking technology or script is legally construed to be a “pen register” or “trap and trace device” under California law, your continued voluntary browsing of this Site constitutes prior, express, written consent for its deployment and execution.

  • Functional Cookies: If you interact with forms or leave a comment, you may opt-in to saving your credentials in cookies for your convenience so you do not have to re-enter them. These cookies persist for one year.

  • Session Cookies: Temporary cookies are deployed on authentication endpoints to verify browser compatibility and are discarded instantly upon closing your browser session.

4. Vendor Data Routing and Third-Party Integrations

A. Spam Detection and Protection Services

Visitor comments, form submissions, and connection payloads are automatically analyzed through automated spam and fraud detection services (such as Akismet, Automated WordPress Utilities, or Gravatar hashing protocols). An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be shared with the Gravatar service to verify usage context. Their privacy terms are governed independently. You explicitly consent to the transmission of your IP and user-agent details to these automated tools to preserve website security.

B. Embedded Content and Links

Articles or pages on this Site may feature embedded third-party content (e.g., maps, videos, or social sharing elements). Interacting with embedded content functions identically to visiting the third-party’s native website. These entities may collect your data, deploy their own cookies, embed additional independent tracking protocols, and monitor your behavioral interactions with that content. We recommend reviewing the privacy policies of those respective third-party platforms.

5. Data Retention, Security, and User Rights

  • Retention: Comment data and corresponding metadata are retained indefinitely to streamline automated follow-up moderations. For registered users (if any), personal profiles are maintained securely; users retain the right to edit or delete their personal profiles at any time (excluding username modifications).

  • Your Rights: You may request an exported file of the personal data we maintain about you, or request the erasure of your personal data. This does not encompass data we are legally, administratively, or contractually obligated to preserve for security and compliance audits.

6. Contact and Compliance Infrastructure

For questions regarding this Privacy Policy, your data rights, or our tracking technologies, please contact our compliance desk directly at:

Hicks Convention Services and Special Events, Inc.

935 Rayner St.

Memphis, TN 38114

Phone: 901.272.1171 | 800.798.0262 (Toll Free)

  1. Contractual Forum & Class Action Waiver: This stops California plaintiffs from dragging an out-of-state business into a California courthouse. By forcing the venue to Tennessee and waiving class actions, you dramatically reduce the financial incentives for plaintiff firms to send demand letters.

  2. Agency Defense Formulation: By framing analytics providers strictly as “contracted data processors acting as an extension of our internal infrastructure,” you legally eliminate the “third-party interceptor” element required to state a claim for wiretapping under CIPA § 631.

  3. Prior Consent for Pen Registers: Explicitly naming “pen registers,” “trap and trace devices,” and “signaling/routing data” addresses the exact vocabulary used in current litigation. Explicitly consenting to this vocabulary undercuts claims that the user’s data was intercepted or read without authorization.