The Hallé is Manchester’s symphony orchestra founded by Sir Charles Hallé in 1858. We’re a not-for-profit arts organisation (Company House no. 62753) and a registered charity (Reg no. 223882). We’re committed firmly to protecting your privacy and any personal information that you may provide us, and want to make it clear to you what information we may collect, when we do it and how. By understanding our relationship with you, as our customers and supporters, we can make better decisions about our concerts, services, education schemes, community projects and fundraising efforts going forward. In addition, we keep and process information about our staff for normal employment purposes and about those who work with us on a voluntary freelance basis in order to manage these relationships in the interests of all parties. The legal basis for which the Hallé may collect and process your personal data will generally be one or more of the following: consent, contractual obligation, legal compliance and legitimate interest. We’ll use the information that we collect about you in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

WHAT SORT OF PERSONAL DATA DO WE COLLECT AND WHEN DO WE DO IT?

Ticket booking for Hallé concerts / events

Our ticketing services are provided by The Bridgewater Hall, our Manchester home. All Manchester concert listings on the Hallé website will redirect customers to The Bridgewater Hall booking system. When you buy a ticket for one of our concerts via the telephone or the Hallé / The Bridgewater Hall website, we’ll retain the following, your:

  • Name
  • Contact details (address, telephone and email)
  • Contact preferences
  • Ticketing and billing history

The Bridgewater Hall will process, but never store your bank or credit card details to complete the transaction. The Hallé has shared access to the ticketing database and the personal information it contains, but we also never have access to any payment card details. You can see The Bridgewater Hall’s privacy policy here.

Merchandise

From the Hallé website:

  • We use Shopify, an e-commerce solution, as our online ‘Shop’ when you buy merchandise such as CDs on the Hallé’s record label and Christmas cards via the Hallé website. Your data is handled and securely stored on Shopify’s databases. We’ll retain your name, contact details, contact preferences and details of your order when you make a purchase, but never your payment card details. Payment is handled securely either by Shopify or PayPal, both of which are Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant. You can find out about the privacy policy to our ‘Shop’ here and PayPal’s privacy policy here.

From third party websites such as Amazon UK and Apple:

  • The Hallé online ‘Shop’ may include links to Amazon UK and Apple iTunes where you can purchase our merchandise from these providers. However, we’re not responsible for their data handling. Please refer to Amazon UK’s privacy policy here, and Apple iTunes’s privacy policy here.
Surveys, competitions, e-newsletter and general communication

We’ll record (but never share) details when you:

  • enter one of our competitions
  • partake in one of our audience surveys, you can see Survey Monkey’s privacy policy here
  • sign up to our mailing lists from the Hallé website
  • contact us by any means with queries or complaints
Employees, Trustees and Volunteers

The Hallé Concerts Society needs to keep and process information about you for normal employment purposes and in respect of your work with us as volunteers and trustees. The information we hold and process will be used for our management and administrative use only. We’ll keep and use it to enable us to run the business and manage our relationship with you effectively, lawfully and appropriately during the recruitment process, whilst you are working for us, at the time when your employment ends and after you have left. This includes using information to enable us to comply with the employment contract, to comply with any legal requirements, pursue the legitimate interests of the Company and protect our legal position in the event of legal proceedings. If you do not provide this data, we may be unable in some circumstances to comply with our obligations.

Further information is available in the specific Privacy Policy for staff and trustees.

Artists, Hallé Youth Ensembles members, Hallé Choir, Choral Academy and Ancoats Community Choir members

Your personal details are kept safely as part of your contractual / membership agreement with the Hallé. For anyone under the age of 18 (i.e. Youth Ensembles members), parental consent is required before personal details are collected and processed.

To help us promote our concerts and events, we may also share your name, role and publicity material (including photos and audiovisual content) on:

  • printed brochures, programmes, posters and adverts
  • the Hallé website, The Bridgewater Hall website and other websites which feature Hallé’s concert listings
  • social media related to Hallé concerts, events and activities

We may use Google Forms as one of our online recruitment tools. Please refer to Google’s privacy policy here.

Schools, Music Education Hubs, educational and community establishments

We’ll only use personal information for the purposes of administrating Hallé education projects and sending future correspondence and promotions regarding such projects. We’ll only request information that is required for such purposes. We don’t share information submitted with third parties.

Sensitive information

Some of the information which we collect from you, e.g. your access requirements, may be considered sensitive personal data. We’ll only ever use the data in accordance with this policy and will make sure your confidentiality is protected.

Job applications and work experience

We ensure all CVs and application forms received will be kept electronically and physically safe.

For job applications:

  • application forms from unsuccessful candidates will be securely disposed of 6 months after the application deadline
  • application forms from shortlisted candidates will be securely disposed of 6 months after the application process ceases

For work experience:

  • we will keep your application forms on record for no longer than 2 years after the application process ceases. Thereafter, your personal information will be securely disposed of
Social media

We use social media, such as Facebook (@thehalle), Twitter (@the_halle), Instagram (@the_halle), Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHalleOfficial) and Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/company/halle-concerts-society/), to share news and updates with our audience. We may reply or comment directly to you on these social media platforms. You should check the Privacy Policy of each platform when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition

We’re accepting applications for the 2019-20 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition. Applications will be via online Google Forms or offline Word form. We’ll only retain your data as per the competition terms and conditions that you agree to. For more information about the competition, visit https://www.conductors-competition.com/.

Web browsing

To deliver the best possible web experience, any time you browse the Hallé’s website, we collect technical information about your internet connection, your device type, your internet browser as well as the country where your computer is located, the web pages viewed during your visit, and any search terms you entered. You can find out more in our Cookies Policy below.

CCTV footage

When you visit The Bridgewater Hall, Hallé St Peter’s and Hallé at St Michael’s, CCTV systems are usually operated for the security of both customers and staff. These systems may record your image during your visit.

HOW WE COMMUNICATE WITH YOU

We’ll contact you in accordance with the preferences you have indicated to us when you buy a concert ticket, attended one of our events, buy merchandise on our website, sign up for our e-newsletter, make a donation or communicate with us.

Your data helps us:

  • to give you the relevant information for the concerts you bought tickets for
  • to provide you with the relevant information for the merchandise you purchased from the Hallé website
  • get in touch with you, should changes to your concert booking / merchandise purchase occur
  • to ensure we always have your most up to date contact preferences and we that abide by them
  • keep a record of your relationship with us
  • to inform you of our concerts, events, offers, merchandise, education projects and fundraising activities and other Hallé related news which we hope will be of interest to you
  • improve our services when you to take part in surveys from time to time
  • to administer competitions and promotions that you enter with us from time to time and to distribute prizes

WHAT ABOUT MEMBERS, PATRONS, CHAIR ENDOWERS AND DONORS?

We’ll record your details when you become a Member, Patron, Chair Endower or when you make a donation. When you make a donation, we will keep a record of the details of the gift (amount, date, purpose) and your Gift Aid status. We may also ask you to provide details about your family and spouse/partner details where appropriate. For us to claim Gift Aid we do need to keep a record of your address.

If you become a Member, Patron or Chair Endower or make a donation with us over the phone we will keep a record of your payment card details for transaction purposes only and deleted immediately after transaction. The merchant copy of the credit card receipt will be kept for up to 18 months and we also keep a copy of any paperwork you return to us, such as cheques, membership application forms or renewal forms, to assist in our record-keeping.

Where you make a regular gift via Direct Debit, your bank details are stored securely in our Customer Relations Management system so that the Hallé can process your direct debit payments via the BACS system.

If you make a donation using Charity Checkout through our website, your payments will be handled and processed by Charity Checkout directly. Please refer to Charity Checkout’s privacy policy here.

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL DETAILS?

We do not retain personal information for longer than is necessary.

If you are a current or past customer who has attended Hallé concerts and events, or work with us on a freelance basis we’re legally required under VAT regulations to retain appropriate financial records for six years.

Employee records will be retained in accordance with statutory requirements and relevant best practice guidance.

If you are a current or past donor, Gift Aid regulations require appropriate records to be retained for seven years.

We’ll only keep your personal details outside of the stated periods above if:

  • the law requires us to hold your personal information for a longer period, or delete it sooner
  • you have raised a complaint or concern regarding one of our concerts or events, and your personal details will be retained until the matter is considered resolved between you and the Hallé

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY

The Hallé website is equipped with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate for added security e.g. the Hallé website URL begins with ‘https://’. You can find out more about SSL here.

We regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we make sure they’re ‘patched’ as quickly as they’re discovered.

Data sharing
Given our arts charity status, we may be required to share information with other organisations, particularly Arts Council England, who use this to analyse our audience development programmes, ticket sales and self-generated funding to understand the impact of the public investment made in the Hallé. This information will be anonymous and not contain any identifiable personal details.

For performances involving children and young people, we’re legally required to share specific data on performers aged 16 and under to acquire performance license consent from the relevant local authority.

In no other circumstances will we share, sell, or rent individual personal information with anyone without your advance permission or unless ordered by a court of law. Information submitted to us is only available to employees managing this information for purposes of contacting you or sending you emails based on your request for information and to contracted service providers for purposes of providing services relating to our communications with you.

Third Party websites
This website may contain booking links to other venue websites when we’re touring nationally and internationally. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these and you should read the privacy policies that apply to you. The Hallé’s Privacy Policy applies only to personal information collected by us.

COOKIES POLICY

The Hallé may collect information about your computer, including – where available – your IP address, operating system, device type and browser type. This information is statistical data about users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual. It is used to inform improvements to our website and for system administration. We may obtain information about your general internet usage by using cookies to store information on your computer to improve the functionality available to you through our website. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The cookies that we use are essential for parts of the website to operate.

You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this may affect the functionality of the website and thus your user experience. Most web browsers allow you to control the cookies stored on your computer through your browser’s settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been stored and how to manage and delete them, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Google Analytics
The Hallé website uses cookies for Google Analytics tracking code, a web analytics service provided by Google (Alphabet Inc). Google Analytics enables us to monitor the performance of our website and to use the information to make improvements to your user experience. You can find out more about Google Analytics’s privacy policy here and greater detail of the Google cookie types here. You may opt-out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s browser add-on tool here.

HOW CAN YOU STOP RECEIVING COMMUNICATIONS FROM US?

You have the right to request a copy of any information about you that the Hallé holds at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate. To request your information, please contact: Marketing Manager, Hallé Concerts Society, The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, M1 5HA or email info@halle.co.uk.

If you are a current or past Hallé concert attender, you can update your details and preferences on ‘My Account’ on The Bridgewater Hall website, https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co.uk/account/login or contact The Bridgewater Hall Box Office team on 0161 907 9000.

You can change your mind and withdraw your consent to us using your personal data at any time but bear in mind that details such as VAT and GiftAid records must be retained to comply with legal standards.

You can ask us to stop processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, unless we feel we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.

You can stop direct marketing communications from us in a number of ways:

  • click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails
  • log into your account on The Bridgewater Hall website, and change your preferences there accordingly
  • call The Bridgewater Hall Box Office on 0161 907 9000 to update us
  • call the Hallé hotline on 0161 237 7008 to update us
  • if you have received unwanted, unsolicited email sent via our system or purporting to be sent via this system, please forward a copy of that email with your comments to info@halle.co.uk for review
  • submit a request to Marketing Manager, Hallé Concerts Society, The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, M1 5HA

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the following rights related to your personal data:

  • the right to request a copy of personal information held about you
  • the right to request that inaccuracies be corrected
  • the right to request us to stop processing your personal data
  • the right to withdraw consent
  • the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office or Fundraising Regulator

ANY QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions at all about the ways in which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us:

By email:
info@halle.co.uk

By post:
FAO Marketing Manager
Hallé Concerts Society, The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Manchester M1 5HA

This privacy policy was updated on 17 April 2023

Our privacy policy may change at any time, so you may wish to check this web page each time you visit our website. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we’ll make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.