General Terms and Conditions of the Wegweiser Group for B2B Services
Effective as of 14 July 2026
1. Scope of Application and Contracting Party
These General Terms and Conditions apply exclusively to business customers within the meaning of Section 14 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch – BGB), legal entities governed by public law and special funds governed by public law. Wegweiser does not enter into contracts with consumers.
The customer’s contracting party shall be the company specified in the relevant quotation, order confirmation, booking confirmation, registration confirmation or invoice:
- Wegweiser Media & Conferences GmbH; or
- Wegweiser Research & Strategy GmbH.
The respective contracting company is hereinafter referred to as “Wegweiser”.
Any terms and conditions of the customer that deviate from or conflict with these General Terms and Conditions shall apply only if Wegweiser has expressly agreed to their application in text form.
Individual agreements and the description of services contained in the quotation or order confirmation shall take precedence over these General Terms and Conditions.
2. Conclusion of Contract and Scope of Services
Unless expressly stated to be binding, quotations issued by Wegweiser are non-binding. Orders, bookings and registrations submitted by the customer are binding.
A contract shall be concluded upon Wegweiser issuing an order, booking or registration confirmation or commencing performance of the relevant services.
The nature and scope of the services to be provided shall be determined by the quotation, the order or booking confirmation and these General Terms and Conditions.
Wegweiser may engage suitable service providers and subcontractors for the performance of its services.
Any statements regarding reach, participant numbers, media coverage, contacts, business opportunities or other commercial results constitute non-binding expectations unless they have expressly been agreed as a guaranteed characteristic.
3. Customer Cooperation and Customer-Provided Content
The customer shall provide Wegweiser, in a timely manner and in a suitable format, with all information, content, documents, approvals and contact persons required for the performance of the services.
Wegweiser shall not be responsible for delays or restrictions in performance resulting from late, incomplete or unsuitable cooperation by the customer. Wegweiser may postpone or adjust the affected services accordingly.
Where subsequent performance is no longer commercially reasonable or meaningful due to the customer’s late cooperation, Wegweiser shall remain entitled to the agreed remuneration, less any expenses saved as a result.
Approvals given by the customer are binding. If the customer fails to respond within a reasonable period specified by Wegweiser, Wegweiser may continue its work on the basis of the most recently agreed version.
The customer warrants that all content, trademarks, logos, images, texts and other materials provided by it may lawfully be used and do not infringe any third-party rights. The customer grants Wegweiser all rights of use required for the performance of the contract.
The customer shall indemnify and hold Wegweiser harmless against any third-party claims arising from an infringement for which the customer is responsible. This indemnity shall also include reasonable legal defence costs.
Wegweiser may reject or remove content where there are specific indications of a legal infringement or where publication would be unreasonable for Wegweiser, the relevant event or the relevant medium.
4. Prices and Payment Terms
All prices are net prices and are subject to statutory value-added tax.
Unless otherwise agreed, invoices shall be payable in full, without deduction, within 30 calendar days of the invoice date.
In the event of late payment, the statutory provisions governing default shall apply. In particular, Wegweiser may charge statutory default interest, the statutory fixed default charge and any additional proven loss caused by the delay.
In the event of material payment arrears, Wegweiser may suspend further performance until all outstanding amounts have been paid in full.
The customer may set off claims only where such claims are undisputed, have been finally established by a court or are ready for judicial determination. Rights of retention may be exercised only in respect of claims arising from the same contractual relationship.
5. Marketing, Sponsorship, Media, Exhibitor and Service Packages
Bookings of marketing, sponsorship, media, advertising, partnership, exhibitor, workshop, presentation or comparable service packages are firm and binding.
The customer shall have no right to ordinarily cancel, terminate, reduce or return such services. This shall also apply where the customer does not make use of individual services, fails to provide required content or does not attend the relevant event.
Mandatory statutory rights and the right to terminate for good cause shall remain unaffected. Where the customer has a statutory right to terminate the contract for convenience, Wegweiser’s entitlement to remuneration shall be governed by the applicable statutory provisions, including the deduction of expenses saved.
Specific placements, exhibition spaces, publication dates, reach, programme items or speaker commitments shall be binding only where Wegweiser has expressly confirmed them as binding.
For organisational, technical, safety-related or spatial reasons, Wegweiser may make reasonable changes to exhibition spaces, placements, formats or procedures.
Where such a change materially reduces the commercial value of a service, the remuneration attributable to the affected part of the service shall be adjusted appropriately.
Exhibitors shall additionally comply with the house rules, safety regulations and technical guidelines of the relevant venue. The customer shall be liable for any damage culpably caused by the customer, its employees or any third parties engaged by it.
The transfer of booked packages, exhibition spaces or other services to third parties requires Wegweiser’s prior consent in text form.
6. Online and Portal Partnerships
Online and portal partnerships, including in particular partnerships on specialist and information portals operated by Wegweiser, may comprise the provision of a company profile and the editorial support, editing and publication of customer content. The specific scope of services shall be set out in the relevant quotation or order confirmation.
Unless expressly agreed otherwise, the contractual term shall be 14 months from the commencement date specified in the order confirmation. The contract shall expire automatically at the end of the agreed term without requiring notice of termination. The contract shall be renewed automatically only where this has been expressly agreed.
The scheduling, editorial processing, presentation and placement of content shall be carried out in consideration of the customer’s interests and in accordance with Wegweiser’s editorial, design and technical standards. The customer shall have no entitlement to any particular placement, reach, number of views or publication date unless expressly agreed.
The customer shall provide, in a timely manner, all content, information, images, logos and approvals required for the company profile and the agreed publications.
Where the customer fails to provide agreed content or provides it late, Wegweiser shall remain entitled to the agreed remuneration. Services not used or not fully used shall not be refunded or carried forward to a subsequent contractual term unless Wegweiser is responsible for the non-use.
Wegweiser retains editorial responsibility for its own portals and may edit, label, reschedule or reject content for objective reasons. Material changes to the substance of the content shall be agreed with the customer.
Ordinary termination or cancellation of an online or portal partnership during the agreed contractual term is excluded. The right to terminate for good cause shall remain unaffected.
Temporary interruptions to portal operations that are required for technical or organisational reasons shall not give rise to any right to a price reduction or refund, provided that they do not materially impair contractual use. In the event of a material impairment, Wegweiser shall provide the affected service at a later date or extend the service period by an appropriate period.
7. Attendance at Conferences and Events
Registrations for congresses, conferences, workshops, seminars and comparable events are binding.
Attendance booked at the regular standard rate may be cancelled in text form no later than 60 calendar days before the start of the event. The date on which Wegweiser receives the cancellation shall be decisive.
In the event of a cancellation submitted within the applicable deadline, a processing and cancellation fee amounting to 50 per cent of the agreed net attendance fee shall be charged. The cancellation fee shall not exceed the agreed net attendance fee.
The customer shall remain entitled to demonstrate that no costs or only substantially lower costs were incurred.
After expiry of the cancellation deadline, cancellation shall no longer be permitted and the full attendance fee shall remain payable.
Special, early-booking and preferential rates, including Early Bird, promotional, partner, bundle, group and discounted rates, are non-cancellable irrespective of the date of cancellation.
The customer may nominate a substitute attendee in text form no later than 24 hours before the start of the event. This shall also apply to special and early-booking rates, provided that the substitute attendee satisfies the applicable conditions of participation.
No refund or reduction of the attendance fee shall be granted in the event of non-attendance or partial attendance.
8. Programme Changes, Rescheduling and Force Majeure
Wegweiser may make changes to programmes, schedules, event times, speakers, moderators, rooms and other event details for objective reasons, provided that the overall character of the event is maintained.
The customer shall have no entitlement to the participation of any particular speaker or to the delivery of any individual programme item unless this has been expressly guaranteed in writing.
For objective reasons, Wegweiser may relocate or reschedule an event, shorten or extend it, conduct it as a hybrid event, or change it from an in-person format to a digital format or vice versa, provided that this is reasonable after taking the interests of both parties into account.
Objective reasons shall include, in particular, force majeure, pandemics or epidemics, official or police orders, security risks, industrial disputes, material travel or transport disruption, unavailability of the venue, failure of essential technical facilities, illness or unavailability of key participants, and comparable circumstances beyond Wegweiser’s control.
Where an event is rescheduled, attendance bookings and other contracts shall remain valid for the replacement date.
Marketing, sponsorship, media, exhibitor and comparable services shall be transferred to the replacement date or converted into an equivalent replacement format, taking the booked scope of services into account.
A reasonable relocation, rescheduling, programme change or format change shall not give rise to any right of cancellation, price reduction or damages.
Where the replacement date is more than 12 months after the originally scheduled commencement of the event, or where no replacement date or equivalent replacement service is offered within that period, the customer may withdraw from the contract in respect of services not yet performed.
In such a case, any remuneration already paid for services not yet performed shall be refunded. Services already performed, services that remain independently commercially usable and third-party costs already incurred and attributable to the relevant order shall remain payable.
Where an event is cancelled permanently and neither a replacement date nor an equivalent replacement service is offered, any attendance fees already paid and any remuneration paid for services not performed shall be refunded.
Any further claims, including claims for travel, accommodation, personnel, exhibition stand construction or other consequential costs, shall be governed exclusively by the liability provisions in Section 12.
Where an event that has already commenced must be interrupted or terminated prematurely for reasons beyond Wegweiser’s control, services already performed shall remain payable. Wegweiser may provide any outstanding services at a later date or in an appropriate replacement format.
9. Research, Study and Consultancy Services
Non-public quotations, study concepts, research designs, questionnaires, methodologies, calculations and presentations prepared by Wegweiser are confidential and may not be disclosed to third parties or used for other tenders or projects without Wegweiser’s consent.
Unless expressly agreed otherwise, upon full payment the customer shall receive a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the work results prepared for it for its own internal purposes.
Any full or partial publication, disclosure, reproduction, adaptation, commercial exploitation or use in advertising or public relations requires Wegweiser’s prior consent in text form.
Where quotations are permitted, Wegweiser shall be identified as the author or source.
Unless expressly agreed otherwise, all rights in methodologies, models, concepts, questionnaires, raw data, working papers, software, visualisations and general know-how shall remain with Wegweiser.
Wegweiser may use general expertise, methodologies and anonymised or aggregated findings obtained in the course of an engagement for other projects, provided that no confidential customer information is disclosed.
Exclusivity in relation to topics, sectors, methodologies or research findings shall apply only where its scope, duration and remuneration have been expressly agreed.
Where services are based on forecasts, surveys, samples, assessments or data provided by third parties, Wegweiser shall be responsible for professional performance but shall not owe any particular commercial, political or factual result.
10. Copyright and Rights of Use
Event materials, presentations, studies, concepts, texts, graphics, videos, portal articles and other content provided by Wegweiser are protected by copyright.
The customer shall receive only those rights of use that have been expressly agreed. Without Wegweiser’s consent, such content may not, in particular, be made publicly available, disclosed to third parties, reproduced or used for the customer’s own commercial products or services.
Third-party rights, including the rights of speakers, authors, photographers and cooperation partners, shall remain unaffected.
11. Photography, Video and Audio Recordings, Participant Lists and Data Protection
Photographs, video recordings and audio recordings may be made during events.
Wegweiser may use recordings depicting the event, stages, exhibition stands, groups, speakers or attendees as part of the event for reporting, documentation and the promotion of the relevant event and comparable Wegweiser events in print and online media, social media, press materials and corporate publications. By entering the event, each attendee gives their general consent to such use.
The legitimate interests of the persons depicted shall be taken into account. Attendees who do not wish to be recognisably depicted should notify Wegweiser before the event and inform the recording or event team on site.
Dedicated portrait, interview or comparable individual recordings shall, where legally required, be made only with separate consent.
Wegweiser may include the title, first name, surname, position and organisation of attendees in an event-specific participant list and make that list available to other attendees and partners directly involved in the event.
An attendee may object in text form to inclusion in the participant list before the start of the event.
Personal data shall be processed for the purposes of initiating and performing contracts, organising events and complying with legal obligations. Further information is available in Wegweiser’s applicable privacy notices.
Where personal data is processed on behalf of the customer, the parties shall, where required, enter into a separate data processing agreement.
12. Liability
Wegweiser shall have unlimited liability:
- in cases of wilful misconduct and gross negligence;
- for loss or damage resulting from injury to life, limb or health;
- in cases of fraudulent concealment of a defect;
- in respect of guarantees expressly assumed; and
- in cases of mandatory statutory liability.
In cases of ordinary negligence, Wegweiser shall be liable only for breach of a material contractual obligation. Material contractual obligations are obligations whose fulfilment is essential for the proper performance of the contract and on whose fulfilment the customer may ordinarily rely.
In such cases, liability shall be limited to the loss or damage that was foreseeable and typical for the contract at the time the contract was concluded.
In cases of ordinary negligence, liability for loss of profit, indirect loss and consequential loss shall be excluded.
The foregoing limitations of liability shall apply accordingly for the benefit of Wegweiser’s legal representatives, employees, agents, subcontractors and other service providers engaged by Wegweiser.
13. Final Provisions
The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply, excluding the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
The place of performance shall be the registered office of the respective Wegweiser company entering into the contract.
To the extent permitted by law, and in particular in relation to merchants, legal entities governed by public law and special funds governed by public law, Berlin shall be the exclusive place of jurisdiction.
Amendments and additions to the contract should be made in text form. Individual agreements shall take precedence over these General Terms and Conditions irrespective of the form in which they are made.
Should any provision of these General Terms and Conditions be or become wholly or partially invalid, the applicable statutory provisions shall apply in its place. The validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected.