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Safety Tips

Last updated 5 August 2026

Meeting people you don't know yet is the point of ShowUp — and it's worth doing thoughtfully. Most events are exactly what they look like. These are the habits that keep it that way.

ShowUp does not vet, verify, or background-check its users. Anyone can create an account and host an event. Treat every first meeting as what it is: meeting a stranger. Your own judgement is the most important safety feature here.

Before you go

  • Read the whole event. A vague description, no location detail, or a title that does not match the description are all reasons to skip it.
  • Look at the host's profile. A real photo, a filled-in bio, and other events they have hosted are all reassuring. A brand-new profile with no photo is not automatically bad, but it tells you less.
  • Meet in a public place. Parks, cafés, courts, gyms, bars. If a host asks you to come to a private home for a first meeting, decline — you can always suggest somewhere public instead.
  • Tell someone where you are going. Share the event name, the location, and roughly when you expect to be back with a friend or family member. This takes ten seconds and is the single most useful thing on this list.
  • Keep the conversation in the app until you have met and are comfortable. In-app chat is moderated and reportable. A messaging app you moved to is neither.
  • Sort out your own way there and back. Do not rely on a lift from someone you have not met.
  • Charge your phone. Obvious, and the thing people most often get wrong.

At the event

  • Trust your instincts. If something feels off, leave. You do not owe anyone an explanation, a goodbye, or a reason. Nobody worth meeting will hold it against you.
  • Keep track of your belongings and your drink. Do not leave a drink unattended, and do not accept one you did not see poured or opened.
  • Watch your alcohol intake, particularly at a first meeting. Being able to judge a situation and get yourself home is worth more than a fourth drink.
  • Stay in public view. Do not move on to a second, more private location with people you have only just met, however well it is going.
  • Ask for help if you need it. Venue staff, bar staff, and security are used to this and will help. So will other attendees.
  • Keep your personal details to yourself for now — where exactly you live, where you work, when your flat is empty.

Being good company

Safety and courtesy overlap more than people expect. A group where everyone behaves well is also a group where problems get noticed.

  • Turn up, and turn up roughly on time. If you cannot make it, leave the event in the app so the host knows.
  • Talk to the person standing on their own. Someone new to the city or doing this for the first time will decide whether to try again based on the first ten minutes.
  • Pay your share of anything shared, without needing to be chased.
  • Mention dietary requirements or allergies in the chat beforehand if food is involved.
  • Take no for an answer — about a second drink, a phone number, a photograph, or anything else.
  • Do not photograph people without asking, and do not post photos of them afterwards without their agreement.

Afterwards

  • Get yourself home the way you planned. If you have been drinking, do not drive, and do not accept a lift from someone who has.
  • Share contact details only when you want to. There is no expectation that you swap numbers with anyone.
  • Report anything that was not right, even if you handled it at the time. A single report is often the first sign of a pattern we can act on.
  • Block anyone who makes you uncomfortable. It is private, immediate, and needs no justification.

Blocking and reporting

Blocking stops someone contacting you or seeing your activity. They are not notified. Use it freely — it is not an accusation, and you do not need a reason.

Reporting brings something to us for review. You can report a person, an event, or a single message, and reports are confidential — the person reported is not shown who reported them. Every report is reviewed, and outcomes range from a warning to a permanent ban. See the Community Guidelines for how that works.

Report it if you see:

  • Harassment, threats, or targeting of a particular person
  • An event that does not exist, or is not what it claimed to be
  • Requests for money, investment pitches, or anything that smells like a scam
  • Sexual content, or sexual advances presented as an activity
  • Anyone you believe to be under age
  • Behaviour at an event that made people feel unsafe

Online safety and scams

Never send money to someone you met through ShowUp. No genuine reason to ask exists. Not a taxi fare, not a deposit for a booking, not a sudden emergency, not an investment opportunity that is closing tonight. Report it and block them.

  • Guard your personal information. Your home address, your daily routine, your workplace, your bank details, and photographs of identity documents have no place in a chat with someone you have not met.
  • Be wary of anyone rushing you off the platform, into a private conversation, or into a decision. Urgency is the most reliable signal of a scam there is.
  • Be wary of accounts that will not meet. Someone who is intensely interested in you but always has a reason not to turn up in person is not who they say they are.
  • Do not click links sent by people you do not know.
  • Keep a healthy suspicion of a perfect profile. If the photos look like stock photography, they may be.

Events are for everyone

ShowUp is for everyone, regardless of race, religion, disability, age, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation, and hate speech gets accounts removed. We would rather say this plainly than leave it implied.

At the same time, you know your own circumstances better than we do. How much you choose to share about yourself on a public profile, and which events you are comfortable attending, is your call — and it is a reasonable thing to think about, particularly in a place you do not know well. If someone at an event makes that unpleasant, report them. That behaviour is a guidelines violation, not something to put up with.

In an emergency

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call your local emergency services. In Latvia and throughout the European Union, the emergency number is112. In the United States and Canada it is 911; in the United Kingdom, 999.

Call first. Report inside the app afterwards — reporting is not monitored in real time and is not a way to summon help.

  • Know the emergency number wherever you are before you need it.
  • If you feel unsafe but not in danger, go somewhere public and busy, and ring someone you trust.
  • If a crime has occurred, contact the police. We will cooperate with a lawful request for information.

Support resources

If you need help beyond what the app can offer, these organisations can:

  • Emergency services (EU, incl. Latvia) — 112
  • Crisis and emotional support in Latvia — Skalbes crisis line, 116123, free and around the clock
  • Emotional support worldwide — Befrienders Worldwide lists helplines by country
  • Violence against women, worldwide — the UN Women global database lists national helplines
  • LGBTQ+ support and country information — ILGA World
  • Human trafficking — contact local police; the UNODC maintains country resources

Phone numbers and services change. If you find one of these out of date, tell us at robnovdev@gmail.com and we will correct it.

Contact

Something happened at an event that you want to tell us about directly, or a safety question this page does not answer? Email robnovdev@gmail.com.

This page sits alongside our Community Guidelines, which set out what is and is not allowed, and our Terms of Use.