Terms of use

Independent fan project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by New York Road Runners or the TCS New York City Marathon.

The Costume Corral is run by an individual organizer (“the organizer”). The organizer is not New York Road Runners, the TCS New York City Marathon, X, or any brand.

You can browse the site without an account. To upload, rate, report or make a claim, you need an account, and you must be 18 or older. If you are under 18, do not create an account or upload photos.

• You sign up with an email address, a password and a display name.
• Your display name is shown publicly as the photographer credit on photos you upload.
• Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your account.
• Give us a real email address and do not pretend to be someone else.

• You confirm that you took each photo yourself.
• You give The Costume Corral a license to display your photos on the site and to use them to promote the contest, including in posts on X. This is the same license you agree to at signup.
• The license does not transfer ownership. The photos stay yours.
• Only upload photos you have the right to share. Do not upload photos that break the acceptable use rules below.

Photos show real people. If someone in a photo wants it removed, we will hide it while we look at the request. See Remove a photo.

Do not:

• upload photos that are offensive, unlawful, or that invade someone’s privacy;
• upload photos that are not costume photos from marathon day, or upload the same photo again and again;
• try to rig ratings, rate through fake accounts, or get around the limits on uploads and ratings;
• attack, scrape, overload or break into the site, or try to reach data that is not yours;
• use the site to harass anyone.

• Every upload is checked by an AI model that sorts it into a costume category and screens it for safety. Anything the AI is unsure about goes to an admin to review. The AI can be wrong.
• Any signed-in member can report a photo. A photo that gets enough reports from different members is hidden until an admin looks at it.
• The organizer can approve, recategorize, hide or remove any photo, remove ratings, and close an account that breaks these terms, with or without notice.
• Anyone can ask for a photo to be removed through Remove a photo, without an account.

The contest runs under the contest rules. If these terms and the rules ever disagree about the contest, the rules decide.

It is free to enter and free to vote. No purchase is necessary. The site does not collect money from anyone. Prize offers from sponsors on the Prize Board are offers only, and any prize is handled outside the site.

Independent fan project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by New York Road Runners or the TCS New York City Marathon.

Names of events, races, brands and services belong to their owners and are used only to say what the site is about.

How the site handles your information is described on the privacy page.

The site is a free, fan-run project and is provided “as is”, without promises. It may be slow, change, or go offline, and the organizer cannot promise that photos, ratings or accounts will always be available. To the extent the law allows, the organizer is not responsible for losses that come from using the site.

The organizer may change these terms. When that happens, the “Last updated” date at the top of this page changes. If you keep using the site after a change, you accept the new terms.

The site does not publish a contact email. To raise a problem with a photo, use Remove a photo.