Service levels, response times, and escalation paths
Technical Support Tiers, SLA, and Service Level Definitions
This Support Policy (“Policy”) defines the technical support services, service levels, and operational procedures applicable to customers of Northstar Show Systems (“Northstar”) who maintain an active support agreement. This Policy is incorporated by reference into the Northstar Terms of Service (NSS-LEGAL-TOS-001) and all applicable Master Service Agreements and support contracts.
Support services are designed to assist customers with the operation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and optimization of Northstar hardware and software products deployed in themed entertainment, show-control, AV integration, and related applications.
Northstar offers four support tiers, each providing progressively greater coverage, faster response times, and additional services:
Feature
Standard
Professional
Enterprise
Mission Critical
Annual Fee Basis
Included (Year 1)
% of system value
% of system value
% of system value
Support Hours
Business hours
Extended hours
24/5
24/7/365
Response Channel
Email, portal
Email, portal, phone
Email, portal, phone
All + dedicated line
Named Support Contact
No
Yes (1)
Yes (2)
Yes (up to 4)
Remote Diagnostics
Yes
Yes
Yes (priority)
Yes (immediate)
On-Site Dispatch
Billable
Billable
Included (US)
Included (worldwide)
Advance Replacement
No
No
Yes
Yes (hot spare pool)
Software Updates
Security patches
All updates
All updates
All updates + beta
Firmware Updates
Critical only
All releases
All releases
Pre-release access
System Health Monitoring
No
Quarterly reports
Monthly reports
Real-time monitoring
Assigned TAM
No
No
Optional
Included
Annual System Review
No
No
Yes
Yes (semi-annual)
Training Credits
None
8 hours/year
24 hours/year
Unlimited
Tier
Support Hours
Time Zone
Standard
Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Customer’s local time zone (US only)
Professional
Monday–Friday, 7:00 AM – 9:00 PM
US Eastern Time
Enterprise
Monday–Friday, 24 hours
Global / Follow-the-sun
Mission Critical
24 hours / 7 days / 365 days
Global / Follow-the-sun
Holidays observed by Northstar are published annually on the Customer Portal. Standard and Professional tier support is not available on observed holidays.
Severity
Definition
Examples
S1 – Critical
Complete system down. Production show cannot run. No workaround available. Guests/patrons are directly impacted.
HelmOS runtime failure during operating hours; all Polaris nodes offline; show cannot be executed
S2 – High
Major functionality impaired. Production show can run with significant degradation. Partial workaround available.
Single zone of attraction non-functional; intermittent show execution failures; primary/backup failover issues
S3 – Medium
Moderate impact. Non-critical functionality affected. Workaround available. Show operations continue.
Non-critical Bridge interface failure; monitoring dashboard errors; logging or reporting issues
S4 – Low
Minor impact. Cosmetic issues, documentation questions, feature requests, or general inquiries.
UI cosmetic defect; documentation clarification; feature enhancement request; training questions
Response times are measured from the time a properly submitted ticket is acknowledged by the Northstar support system. Response times represent the target time to initial substantive response, not resolution time.
Severity
Standard
Professional
Enterprise
Mission Critical
S1 – Critical
4 business hours
2 hours
30 minutes
15 minutes
S2 – High
8 business hours
4 hours
1 hour
30 minutes
S3 – Medium
2 business days
1 business day
4 hours
2 hours
S4 – Low
5 business days
2 business days
1 business day
4 hours
Note: Response time targets are best-effort commitments for Standard and Professional tiers. Enterprise and Mission Critical tier response times are backed by SLA credits as described in Section 3.3.
If Northstar fails to meet the response time targets for S1 or S2 severity issues under Enterprise or Mission Critical support agreements, the Customer may be eligible for SLA credits as follows:
Missed Target
Credit
Response time exceeded by up to 2x
5% of monthly support fee
Response time exceeded by 2x–4x
10% of monthly support fee
Response time exceeded by more than 4x
20% of monthly support fee
SLA credits must be requested in writing within thirty (30) days of the incident. Maximum aggregate SLA credits in any calendar month shall not exceed twenty-five percent (25%) of the monthly support fee. SLA credits are the sole and exclusive remedy for failure to meet response time targets.
Escalation Level
Triggered By
Escalated To
Timeframe
Level 1
Initial ticket submission
Support Engineer
Immediate
Level 2
Unresolved after initial response; Customer request
Senior Support Engineer
Per response targets
Level 3
Unresolved at Level 2; complex engineering issue
Engineering Team / Product Specialist
4 hours (S1), 8 hours (S2)
Level 4
Unresolved at Level 3; systemic product issue
VP of Engineering / CTO
8 hours (S1), 24 hours (S2)
Executive
Customer executive request; prolonged S1 outage
VP of Operations / CEO
Customer-initiated
Enterprise and Mission Critical tier customers have access to a dedicated emergency support hotline for S1 severity issues outside of standard support hours. The emergency hotline is staffed by on-call senior engineers and provides direct access to the engineering team for critical production-down situations. Emergency contact information is provided to authorized support contacts upon activation of the support agreement.
Many support issues can be diagnosed and resolved remotely. To enable remote support, Customer must provide:
A secure VPN connection or Northstar-approved remote access solution;
Network access to the affected Northstar systems and management interfaces;
Appropriate credentials with the access level required to diagnose the issue;
A local contact available to assist with physical verification if required.
Northstar Remote Monitoring services provide continuous visibility into system health, performance, and operational status. Remote monitoring includes:
Real-time system health dashboards accessible to Northstar and Customer;
Automated alerting for hardware failures, software errors, and performance anomalies;
Proactive outreach when potential issues are detected;
Monthly (Enterprise) or weekly (Mission Critical) health reports;
Trend analysis and capacity planning recommendations.
Release Type
Description
Support Duration
Major Release (X.0)
New features, architecture changes, potentially breaking changes
3 years from release
Minor Release (X.Y)
Feature additions, improvements, non-breaking changes
2 years from release
Patch Release (X.Y.Z)
Bug fixes, security patches, stability improvements
Covered under parent minor release
Hotfix
Critical/emergency fix for specific issue
Superseded by next patch release
Northstar provides advance notice of product and software end-of-life milestones as follows:
Milestone
Definition
Notice Period
End of Sale (EOS)
Product no longer available for new purchase
6 months
End of Software Updates (EOSU)
No new feature updates; security patches continue
12 months from EOS
End of Support (EOSup)
No further support or patches available
24 months from EOS
End of Life (EOL)
Product is fully retired; no services available
36 months from EOS
Northstar will publish end-of-life notices on the Customer Portal and notify affected customers via email. Customers are encouraged to plan migration paths within the published timelines.
Northstar provides full support for the current major release and the immediately preceding major release (“current minus one”). Customers running software versions more than two major releases behind the current production release may experience limited support and will be advised to upgrade. Northstar reserves the right to require software upgrades to the latest stable release before diagnosing certain issues.
Scheduled maintenance for cloud-based services, remote monitoring infrastructure, and license management systems will be performed during designated maintenance windows:
Standard Maintenance Window: Tuesdays, 2:00 AM – 6:00 AM US Eastern Time
Extended Maintenance Window: First Saturday of each month, 12:00 AM – 8:00 AM US Eastern Time (for major infrastructure updates)
Northstar will provide at least seventy-two (72) hours’ advance notice for scheduled maintenance and at least seven (7) days’ notice for extended maintenance windows. Emergency maintenance may be performed without advance notice when necessary to address critical security vulnerabilities or system stability issues.
To ensure effective support, Customer shall:
Designate authorized support contacts who are trained in Northstar system operation and authorized to open and manage support tickets;
Provide accurate and complete information when submitting support tickets, including system serial numbers, software versions, error messages, and steps to reproduce the issue;
Maintain current contact information in the Customer Portal;
Ensure that deployed systems are running supported software versions;
Maintain network infrastructure in accordance with Northstar’s network design guidelines;
Implement regular backup procedures for system configurations, show files, and project data;
Provide remote access capabilities as described in Section 5 of this Policy;
Cooperate with Northstar support personnel in diagnostic and troubleshooting activities;
Apply security patches and critical updates in a timely manner.
Troubleshooting of Northstar hardware and software issues;
Diagnosis of system connectivity, performance, and operational issues;
Guidance on system configuration, feature usage, and best practices;
Assistance with software updates, firmware upgrades, and migration;
RMA processing and warranty claim management;
Integration troubleshooting for supported third-party protocols (DMX, sACN, Art-Net, MIDI, OSC, serial).
Third-party hardware or software troubleshooting (non-Northstar products);
Customer network infrastructure design, configuration, or troubleshooting;
Show programming, creative content development, or media production;
Custom software development or scripting (available as professional services);
Physical installation, wiring, or infrastructure work (available as professional services);
Training delivery (covered under training credits or professional services);
Support for products past end-of-life or running unsupported software versions.
Support requests must be submitted through one of the following channels:
Customer Portal: support.northstarshowsystems.com (preferred for all non-emergency requests)
Email: support@northstarshowsystems.com
Phone: [Support Phone Number] (Professional, Enterprise, and Mission Critical tiers)
Emergency Hotline: [Emergency Number] (Enterprise and Mission Critical tiers, S1 severity only)
When submitting a support ticket, customers should provide:
System serial number(s) or site identifier;
Software and firmware version numbers;
Severity classification (see Section 3.1);
Detailed description of the issue, including symptoms, timing, and frequency;
Steps to reproduce the issue (if applicable);
Error messages, screenshots, or log excerpts;
Environmental changes or events that may be related (power events, network changes, software updates);
Impact assessment (e.g., show stopped, degraded performance, non-critical).
For customers requiring ongoing, proactive system management beyond traditional support, Northstar offers Managed Service plans that include:
Dedicated system administrator assigned to the Customer’s environment;
Proactive system monitoring, patching, and optimization;
Scheduled show file updates and cue management;
Regular system health reviews and capacity planning;
Priority engineering access for system modifications;
Annual on-site system audit and optimization visit.
Managed Service plans are quoted individually based on system complexity, site count, and operational requirements. Contact Northstar Sales for details.
DOCUMENT CROSS-REFERENCES:
Northstar Terms of Service (NSS-LEGAL-TOS-001)
Northstar Warranty Policy (NSS-LEGAL-WTY-001)
Northstar Privacy Policy (NSS-LEGAL-PP-001)
Northstar Master Service Agreement (NSS-LEGAL-MSA-001)
Reach our legal team at legal@northstarshowsystems.com.