EVENT POLICIES AND GUIDES

The primary purpose of Scorched Fur is for our attendees to have fun. These rules have been established to ensure that everyone can have fun in a safe and friendly environment.

Scorched Fur does not wish to ban anyone from our events. We want you to like coming to our events and we want you to come back. The rules are here to maintain order and harmony. It is our hope and expectation that we will seldom have to enforce them. So use good judgment. Be responsible. Treat each other with respect. Live and let live and we can all have a great time.

If you are a member of the media, looking to film, photograph, or otherwise document our events for publication, please visit our Media Policies page.

1. All attendees are assumed to have read and understood this official Scorched Fur Code of Conduct and agreed to the terms set forth therein when receiving a wristband. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse.

2. Anyone who accepts a wristband agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Scorched Fur and or AAL Services (hereinafter the festival) from any claim for personal injuries or other damages or equity arising out of any individual’s activities at the festival, even if such injury or damage is caused by negligence by or on the part of the festival.

3. The festival seeks to make its staff members available to its attendees. Staff members will be wearing specially marked badges or special–issue shirts  or special–issue wristband to indicate their status. If you have a problem or concern, please alert a member of staff to the issue.

4. All adult attendees of the festival will be required to present a single government–issued photo ID at registration which clearly states their full legal name and date of birth. Examples of valid photo identification include: photo ID issued by a Department of Public Safety or Department of Motor Vehicles office, driver’s license, military ID, passport, etc. Examples of IDs which are NOT valid include: school ID, employee ID, or any other ID that is either not issued by a federal or state government agency or not a photo ID with full legal name and date of birth. Any adult who does not present such photo ID will not be allowed to complete registration or be granted a festival wristband of membership. Any adult found to be attempting to present a forged or falsified ID will be remanded to police custody.

5. Festival attendees must wear their official festival wristband at all times while in festival areas, and it must be shown upon request to any member of festival staff, security, or law enforcement. Any attendee who does not wear their wristband or fails to present it upon request may be prevented from entering the official festival event spaces. If your wristband becomes unusable/invalid or is lost, it will be replaced at a charge of 5 U.S. dollars per badge. Any person found using a counterfeit wristband, using a wristband not belonging to them, or making copies of their wristband for others will have their membership revoked and will be banned from the festival and all subsequent events hosted by Scorched Fur.

6. The Chairman of the festival reserves the right to deny or revoke membership at any time for any reason.

7. In the event that any staff member or security member of the festival deems it necessary to revoke any attendee’s membership, that attendee must surrender their festival wristband to said staff or security member and leave the festival immediately. Also, said attendee will not be entitled to any manner of refund or compensation for the price of their membership. This includes all levels of membership.

8. Any usage, sale, or possession of illegal or non–prescribed controlled substances (to include all drugs and chemicals listed in Schedules I through V of the United States controlled substances lists) will constitute cause to revoke membership of those involved in the activity and will be reported to the proper authorities.

9. All parties at which alcohol is served or consumed must verify that every person being served is of legal drinking age by checking government–issued photo IDs. Any party found serving alcohol to or allowing consumption of alcohol by anyone who is not of legal drinking age will be shut down immediately.

10. No weapons are permitted at the festival. If you have a facsimile or a replica of, or a peace–bonded weapon to use as part of a costume, it must be approved by the festival before being shown in public. Insofar as props designed to accompany costumes—be they cosplay costumes or as part of fursuit outfits—these props do not need to be pre–approved by or inspected by the staff of the festival, with the exception of props that may be deemed weapons; when in doubt, do not hesitate to flag down a member of festival Staff or Security and ask their opinion. The staff and security members of the festival reserve and may exercise the right to deem what is and is not considered an appropriate or unacceptable item.

11. Remember that while you are at the festival, you are not only here to enjoy the furry fandom, but you also serve to  represent it. Violators may be warned only once. Further as such, the following behaviors are prohibited in any spaces of the host venue:
       a.  Outright nudity
       b. Disrespect of the staff and security of the Convention and/or host venue, or willful and wanton damage to the                  property of the host venue.
       c. Selling goods or services.

        d. Advertising or marketing  products and or services available for purchase at or outside of the festival.

12. The festival  has a strict No Harassment policy, to include any and all forms of physical, verbal, and/or sexual harassment. No means NO. If someone tells you to stop, you STOP. If someone tells you to go away, you GO AWAY. If someone will not abide by these rules, contact a staffer or security staffer of the festival  and the issue will be dealt with immediately.

13. Any attendees engaging in behavior which endangers life or property (including but not limited to such acts as pulling fire alarms or creating other hazardous situations) will have their membership revoked immediately and may be banned from future events hosted by Scorched Fur and or AAL Services. If warranted, law enforcement may be contacted at the behest of the festival.

14. Photographic, video, and audio recordings and coverage by a member of the press, media, or any other entertainment enterprise is prohibited in any festival–controlled areas of the host venue without prior written consent. This includes spaces reserved by the festival for its duration. Attendees must also give written consent to be recorded while in any public space at the festival’s host venue by the press or any other entertainment enterprise, and said written consent must be kept on file for no less than one calendar year. If any attendee declines to consent to being recorded, the entity performing the recording must not allow that attendee to be within the recording in any fashion. If any attendee, after the recording has been taken, produced, and/or edited, requests that their likeness be removed, blurred, or otherwise excised from the recording, the entity who performed the recording must promptly comply, and any publicly–accessible recording bearing the complainant’s likeness must be removed temporarily until the likeness can be satisfactorily removed or obscured. It is also not permissible to photograph or videotape from any public space into any festival–controlled space. Discovery of such a recording being made, or violation of any part of this rule and its subparts, may result in the individual that performed the act being asked to leave the convention space and to be barred from returning to the Event in the future, and the festival may ask that all recordings produced by the entity be removed from any publicly–accessible media format, whether physical or electronic.
       a. If a member of the press is found by any attendee, they should immediately alert a staffer of the festival, who     will present said individual(s) with a written copy of the Scorched Fur Media Policy and information about the festival.
       b. No photographs or video of the festival may be used for any commercial purpose or financial gain without prior written consent from Scorched Fur . Any personal photographs or video taken at the festival and published, whether electronically or in print, must be removed immediately upon request.
       c. Any attendee who photographs or records video of the festival for personal use—and who is not a member of or acting on behalf of any press outlet, entertainment enterprise, or similar endeavor—is allowed to take and record video and photographic media for their own personal sharing and amusement. Any conflicts and disagreements which arise from the sharing and posting of said Media to social media outlets shall not be the fault of the festival. This policy extends also to audio recordings, or any form of physical or electronic Media. Any Media recorded in this fashion and used for personal and commercial financial gain shall not include any endorsements by, or claims of endorsement by the festival, or any copyrights, logos, or trademarks associated with the festival which do not appear coincidentally in the Media recorded.

15. If the host venue decides for any reason to ban an individual from its premises, the festival will likewise ban the individual from the festival and any future event hosted by Scorched Fur.

16. Festival staff members will make every attempt to be fair, lenient, and understanding in the case of infractions, but there are some situations in which our options may become limited based on the severity of the situation. If you feel that you have been treated unfairly by a member of the staff or security, you may take the matter up with the Chief of Security, the festival Chairman, or the Executive Officer on duty.

17. The festival will not accept ANY refund requests. Unauthorized use of a credit or debit card, or any other form of monetary exchange card or monetary exchange process, and all other attempts to circumvent the festival’s no refunds policy will result in a permanent ban from the festival’s leadership.

18. The festival reserves the right to amend these rules without prior or posted notice.

19. All sales of products and registration before, during, and after pre–registration are final and no refunds will be issued.

20. Service animals are allowed in the host venue and cannot be asked to be removed by staff or security excepting only if they are causing bodily harm, disruptions, or other threatening or disruptive behaviors, or complaints have been lodged with staff alleging them to be a nuisance; the complainant does not have to notify the offending animal’s owner in order to satisfy the conditions of reporting. By law the festival cannot ask you to identify or require guests to produce registration or identification information about your service animal. An emotional support animal or therapeutic animal, however, is classified—by law—as a pet and falls under the host venue’s personal pet policy. All other pets and animals fall under the host venue’s pet policy, which varies from venue to venue. If you are in doubt about the policy of the host venue, please do not hesitate to ask staff for clarification. The festival does ask, however, that you keep your pet(s) leashed or otherwise restrained for the comfort and safety of others, with the understanding that the host venue’s rules on leashing and caging override any rule the festival can impose. The festival reserves the right to ask that an attendee remove or leash an animal that has had complaints lodged against it by other guests, which can include complaints of threatening or disruptive behaviors, or actions deemed to be a nuisance to the general public.

21. With regards to injuries caused to or by service animals and pets over the course of the festival, the festival is not responsible for said injuries. Injuries caused willfully, maliciously, and wantonly to or by the pet(s) of any single member of the festival staff is the responsibility of the staff member in question. In the event such an incident occurs, the matter will be escalated to the festival’s executive committee for resolution and compensation.

22. The festival is not responsible for the host venue’s compliance or non–compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need special accommodations, however, please do not hesitate to ask or request assistance, and festival staff will be happy to assist or work with the host venue to provide the necessary assistance.

23. The festival reserves the right to utilize any personal information obtained by the festival via the registration process to investigate, pursue, and enforce infractions of the Scorched Fur Code of Conduct.