Consent Policy

What to do in the case of a consent violation or other issue or how to not be/report a douchebag:

Turtle Hill Events considers its paramount mission to be the creation of a safe container in which to allow people to enjoy themselves free from harassment of any kind, whether it be related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, class, inappropriate physical contact, or unwelcome sexual attention. This is our ideal, and one which we feel strongly about. Over many years (more than a dozen of them) of difficult lessons, we have come up with a way of dealing with harassment which we hope helps us to live up to this ideal.

1. First and foremost, our entire ruleset can be boiled down to a single phrase: Don’t be a douchebag. All of our rules are there for a reason, and many of them were created to address very specific issues we’ve experienced in the past. So, the first step to not being a douchebag at our events is to read the rules.

2. Say you’ve read the rules and you’re just being a good member of the community and some douchebag harasses (or violates the consent of, or is a general douchebag to) you or someone else in front of you. What do you do? I’m glad you asked.

   1. First, find a staffer and tell them what you witnessed as soon as possible. Be sure you have the offender’s badge name if at all possible and a good physical description of them. Good descriptions include things like, “They had a tattoo of a snake on their left cheek and a really rad t-shirt from the most recent Peter Gabriel/Sting tour.” Bad descriptions include things like, “They had brown-haired and wore glasses.” Dude, that’s like half of everyone. Help us out, here!

   2. Second, if you aren’t the person who was harassed (or whatever), tell the staffer who was harassed. If at all possible, put the staffer together with that person.

   3. What happens next?

      1. The staffer will contact one of the coordination team who will get involved. If you have a preference as to the gender of the person to whom you would like to speak, now is the time to tell the staffer. We will do our best to accommodate your request.

      2. We will immediately attempt to talk to the person who was harassed and get the best and clearest picture of what happened.

      3. Then we will talk with the other party, again to get the best and clearest picture of what happened.

      4. We may go back and forth between the parties, but we will never try to put you together. Instead, we will ask the person who was harassed what they want to have happen next and we’ll do our best to accommodate them. If the reporter wishes us to call law enforcement, we will do so.

      5. Our policy is that this be the typical process:

         1. The first time a person is reported as being a douchebag, we’ll have a talk with them.

         2. The second time, we’ll ask them to take a break, go back to their cabin or tent, chill out, take the rest of the day/evening off.

         3. The third time, we’ll ask them to leave the event (no refunds) immediately, and we’ll escort them off the site.

If the douchebaggedness is of sufficient gravity, or if the person in question responds with aggression to our intervention, we may choose, at our discretion, to escalate to the later steps more quickly.

3. We do our best to vet our presenters and staff carefully, but we appreciate the community being part of that process. If you are aware of douchebag behavior on the part of these or any members of our community outside of our events, we would appreciate a heads-up. Our process regarding this is similar to our at-event process. We contact all parties involved to try to get a clear picture of what the issue is/was, then make a determination about danger to our event and community. Steps we may take may include any combination of the following:

   1. Warning our team to keep an eye on the person.

   2. Speaking to the person and telling them we’re concerned.

   3. Declining to bring the person on as a presenter or staffer.

   4. Telling the person to take a year off from our events.

   5. Telling the person they are no longer welcome at our events.

   6. Or other things.

FYI, we do talk with other event promoters and may share our ban list, and the reasons for not allowing certain people to be at our events, with promoters we believe to be ethical and similar in their process to ours.