Under-18 Participation

Our policy on children attending The Other Roads has three differences from the policy of mainline Empire events, which are explained below. All these differences are related to the fact that The Other Roads is a small indoor event rather than a large camping event. Other than these differences, rules for children at events (e.g. levels of expected roleplaying ability and parental supervision by age range) are the same as rules for mainline Empire events.

It is Profound Decisions child protection policy that unrelated adults should take all reasonable steps to avoid spending time with a child who is by themselves. As part of our pre-event safety briefing, we will ensure that all players and crew are aware of this and take it seriously, including appreciating the differences in how this plays out in indoor vs outdoor events.

The cost of a child’s ticket is a concession (£60), no matter their age. Most of the ticket price for this event pays for an indoor sleeping space and catering, unlike mainline Empire which includes neither. A child’s attendance costs us no less than that of an adult, and this is reflected in the ticket price.

All children (including those aged 16-17) must attend with a parent or guardian. They must sleep in the same bunkroom as that parent or guardian. The nature of an indoor event with many small rooms, particularly bunkrooms, means that a child attending alone would likely be alone with an unrelated adult in their bunkroom at least some of the time. Children must sleep in the same bunkroom as a parent or guardian to avoid this.

We will endeavour to minimise the number of lone unrelated adults sleeping in the same bunkroom as a child when we match participants to bunkrooms. We will prioritise placing children in smaller bunkrooms with only their own family groups, or if we are unable to do this we will place multiple sets of children and their parents/guardians in the same bunkroom.

Children are not allowed to attend as crew or to enter crew-only spaces (e.g. the main kitchen). We are a small event with a small number of crew, which means that a crew-only space will often have only one member of crew in it. Children should not enter these spaces in order to avoid crew being distracted from their work by needing to exit the area to avoid being alone with a child.