By entering the festival’s event we all agree to respect each other’s physical, mental and emotional boundaries within the space. We don’t tolerate racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, misogyny or any other oppressive behaviour or language.

These common principles exist to create a safer environment for all:

1. Let’s not assume consent. Ask, respect the answer you receive, and apologise when needed.
2. Let’s not assume the identity, sexuality, gender, pronoun, health or sickness, ability or background of others.
3. Let’s respect the opinions, beliefs, experiences, and personal space of each other.
4. Let’s not touch other people, service dogs, mobility aids or medical devices without consent. Avoid using perfume.
5. Learn to become aware of your own prejudice & privileges. Be mindful of others in the space. Give people space to move, retreat, and take distance.
6. Let’s act with positive intent and take care of each other.

Striving for safer spaces is a shared effort amongst us sharing this space. If something doesn’t feel right to you, please speak up. You may share your concerns with the Baltic Circle staff or the security guards. Staff can almost always be found at venues ticket sales stations. It is their duty to listen and take action accordingly.

At the festival clubs you recognise the designated safety team from a led-accessory.

What are safer spaces for?

Safer spaces have emerged in feminist spaces and within subcultures around mid 60s, striving to create temporary spaces free of oppressive systems present in the society. Safer spaces principles have since evolved to acknowledge people’s specific needs diversely. The idea of safer spaces principles is to encourage active effort and collective responsibility over shared environments and each others’ sense of safety, acknowledging that no space can ever be considered absolutely safe for all people at all times. However, there is a will to strive for safety, ways to prevent risks and means to intervene in case needed.

At Baltic Circle Festival, we commit to safer spaces work to unleash capacity for artistic freedom, critical thinking, new perspectives and a wide range of emotions and experiences to occur. We believe that multiple truths can exist at once. We also wish to invite difficult discussions and controversies to take place. We look into taboos with curious minds and challenge the pre-existing conditions with open hearts. We are not afraid of conflict or learning curves, rather we see them as crucial steps in the journey on the path for more just cultural and arts fields as well as the society at large. With a mindful, conscious and caring environment we wish to give room for fearless, mind-bending and unexpected encounters to take place.

Harassment, discrimination & inappropriate behaviour

Everyone has different ideas of what constitutes inappropriate behaviour, and defining such behaviour unambiguously is impossible. The fact that a person feels that they have been treated inappropriately and wants the matter to be addressed is reason enough to address it.

All behaviour that creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for another person is considered harassment. You can read more about grounds for discrimination prohibited by the Non-discrimination Act here.