Refund Policy

Membership dues

Membership terms are not refunded, in whole or in part. Cancelling stops the next renewal and leaves you with everything you paid for until the term runs out.

That is the whole trade, and it is meant to be a fair one: nothing is switched off the moment you cancel, so you never have to time a cancellation to avoid losing access you have already bought.

If you were charged after cancelling, or charged twice, that is an error rather than a policy and we will refund it. Tell us.

Founding places

A founding place is membership bought before CARNALIFE opens. If CARNALIFE cancels the launch, every founding place is refunded in full, and you do not have to ask.

A postponed launch is not a cancellation. Your membership starts when the doors open, so a new date moves the start of your term and you lose nothing.

Otherwise a founding place is treated like any other membership term above: it is not refunded, in whole or in part.

Event tickets

Tickets are non-refundable if you cannot attend. Capacity at a vetted event is planned around who said they were coming, and a seat released late is usually a seat nobody else can take.

If CARNALIFE cancels an event, ticket holders are refunded in full. This is not the same situation and is not treated as one.

If CARNALIFE moves an event to a different date, you can either keep your ticket for the new date or ask for a refund.

Tickets can be transferred to another vetted member where the event allows it. Ask us rather than arranging it privately, so the door list matches who actually arrives.

If you bought a place at a members-only event by applying for membership at the same time, and we do not approve your application, you are refunded in full. You are also refunded in full if we have simply not finished reviewing it by the time bookings for that event close. You do not have to ask for either one.

Until your application is approved you are not admitted, whatever you have paid. That is the trade this route makes: the money is contingent, and it comes back if the answer is no or if there is no answer in time.

If you booked a place as a guest for one night without applying for membership, the same applies: if we do not approve you as a guest, or have not finished reviewing you by the time bookings for that event close, you are refunded in full, and you do not have to ask. Until you are approved you are not admitted, whatever you have paid.

If you cancel that place yourself before we have decided, the first paragraph above applies and the ticket is not refunded. Your application carries on regardless; cancelling a seat is not withdrawing an application.

Safety is never a fee

If you leave an event, or decide not to arrive, because of a consent or safety concern, you are refunded in full.

You are not penalised for it, you do not have to justify it to anyone to get the money back, and you do not have to have made a formal report first.

This exists because the alternative is somebody weighing the price of a ticket against their own safety, and that is the single worst decision this policy could ever ask a member to make.

Dens bookings

Bookings of a member’s private space are covered by the Carnal Dens cancellation and refund terms, not by this page.

Those terms are agreed when you book and are recorded against that booking, so a booking is always governed by the version you actually agreed to, even if the terms change afterwards.

Membership time given by CARNALIFE

Membership time added to your account by CARNALIFE, as a make-good or at the founder’s discretion, was not paid for and is not refundable in money.

How to ask, and please ask first

Email us and say what happened. Refunds here are issued by a person, not by a rule that fires on its own, so telling us is what starts it.

If you think you have been charged wrongly, come to us before raising a dispute with your bank. A chargeback on a private membership is slower for you than an email, and it tells us nothing about what went wrong.