Privacy

Short version: you can read everything on Mela without giving us anything. If you choose to subscribe we keep your email address. Analytics cookies are used only if you say yes.

What we collect

Email address, only if you subscribe. We store it with the date you signed up and confirmed, and use it to send the weekly festival email. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. Email is sent through Plinth, our email service.

Analytics, only with your consent. If you allow it, Google Analytics sets cookies and records which pages are visited, roughly where visitors are and what device they use, so we can see what is useful. If you decline, Google Analytics is not loaded at all. You can change your choice at any time using "Cookie choices" at the foot of any page.

Bot and fraud detection. We may use ClearTrust to tell automated traffic from real visitors. It looks at technical signals of the request and does not identify you.

Your choices on this device. Your cookie choice, whether you have seen the welcome message, and your festival passport (the stamps and wish list) are kept in your browser's local storage, not on our servers.

What we do not do

We do not sell personal data, show advertising, or build profiles of readers.

Where it is kept

The site runs on Railway and Cloudflare. Photos are served from Cloudflare or Wikimedia.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of the data we hold about you, or for it to be deleted, by writing to mela@cleartrust.cc. Unsubscribing removes you from all mailings at once.

Mela is run by ClearTrust and is part of the ClearTrust IVT-Free Publication Network. Last updated 2026-10.