Ownership & Funding
Who owns PLAY AT HOME FEST
This site is published by a small, independent company owned by the working editors who founded it. There is no parent group, no outside shareholder pulling strings, no political party’s media arm, and no larger business with interests in the sectors we cover. Nobody owns a share of this publication who is not doing the work, and that is a deliberate choice rather than an accident of size.
The company is registered where its founders live and work, and it files what the law of that place requires. We do not publish the registration particulars on this page, partly because that material gets scraped and reused in scams against readers. If you have a genuine reason to need them, such as serving a legal notice or verifying us for a transparency body, write to support@playathomefest.com and we will provide them. Because the owners are the editors, there is no proprietor to phone this desk, and nowhere for us to hide if we publish something indefensible.
No state money, no party, no hidden backer
We take no money from any government or its agencies in exchange for coverage, and we are not the outlet of any political party, campaign, or advocacy group. We have no undisclosed investor and no secret sponsor shaping the news. If that ever changed, this page would say so before the arrangement began, not after a reader worked it out. Election-related advertising that hides who is paying for it is refused outright, a rule that also lives on our advertise page.
Where the money comes from
Advertising is our primary source of revenue and, at present, close to all of it. Most is programmatic display filled through advertising exchanges, with a smaller amount sold directly. Occasional clearly labelled sponsored posts and newsletter sponsorship make up the rest. The rules those sales run under, including the categories we will not touch, are set out on our advertise page.
The site is free to read. There is no paywall, no subscription, and no reader payment of any kind at the moment. We currently earn nothing from affiliate links, and if we ever add any, they will be marked in the story itself and described here, so a reader can see when a link might earn us a commission. If a new revenue stream appears, this page changes to reflect it before the money is spent, not quietly at the end of a financial year.
How advertising is kept away from the journalism
Money and journalism share a building here, so we manage the distance between them with firm rules rather than good intentions. The rules are few and absolute. Advertisers do not see stories before they publish. Advertisers are not told what is coming. No advertiser gets a story pulled, softened, or held, and a request to do any of those things is refused. When a company that advertises with us becomes the subject of coverage, the story discloses the relationship.
On programmatic inventory we usually do not even know which advertiser bought a given impression, which is inconvenient for selling and useful for everyone else. The editorial side owns what gets covered and how, and the business side owns what gets sold, and the two do not trade favours across that line. The wider firewall is described in our editorial standards.
Affiliate links, sponsored content, and disclosure
Where we ever run sponsored or paid content, it is labelled clearly as sponsored, so no reader mistakes it for our journalism, and the advertiser does not get to borrow our editorial voice. Sponsored content is not written by the reporters who cover that subject. If we introduce affiliate links, the story will disclose that a purchase may earn us a commission, and the choice of what to feature will not be for sale. Disclosure is not a formality we bury at the bottom. It is the point.
Grants, donations, and conflicts
We currently accept no grants, donations, or reader contributions. If we ever do, the terms will be set in advance, we will name the funder, describe the amount in a meaningful band, state the purpose and duration, and say whether the funder had any say over coverage. A grant conditioned on covering a subject a particular way, or on approval of our output, is not one we can take. Members of the team declare personal, financial, and family interests and step aside from stories where they have one, as our editorial standards require.
Keeping this page honest
If the ownership changes, if an investor appears, if we take a grant, or if a revenue stream grows into something that matters, this page is updated first, before any announcement elsewhere. Errors here are fixed the same way errors in our reporting are, which our corrections policy describes. If something on this page reads as thin or evasive, say so: write to support@playathomefest.com and ask the specific question. Transparency pages have a way of ageing into wallpaper, and the surest way to keep this one accurate is a reader who actually reads it.
Last updated: August 2026
