Important Notice – Auto Assembly Zero Tolerance Policy

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Since Auto Assembly started back in 2000, it’s always been our intention to make the convention as friendly and welcoming as possible. We know that Transformers appeal to a wide cross-section of the community and Auto Assembly is no different. Walking around the convention every year you can see fans of all ages, male and female and from every corner of the globe, come together to share a common love of Transformers. Even our own team come from a diverse background and including our incredibly hard working volunteers we either live or hail from different countries and are an incredible mixed bunch!

Saying all of that, as Auto Assembly is Europe’s largest Transformers Convention we do appreciate that not everyone who attends the convention is going to get along and there will be times when people may not see eye to eye with each other… Over the years, Auto Assembly has changed from a small scale event where fans came along to share their love of Transformers, to spend money on toys at the dealers tables and meeting our guests to a large scale social event attended by just under 1,000 people. With the convention now running for three days and attracting fans from all over the world, for many of our attendees it’s the only time of the year where they may actually get to see some of their friends so it is a major part of their social calendar.

However, we do appreciate that not everyone in the fan community gets along. Whether there are people you don’t like, people you don’t want to talk to or those whose opinions you simply don’t share (and this can apply to dealers or even members of our own team!) there will be people who you may not see eye-to-eye with. Equally, we appreciate that with the social side of the event being such an important part of the convention this can also have a downside to it. Not everyone at the convention has enough time to be able to spend talking to all of their friends – even all of us here at Team Auto Assembly don’t have as much time as we would often like to spend with our friends during the weekend – so please try to bear this in mind. While some may come across as being rude for not talking to you, they may simply be overwhelmed by the weekend and the number of people they are trying to catch up with.

Anyway, we want everyone to be able to enjoy the convention regardless of any personal issues they may have with other attendees – and with just short of 1,000 fans joining us last year we know that some of you must have had some – so we have had to introduce a Zero Tolerance Policy. Certainly we don’t want to dictate how you can and can’t behave at the convention, but we do ask that you all try to remain as civilised as possible towards other attendees, dealers, guests and our convention team during the weekend. If you feel as if you can’t, then please give stay away from those individuals that you can’t so everyone can just relax and enjoy themselves.

We must also ask that you try to be civilised and polite when dealing with members of our team, before, during and after the convention, in any matters relating to Auto Assembly. We know that there may be times when you may have issues that will need resolving and we will do everything in our power to answer and deal with your queries as quickly as possible but no matter what issues you may have, please respect our team at all times and do not take your frustrations out on them. We have had incidents where members of our team have been subjected to written (publicly via social media or directly via email) and verbal abuse, telephone calls at unsociable hours and even threats of violence made against several of them and this is something that we will not tolerate. We do take these matters very seriously and we have already had to issue lifetime bans against several individuals for the convention and others have been discussed amongst members of the team recently. This is something we do not want to do, but we must take every step necessary to protect our team and other attendees at the convention who simply want to enjoy the event that our team has given up their spare time to organise.

As I have said, we want all of you to enjoy the convention as much as possible and the best way to do this is to make sure you are aware of all the convention’s rules and the Zero Tolerance Policy in particular in advance of attending. All of these can be found in the regularly updated Attendee Information Pack so please spare a few minutes to read this.

I’d like to thank all of you for your time reading this and I look forward to meeting all of you in person at Auto Assembly 2015.

Simon Plumbe
Auto Assembly Committee Head

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About Simon Plumbe 494 Articles
Husband, father and lifelong geek. Originally from the West Midlands, now spending my days in South Wales with my family and a house full of animals. Passionate about video games, especially retro gaming, the Commodore 64 and PlayStation Vita. Love pro wrestling, sci-fi and I'm an animal lover and vegetarian. Enjoyed this and my other articles? Why not buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/simonplumbe