Policies

Code of Conduct

All attendees at Ascendio 2012 are expected to treat other attendees, guests, staff, and the general public with respect. Physical and verbal harassment, violence and sexual assault will not be tolerated. Please notify a member of the Ascendio Security Team regarding behavior that is abusive, insulting, intimidating, bothersome, or people who are acting in an unsafe or illegal manner. HPEF reserves the right to revoke tickets and/or the badge required for attendance at Ascendio without refund, in case of violation of this Code of Conduct.

Badge responsibility.

All attendees MUST wear and/or carry their badges when attending any Ascendio event, and must produce it if you are asked to. If you have purchased a ticket to any extra-fee Ascendio event, we will not be able to provide a replacement if yours is lost. If your badge or a ticket are damaged, please bring the damaged item to the Registration Desk as soon as possible so we can provide you with a replacement.

Respect hotel regulations & other guests.

Please maintain quiet in the hallways after 11 p.m., avoid late night wild parties in the rooms, don’t damage hotel furnishings, and note that theft, shoplifting, physical violence, or other violations of the law will be prosecuted to the extent permissible by law.

Respect the rights of other guests at the hotel: between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8 a.m., please keep the noise level down in the hallways and hotel rooms. The common room will be open late, and activities will be taking place throughout the night on some nights, so there are many places to congregate outside hotel rooms. Leave hallways and doorways clear.

Attaching flyers or posters to the walls, or distributing them in the programming rooms, is strictly prohibited. There is a bulletin board specifically for posting flyers near the Meet & Greet Table, and flyers may be placed on that table for attendees to take, or personally distributed in that general location.

Respect the staff, volunteers & attendees.

Respect hotel staff members and the hotel security team. They’re doing the best they can.

All Ascendio staff members are volunteers, and they have all paid to attend the event. Please remember that it is their event as much as yours. If there is any issue with a staff member’s instructions or information, please inform the Registration or Meet & Greet Desks or an event chair.

Do not touch any person without their permission, including people who appear to be physically disabled and people wearing costumes. Always ask.

While it is not required that you leave scented products at home, please keep in mind that they can be disruptive to people with scent sensitivities and moderate your use appropriately. If you smoke, please only do so in designated areas.

If you do not have a disability, do not sit in the marked seats for people with disabilities in any programming session until the session has officially begun. Furthermore, do not question people who choose to sit in these seats. Not all disabilities are visible to the naked eye. [back to top]

Cosplay, Art, Fanfic & Presentation Policies

Costumes should cover, at minimum, the skin exposed by a standard (non-thong) bathing suit. Please keep all costumes at a PG-13 level, for everyone’s comfort. No masks are permitted (except as props; you may carry a Death Eater mask, but for security reasons, you may not wear it around the convention space). While costume weaponry is welcome at the convention, please leave your real weapons at home.

The Art Gallery will have a section for R and NC-17 artwork, that will be monitored to ensure no entry by minors. However; if there are opportunities for impromptu, publicly-displayed drawings, please keep these at a PG-13 level. In addition to protecting underaged wizards, this will help everyone feel comfortable at the convention.

Presentations and fanfic readings that cover topics of an R or NC-17 level rating, for sexual or violent content, may be proposed. They may include any form of media, including visual art. However, these presentations will be limited to attendees ages 18 and up, and will be held in closed rooms so that attendees can choose whether or not to take part. [back to top]

Photography Policy

Please note that photographs may be taken, and audio and/or video recordings are frequently made in convention areas. Your image and likeness may appear in those recordings or photographs. It is almost impossible to prevent this, and if you are deeply concerned with it, you may wish to reconsider attending the convention

Any member of any panel, or any presenter, may request that no recordings be made at, and/or no photographs and/or video be taken at, a specific panel, and it is the obligation of those attending said presentation to honor such a request; any individual may ask that no photographs and/or video of his or her face be taken and it is the obligation of the photographer/videographer to honor such a request.

There are official HPEF photographers attending Ascendio. Their photographs may be posted on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and the HPEF websites during and after the event. If you would like them to delete any photographs taken of you, or remove them from Flickr, please contact chairs@hp2012.org. [back to top]

Refund & Upgrade Policies

You will be able to upgrade your registration starting this summer. Before you upgrade, you must email the registrar for instructions. If you change your registration without contacting the registrar, you will be charged for the full amount of the new level or any other items you are purchasing. Similarly, if you cancel without contacting the registrar, your cancellation will be subject to fees and if you subsequently re-register, you will be charged the full rate again.

Registrations can only be canceled or modified by a logged in user with the email address and password associated with the registration being canceled or modified. Canceled registrations get a proportional refund; HPEF will charge processing fees depending on when you request your refund. Ascendio is on Eastern US Time. The schedule is as follows:

Opening of reg through Oct 31: 10% fee of total monies paid assessed
Nov 1 – Feb 29: 25% fee of total monies paid assessed
Mar 1 – April 30: 50% fee of total monies paid assessed
May 1 – May 31: 75% fee of total monies paid assessed
June 1 – June 30: 90% fee of total monies paid assessed
July 1 – July 12: No refunds except in the event of a crisis or tragedy.

You may wish to purchase travel insurance to cover Ascendio registration fees if you are worried that you might not be able to attend.

In the event of a crisis or tragedy (an injury or illness that prevents you from traveling or the death of a close family member), you will need to supply us with confirmation of the circumstances (a police report, doctor’s note, obituary, etc) within 10 days of your cancellation request submission, in order to obtain a refund of up to 90% of your registration fee.

Refunds will take up to 90 days to process. Refunds will be issued to the original purchaser, by direct refund to the original credit card if requested within 120 days of the purchaser’s registration, or by check if requested more than 120 days after the first registration by the purchaser, or by other arrangement by mutual agreement of the purchaser, the registrant, and HPEF. The reason we cannot fully refund any registration is that each registration incurs fees, whether or not they are canceled, which must be covered. [back to top]

Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy is as follows:

Our Web server automatically recognizes and archives the the domain name, including IP address, of any visitor to all websites hosted on HPEF’s servers, including hpef.net and hp2012.org.

We collect the following: registration information submitted during the registration process; e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail, user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, the IP address of each visitor to any website on the HPEF servers, and any information that a visitor posts on the Message and Review Boards or submits via any form hosted on or for the HP2012.org website, including the program submission form, or to any HPEF.net or HP2012.org email account.

The information we collect is used to organize and host our events, check in registrants, improve the content of our websites and customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor; this information is not shared with any third party, except that event-registration information is processed by, and thus shared with, RegOnline and the credit card companies used to process registration fees. Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on HP Education Fanon, Inc.

It is mandatory to show valid photo identification at the Registration Desk to pick up your badge or to register; a parent, legal guardian or designated event chaperone can pick up badges and/or register on behalf of the minors in his or her care, and there will be no other exceptions to this rule. Acceptable forms of photo ID are a valid government-issued Driver’s License, a valid state or federal government issued non-driver’s ID, a valid passport, or a 2011 or 2012 School ID that contains a photo and real name. If you would like to place a virtual wall between your badge name and your real name, please contact the Registration Chairs before you register, and we will explain the process to you.

We may, at a future time, use registrant information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will post the policy changes to our Web site to notify you of these changes, and such changes will only be used for information provided by those who have used the Site after the effective date of such policy changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our Web site periodically. We reserve the right to send you information about Ascendio events, presenters, vendors and activities, and forward information to you about Universal Orlando’s hotels, theme park tickets, events, restaurants and shows.

Upon request, HPEF will provide you with a description of the information that we maintain about you. You can request this description by e-mailing your request to us at hpeducationfanon@gmail.com.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above address, or contact our president at hpeducationfanon@gmail.com. [back to top]

Thanks to YaoiCon for allowing us to incorporate some of their language into this Code. For more information about fan gathering codes of conduct, visit the Con Anti-Harassment Project. [back to top]