Meets, and the etiquette nobody writes down

The awkward thing about unwritten rules is that the people who need them most are the least likely to know them. Someone arrives at their first meet, does something entirely reasonable, and gets a reaction they did not expect. Often nobody explains why.

Almost all of it comes down to two things: do not touch other people's property, and do not be the reason the meet stops happening.

Around the cars

• Do not touch. Not the paint, not the bodywork, not to point at something. Some finishes mark from a fingertip, and the owner has no way of knowing your hands are clean.
• Do not lean, and watch your bag. A rucksack turning at waist height beside a wing is the most common source of damage at any meet.
• Do not open anything. Doors, bonnets and boots are opened by owners, and usually happily, if you ask.
• Ask before you sit in it. Even if the door is already open. Especially then.
• Mind the space around you. Door edges, tripod legs, coffee cups on roofs. Roofs are not tables.

Arriving and leaving

This is where meets actually get shut down, and it has almost nothing to do with the cars themselves.

• Arrive quietly. A car park is usually surrounded by people who did not choose to be at a car meet. The venue's tolerance is the meet's lifespan.
• Leave more quietly. Departure is when it goes wrong. One person leaving loudly at midnight is remembered longer than three hours of everyone behaving.
• No revving in the bays, no burnouts, no launches on exit. This is the single most reliable way to lose a venue permanently.
• Park considerately. Taking two spaces at a full meet is noticed. Take the far corner if your car needs room. Most people will understand a car parked away from the crowd.
• Take your rubbish. The organiser is usually the person who negotiated with the venue, and they are the one who hears about it.

Photographing someone else's car

Most meets are full of cameras and almost everyone is fine with it. The friction comes from a small number of specific things.

Situation	What to do
General shots of a parked car	Go ahead. That is what the meet is
The owner is standing there	Say hello first. It takes five seconds and changes the whole interaction
Interior shots	Ask. Interiors are personal and often have things in them
Number plates	Ask, or frame them out. Plenty of owners would rather they were not published
People in frame	Ask. Especially children, and especially before posting
Anything commercial	Ask explicitly, and say what it is for
Moving cars on the road afterwards	Do not organise this at a meet. It is how meets get a reputation they cannot shed

Credit, which is the part that gets forgotten

A photograph of a car has two authors: the person who built it and the person who shot it. Posting without crediting either is the most common complaint in any car-photography community, and it is entirely avoidable.

• Credit the photographer when you post their photograph of your car, every time, in the post rather than in a reply three hours later.
• Credit the owner when you post your photograph of their car.
• Ask before editing someone else's photograph. A heavy re-edit of another person's work posted under your own name is not a grey area.
• Send the owner the shots. Costs nothing, and it is why photographers get invited back.

If it is your first one

Two things worth knowing. First, nobody cares what you turn up in. Every scene has a story about the most respected person there arriving in something entirely ordinary, and the standard-car-among-modified-ones anxiety is almost always in the newcomer's head rather than in the room.

Second, the fastest way in is to ask someone about their car. People spend years on these things and rarely get asked a real question about them. "How long have you had it?" opens more conversations than anything else you could say.

And if you are a regular: the person standing slightly outside the group is usually new. Thirty seconds of your time is the difference between them coming back and not.

Common questions