We just received this email from the chaps at Auto Assembly, looks like it’s gonna be a good’n. We’ll have an interview with Simon coming shortly, but for now over to the guys for a word about AA 2004.

Auto Assembly 2004, the two-day UK/European Transformers convention that is
taking place over the weekend of 8th-9th May 2004 in Birmingham, England. The
deadline for booking tickets to get a 5% discount on ticket prices is
approaching fast. The general closing date for pre-bookings is the end of April,
but the deadline for booking tickets with the 5% early booking discount is now
just SEVEN days away!

We are still offering 10% discounts for people who are active members of the
Auto Assembly discussion forum and the convention is shaping up to be a great
weekend. We have a great range of guest speakers including our guest of honour –
RiD’s Wally Wingert (the voice of Sideburn and Mirage), Simon Furman, Andrew
Wildman, Lee Sullivan and Jane Lawson and Joanna Moher from Metrodome who will
be filming the convention to appear on a future UK DVD box set).

As well as the guests (with different speakers on each day) we are offering a
packed weekend of activities. There is going to be a charity auction with signed
photos and rare items, dealers from across the UK, toy and art displays,
competitions, video screenings, a games room and much more.

Tickets are just £15 for the full weekend and include a pack of goodies
including a 56 page colour convention magazine and other free gifts including
convention exclusive postcards with art from Andrew Wildman.

For more information, visit the website or email us for more details. We can
take bookings online and full details are on the website.

Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2004

web – www.autoassembly.org.uk
email – enquiries@autoassembly.org.uk
forum – http://autoassembly.proboards7.com

Anyone planning on attending the Midlands Transformers convention ‘Auto Assembly’
(like I will be) might like to know they’ve announced confirmed guests, RiD voice
actor Wally Wingert (who voiced Sideburn, the TF with a car fetish and Mirage),
Marvel/Dreamwave writer Simon Furman and artists Lee Sullivan and Andrew Wildman.
Fans who visited the last Botcon Europe will know the RiD voice actors are a very
humorous lot, so it’s sure too be entertaining.

www.autoassembly.org.uk

Check out the Auto Assmebly 2004/Guests section for full details.

Hi everyone!

We’re only SIX days away now from Auto Assembly Target 2006 on 3rd June here in Birmingham, England and we thought we’d bring you another news update covering a few key areas of the convention. We’ve got important updates on bookings, the charity auction and more besides…

BOOKINGS

Bookings are still coming in and we want to update you all on the situation here. For everyone who has pre-registered so far, we have now sent out all of the confirmation slips/packs for everyone who has pre-registered up to midnight on Friday 26th May 2006. All of bookings we have received since then will be posted out Tuesday 30th May by first class post and should reach you by Thursday 1st June at the latest.

However, for those of you who do live in the UK and who have not pre-booked there is STILL time to pre-register IF you book in the next 48 hours! As long as we receive your booking online by 10 00 am on Tuesday 30th May, we will be able to process them and send them out the same day. We can’t guarantee to process any bookings received beyond this point.

At 11 00 am on 30th May we will be making the final draw to see who is taking part in the consulation exercise taking place at the convention so you still have a chance to get involved in that part of the convention as well!!

PLACES REMAINING

At the time of writing, there are approximately 130 places left for Auto Assembly Target 2006 including on-the-door places which is fewer than last year. While Auto Assembly 2005 was NOT a complete sell out, we have had considerably more bookings than last year at this point and we are expecting to have more places confirmed in the next couple of days that have been provisionally reserved so this figure will be reduced. With expected local press coverage also expected prior to the convention we still STRONGLY recommend pre-booking while you still can.

CHARITY AUCTION

For those of you interested, we are hoping to be able to take credit card payments (via PayPal) for items in the charity auction. We are currently working on having internet access at the convention although this will be for admistrative use only. We must stress that such payments will be subject to a 5% handling fee as we are charged by PayPal for all payments received. We will also be able to accept card payments for purchases from the Auto Assembly registration desk for merchandise including copies of our event magazine, other items and Titan Books graphic novels that we will be selling.

GUIDO GUIDI SKETCHES

Guido Guidi will be doing sketches for fans at Auto Assembly although we have been asked by sponsors TF Auctions to stress that – because of time – these will be limited although Guidi will be happy to sign autographs throughout the day.

GOODIE BAG UPDATE

While we were preparing the goodie bag, we have been able to confirm the exact numbers of most of the items we have available in the packs for everyone this year. The situation is as follows – Ladybird G1 books (first 139 attendees), G2 Colouring/Activity books (first 294 attendees), Cards Inc G1 Stickers (first 340 attendees), and for every attendee are – Auto Assembly Postcard #002 (Simon Williams), Auto Assembly Postcard #003 (Guido Guidi), Model & Collector’s Mart magazine, and a bag of Transform-A-Snacks. We are still waiting for a delivery of assorted items from Metrodome which will include various postcards but we don’t know how many of these there will be.

COLOURING COMPETITION

One for all our younger attendees… we’ve got a free competition lined up. Just pick up a colouring sheet with a lineart version of one of our postcards and a FREE pack of colouring pencils from the registration desk and just hand your entry in later in the day to be judged by some of our guests. We’ve got some great prizes on offer for the winners!

* * *

Well, that’s it for this update so you’ve only got TWO DAYS to decide if you want to pre-register but we want to see as many of you there as possible to help us break the European Transformers Convention attendance record for the second year running! It’s going to be another great event and we’d love to see you all there. Book online or find out more at www.autoassembly.org.uk to decide if you want to come along on the day and we hope to see you all on Saturday!

Simon and Sven,
Auto Assembly Target 2006

www.autoassembly.org.uk

Simon Plumbe has provided us with some updated news on Auto Assembly 2005, the UKs only Transformers Convention this year. First up is a bookings update and for all of you like me who have not booked yet, I would recommended making your mind up quickly. Here’s what Simon said

Hi,

We thought I’d post and give you all and update on the pre-booking situation regarding Auto Assembly 2005 along with a bit of a warning about the state of play we;re in. Bookings are coming in a lot faster than ever before so we’re strongly recommending that you all book sooner rather than later if you’re planning on coming along if you want to get in this year. I’ll come onto why in a minute…

Sorry about this being a long post, but we wanted to make sure we brought you all up to speed on where we are with AA2005 and our bookings.

Pre-Bookings

As we’ve said, bookings are coming in at an astonishing rate but even we’re surprised at how quickly. With four months to go we’ve got almost 100 pre-registrations – about a third of the total from AA2004’s 320 attendees. While this might not seem like a lot, let me try to put this into perspective.

For Auto Assembly usually, bookings are slow and steady with a massive surge in the last 6-8 weeks before, and then we tend to get about 50% more people on the door. AA2000 had 30 people (with 15 pre-registering), AA2001 had 61 (30 pre-reg), AA2003 had 233 (155 pre-reg) and AA2004 had 320 (222 pre-reg). At the moment we have just under 100 booked but the astonishing figure at the moment is where we stand….

With just under 120 days to go, I compared the figures to last year. When we reached this number of pre-registrations last time, we were only 56 days away so as you can see and that was outside of the last-minute rush! If bookings continue at the pace they are coming in, WITHOUT the late rush we can expect about 300+ pre-bookings and about 450 in total. However, if we get the expected last minute rush and the steady increase in rate of bookings as always happens, then it is almost certain that AA will be a sell-out in advance so we will NOT have any on-the-door places available.

Another thing to bear in mind is that we are still talking to sponsors in order to try to bring a voice actor over to the UK again. If this happens again we can expect ticket sales to increase if we make an announcement there.

Finally about a third of those booked so far are new to Auto Assembly and we are reaching a new audience from outside the UK (including Norway and Australia) so more people are making their first venture to AA!!

As you can see, this makes it all the more clear why pre-booking is going to be essential this year and why early registration is going to be a must!

Goodie Bag

We’re still doing our usual Goodie Bag for AA2005 and at the moment there are four items confirmed currently worth about £3.40 including a copy of the latest issue of Model & Collector’s Mart magazine (courtesy of Trinity Publications), a bag of Transform-A-Snacks (thanks to Red Mill Snack Foods), a pack of G1 stickers and a poster.

However, the latter two items are limited to the first 150 pre-registrants and as we are rapidly approaching that figure, we’d strongly recommend you book fast.

We are negotiating for more freebies and hope to announce more soon, but we can’t guarantee that EVERY attendee will get every item and we do expect that more of the goodies will be limited to early registrants so if you want more freebies, the earlier you book the better!

Already Registered?

For those of you who have already registered, I’d like to clarify what we are doing this year regarding tickets. If you don’t know, we lost about about £1,000 last year on Auto Assembly, part of this was because of some people getting in without paying which wasn’t helped with the split-floor set up of the venue. Because pre-registrants had their tickets sent out, and we were short-staffed many went straight to the dealers room and straight in and some who hadn’t paid followed them in. As a result of this happening, we are not sending tickets out in advance this time (although we do have better on-the-door security this time anyway!)…

Anyway, what we are doing is to send out a confirmation slip to everyone along with an information pack which I’m putting the finishing touches to at the moment (easier said than done when we do this in our spare time!). The slips have security measures on them that make them difficult to copy if people try to pass them on to friends or copies to their friends to sneak in twice (believe us, we’ve seen it happen before!).

This slip will have the names and ticket numbers of everyone you have booked for and you’ll need to keep this confirmation slip safe. You need to present this slip on arrival at AA to one of our team where you will then be handed your packs. In there will be your personalised name badges (which you’ll need to wear at all times to gain access to Auto Assembly), your copies of The Cybertronian Times if you pre-ordered it, a copy of the programme for the day, a complete list of all the items in the aution, any other information about AA2005, possible a registration form for AA2006 plus your goodie bag.

* * *

Sorry for the long rant, but we thought you’d want to know where we are with bookings right now! If you’ve got any questions about pre-registration or anything I’ve mentioned here, feel free to ask!

Simon

Auto Assembly 2005

Auto Assembly 2005 is now over and everyone should be looking forward to next years event. First things first, well done to AA2005, Simon and Sven, for a well run event and for breaking the European Transformers Convention record, with an attendance of 406.

AA2006 already has its first guest, David Kaye, the voice of BW/BM/Armada and Energon Megatron. Expect AA2006 to be bigger and better than this years event.

More Auto Assembly news to come over the next few days…..

Auto Assembly Target 2006, the UK Transformers convention taking place on Saturday 3rd of June in Birmingham, England has now set the cut-off date for pre-registrations for fans wishing to book from outside of the UK. Anyone wishing to register who DOES NOT live in the UK will need to book using the online booking system and pay by PayPal by Saturday 20th May 2006 AT THE LATEST to guarantee your place at the convention.

We have had to set this date to ensure that we can process your booking in time and make sure that your booking confirmations are shipped to you before you travel allowing you to get into the convention! With airmail taking several days within Europe and about a week for the rest of the world this should give everyone enough time to get your confirmation slips and information packs.

With Auto Assembly Target 2006 less than six weeks away, if you are thinking about coming along to the convention, you need to get your bookings in NOW to guarantee your place. With David Kaye, the voice of Megatron, making his European convention debut and Auto Assembly having the biggest guest line-up ever for a European convention, this is one event you don’t want to miss!

We will be announcing the cut-off dates for UK postal and online bookings shortly.

Simon and Sven,
Auto Assembly Target 2006

www.autoassembly.org.uk

Simon Plumbe, one of the organisors of UK convention Auto Asembly, has posted a message in our forum about the need for help in getting the best guests for AA2005 next year. Please have a look at what he’s said here, visit the Auto Assembly website and help support the convention so that we can get the very best people over to see us.

People like Frank and Peter are *extremely* busy so getting them on that basis alone is difficult although I have got contact details for both so approaching them isn’t hard to do.

The one thing we want to make sure of with voice actors is that we invite guests who really WANT to be at Auto Assembly and that covers guests ranging from comic artists/writers, voice actors and everyone else and the voice actors we’ve been talking to so far really want to come along.

The big problem for us is money and I can’t stress that enough. Based on the registration cost, we can’t afford ANY voice actors without some form of additional support. If we get enough bookings to fill AA2005 to capacity AND we get some additional income (for example though merchandise sales of AA2004’s magazine, the Auto Assembly DVD etc.) then we *might* be able to afford to bring Wally back for next year.

For any other voice actor, we will need some form of sponsorship or other help. We are talking to possible sponsors but this is going to involve a lot of intense negotiation but there are no guarantees and we are not talking about a small amount of money. We have been talking to voice actors to get estimated costs for appearances and we are talking about THOUSANDS of pounds to bring voice actors over to the UK.

For AA2004, Wally came over ECONOMY class for his flight, something that he couldn’t do again (it was really painful for him to cope with the 12 hour flight) and all he asked for was his flight and hotel costs. The other actors who have expressed an interest in attending have just asked for expenses i.e. flights and accommodation.

There are some actors who will expect appearance fees as well as the above so we would need a lot of money to make it happen but it CAN be done IF fans are willing to help us make it happen…

If you go to the Auto Assembly website you’ll see a lot of adverts spread throughout the site. These all help raise money for Auto Assembly. For a lot of these, we get commission on sales if people make purchases after visiting links, and with others we get payments if people sign up for free services etc.

Some offer fantastic payments (Morgan Auctions, for example, pay us £2 for each registration!) and if we can get a good income from these then we can do everything possible to get VAs for 2005. We’ve used these advertisers ourselves so we can vouch for the quality of them, and there’s something for everyone. We’ve also got access to a lot more and we’ll be adding more to the site over time.

I know I’ve said this before, but everyone reading this (and every visitor to the TF.net site if it was mentioned as a news story) could help to try and make it happen.