With just ten days to go before Auto Assembly Target 2006 on 3rd June in Birmingham, England we thought we’d bring you a reminder of some of the activities taking place for those of you still undecided about whether or not to attend this year’s convention as well as some news on a few more developments…We have a great guest line-up headlined by none other than DAVID KAYE, the voice of Megatron for the last ten years! Backing him up is legendary Transformers writer Simon Furman and our array of super artists – Andrew Wildman, Lee Sullivan, Geoff Senior, Guido Guidi, Simon Williams, Jasno Cardy and Mike Collins!We also have a massive range of dealers who will have a superb range of Transformers toys and merchandise on offer ranging from vintage G1 toys up to the latest releases. There will be plenty of bargains to be had including massive discounts on a range of graphic novels from Titan Books through the Auto Assembly registration desk, some great items from Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman, and a few of the dealers present will even be running free prize draws to win some great toys!!

But it’s not just about guests and dealers… we will have a massive art display showcasing artwork from Transformers comics throughout the years including the original UK Marvel titles, Dreamwave, Panini, 3H, along with original toy box art and artwork we have commissioned from top transformers artists for our own convention exclusive postcards and magazines. Featured artists will include Andrew Wildman, Guido Guidi, Dan Khanna, Lee Sullivan, Simon Williams, Jeff Anderson and more! Next to that will be our traditional toy display.

Not content with that, there will be video screenings throughout the day, the unique fan consultation event being undertaken by the British company making a new Transformers product throughout the day, a bar, plenty of chances for you to catch up with old friends (or make new ones!), competitions, and our charity fundraising activities including a raffle and auction…

The charity auction this year is looking fantastic and we have some wonderful items up for grabs. We have autographs from (amongst others) Dan Gilvezan (G1 – Bumblebee), Mike McConnohie (G1 – Tracks, Cosmos; RiD – Ironhide, Hotshot), Neil Ross (G1- Slag, Springer etc), Wally Wingert (RiD – Sideburn, Mirage), and Neil Kaplan (RiD – Prime), original artwork from Andrew Wildman, Guido Guidi, Lee Sullivan, and Simon Williams, signed comics, a signed script to GI Joe vs Transformers The Art Of War #4, and the two highlights of this year’s auction… personalised voice mail recordings from Mike McConnohie and David Sobolov (BW – Depth Charge)!

But that’s not all… we’ve had more great news regarding the goodie bag this year and even though we’ve only got a few days to go before the convention, we’ve just added ANOTHER free gift for attendees!! Thanks to Transformers DVD producers Metrodome, we’ll be including postcards in packs for the first 400 or so attendees at the convention. We don’t know exactly how many we will have but as these are limited you only have a few days left to have a chance to get your hands on these if you haven’t already booked! The postcards are some of the ones that have been included in the DVD box sets but they’re a great extra if you don’t already have them.

Also, thanks to Metrodome, we will be getting a selection of DVD box sets that we will be giving away in the raffle, for prizes in our competitions and some rare DVD test discs from some of their box sets in the auction including – for the first time ever – Transformers Masterforce!!

We DO have places available for you to pre-register and you still have time to get the Metrodome goodies but you’ll need to book quickly! As we have said before, we are likely to have on-the-door places but we don’t know how many so pre-registration is the best way to guarantee admission, especially if you have a long way to travel!

With just TEN DAYS to go, you’ve only got a few days to make up your mind about whether you want to attend Auto Assembly Target 2006 so book online now at www.autoassembly.org.uk and we hope to see you next weekend!

Simon and Sven,
Auto Assembly Target 2006

www.autoassembly.org.uk

As part of our charity fundraising efforts, Auto Assembly Target 2006 is running something rather different for it’s nominated charity this year…

For those of you who don’t know, Auto Assembly Target 2006 is raising money this year for the Acorns Childrens Hospice Trust in 2006 – a small group of three childrens hospices here in the West Midlands area in the UK. Their invaluable work has sadly been struggling for funds lately and we are proud to be helping them with our fundraising efforts through our charity raffle and auction which has some fantastic items this year. However, we are also doing something else to help the charity with it’s three centres…

We will be having a drop-off point at the convention where all of you attending will be able to donate all of your unwanted toys which we will be passing onto to the Trust at the end of the convention for distribution to the three hospices where the children can make use of these during their stay. What we would love is if any of you have toys that you don’t want sitting in cupboards that we could make use of and give a new home to.

The toys can be anything from any range as long as they are brand new and still sealed. We don’t mind if you donate a single toy or a box full – just anything you can spare! The only things we must ask are that 1) the toy is new and sealed; and 2) the toy is a European or US release (to meet toy safety laws) and apart from that, it’s up to you!!

We’ve already had a number of toys donated from several ranges including RiD and Armada but as we have said, we will accept toys from ANY range so please be as generous as you can. As a way of saying “thankyou”, everyone who donates toys will be mentioned on the Auto Assembly website.

Don’t forget, with Auto Assembly Target 2006 now less than two weeks away, you need to book quickly to guarantee your places if you want to pre-register and get early entry to the convention! The international cut-off date is now CLOSED because of the time it will take to get your confirmation packs in time for the event, although if you live in mainland Europe there may be time if you book within the next couple of days although this is at your own risk.

While we have officially closed the postal bookings for the UK as well because of the time needed to clear cheques through our bank, we are making daily visits to our bank to pay cheques in so again there is still some time but online bookings are the most convenient for us and the fastest way to pre-register.

The FINAL cut-off date for UK online bookings is SUNDAY 28th MAY and this will allow us to post your confirmation slips on Tuesday 30th May which will ensure that they should reach you by Thursday 1st June at the latest. We must stress that, if you book after this date then we can not guarantee that your packs will reach you in time for the convention so you are booking AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There is a chance that we will have on-the-door places, but these will be limited and we will post details on the Auto Assembly website, forum and issue details through all major Transformers websites as to the estimated number of on-the-door places available on Saturday 27th April 2006. However, as we are well ahead of where we were this time last year, you will need to arrive early! If you are likely to be travelling a distance to the convention, pre-register!!

With TWELVE DAYS to go before the convention, please ensure that you send your bookings to us NOW to avoid disappointment for what is going to be Europe’s biggest Transformers convention EVER!

Simon and Sven,
Auto Assembly Target 2006

www.autoassembly.org.uk

Hi everyone!

We’ve been really pleased at the support everyone’s given us so far for the Auto Assembly Podcast and we’re glad that everyone’s enjoyed the first two shows. We’re busy working on the third one at the moment and it’s shaping up to be our best yet and now we’re going to give all of you the chance to get involved…!

We’ve had some great feedback through the Auto Assembly Forum over at http://autoassembly.proboards7.com and through the emails you’ve been sending us but we want to give you the chance to have your say on the next show! If you want to have your views heard on the next podcast, here’s your chance! What we want you to do is record your comments about the show – questions, suggestions or comments in general starting off with your name – and email them to us as an MP3 file to podcast@autoassembly.org.uk and we’ll feature a selection of them in the next show.

Please keep the language clean and to make sure that we can use them, save your MP3s at 128kbps or higher and put “Podcast Comment Submission” in the subject field of your email. Please do NOT send your files to us as WAVs or in any other file format as we will not be able to use them and try to keep your comments to under a minute in length if possible to give you the best chance of being included in the show. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length although we will NOT remove words to change what you are saying.

Don’t forget, there’s still time to enter the competition from show #2 to win a full set of RiD on DVD and we’re looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you at Auto Assembly Target 2006 on 3rd June (and there are still places if you haven’t already booked!)!

Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly Target 2006

www.autoassembly.org.uk