Here is the official announcement for next year’s convention, with first guest details:

We are pleased to announced that Auto Assembly 2009 is coming! Europe’s largest Transformers convention is back for 2009 and it is going to be bigger and better than ever! This time it is going to be a two-day convention allowing us to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Transformers in style and will be a weekend packed with activities, dealers, guests and so much much!

The convention will be held on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th August 2009, with a bonus mini programme of activities on the evening of Friday 14th August for those who book for the full weekend. Initially only weekend passes will be available, but single day tickets will be on sale closer to the convention should spaces still be available. There will be an extra special programme of activities running on Saturday evening until the early hours of Sunday, but these will be exclusive to weekend attendees!

The convention will be held at our new venue, The Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre, which is on Smallbrook Queensway, Birmingham, right in the heart of Birmingham City Centre, England. It is an ideal location for anyone travelling to Birmingham from anywhere in the UK and is just 2 minutes walk from Birmingham New Street Station!

We have run a number of surveys to find out exactly what you want from Auto Assembly 2009 and we will be tailoring the activities and events to suit YOU the attendees. There will be so much going on that you won’t have time to rest – from guest talks to video screenings, workshops to toy and art displays, dealers and competitions, a charity auction and games area, quizzes and much more besides. And for the first time ever at Auto Assembly, a live script reading from Transformers voice actors! Talking of voice actors, we will be having not one but TWO voice actors joining us at Auto Assembly 2009 to join in the celebrations!

We already have our first three guests confirmed – first up is legendary TF artist Andrew Wildman making his sixth appearance at Auto Assembly, secondly is IDW and Titan colourist Liam Shalloo, and third we have John McCrea whose Transformers work includes Titan Magazines Transformers and Transformers Animated titles. We will be announcing more over the next few days. We are also in the final stages of discussions with our first voice actor and hope to announce them in the next 7 days and the second actor in the next few weeks!

Ticket prices will be £45 for adults and £35 for concessions with reductions to just £40 and £30 for a limited period once bookings open for early registrations! We have also managed to negotiate for reduced accommodation rates in the Holiday Inn hotel for their superb bedrooms and these will be posted on the website.

We are also working our traditional goodie bag of free gifts for attendees and this is going to be our most spectacular yet. As always, there will be more gifts the earlier you register but this will include keyrings, postcards, DVDs (for the first 40+) and much more!! There will also be added bonuses for pre-registrants and if that wasn’t enough, we are also looking at ways of improving our pre-registration system to make things smoother and faster than ever for all of you attending.

Bookings will open soon so keep an eye on the Auto Assembly website and all the usual Transformers websites and forums for all the latest news and developments as we have them.

We hope to see many of you there next year for what we think will be the biggest and best Auto Assembly ever!

Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly

web: www.autoassembly.org.uk
forum: http://autoassembly.proboards7.com
email: autoassembly@aol.com
tel: +44 (0)7860 948296

Two years in the making, destined to be the largest European Transformers Convention ever and now with 13 guests, what could be better? Well, the fact that Hasbro UK are attending for the first time makes the convention seem perfect. Add to that the BBC filming the event for Midland Today and footage from the convention appearing on a future DVD.

Check back over the weekend for a full review and pictures from the event.

Auto Assembly 2008 is happening this Saturday, and it seems that it will be the largest European Transformers Convention EVER! The deadline for pre-booking is tonight and to tempt you 2 more guests have been announced. John McCrea and Lee Bradley, who have both worked on Titan’s Transformers UK comic, with John soon to move onto the Animated version as well.

As a further bonus, the BBC will be filming at the convention.

W’re just FOUR days away from Auto Assembly 2008 and as we promised, we’ve got yet another couple of last minute announcements to make…

* TWO MORE GUESTS CONFIRMED! *

We have now confirmed two more guests for Auto Assembly 2008 bringing the total to THIRTEEN! We are now being joined by John McCrea and Lee Bradley. John and Lee have both been working on Titan’s Transformers comic for some time and John is going to be working on Titan’s upcoming Transformers: Animated title. They have both also been working extensively in the comic industry and will be making their Auto Assembly debut.

* PRE-BOOKING DEADLINE IS TONIGHT! *

Don’t forget, pre-bookings close TONIGHT so if you haven’t already registered, you’ve got to get your bookings in by 9:00 pm GMT so we can process them and get your booking confirmations out in the post to you tomorrow to ensure that they reach you before the convention.

* NEW EUROPEAN RECORD IMMINENT… *

Bookings have been flying in and we have almost hit the total figure that we had in 2006 and that means just a few more and we have set a NEW European record and we will do this easily from on the door bookings!

* BBC AT AUTO ASSEMBLY 2008 *

It is looking very likely that not only will Auto Assembly 2008 be filmed to be included as a bonus featurette on a DVD, but it now looks as if the BBC will be sending a camera crew to the convention for their Midlands Today programme so expect to see a couple of camera crews around during the day!
Well, we’re almost there but who knows what else might happen in the next 48 hours… See you all on Saturday!

As always, for all the latest information on Auto Assembly 2008, to book online or to download booking forms or for more information on anything in this weekly update, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk
Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008

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

tel. +44 (0)7860 948296 / +44 (0)7804 951406

Only 8 days to go, so here are the final booking deadlines. With 380 people having already booked their tickets, you better hurry.

Hi everyone!

Well, Auto Assembly 2008 is almost upon us, so with just EIGHT days to go, it’s time for another important update on the latest developments and reminder about pre-registrations if you haven’t already…

* ANOTHER Goodie Bag Item! *

We’ve got yet another freebie for you but once again it’s limited! Past Auto Assembly guest and star of RiD Neil Kaplan has just released the first issue of his graphic novel “I, Of The Wolf” at the San Diego Comic Convention and Neil has provided us with 50 promotional stickers! As with the Activision, Titan Comics and Liberation Entertainment goodies, these will be distributed at random to pre-registrants through a lucky draw but instead of a redemption voucher, the winners will find the stickers in their welcome packs.

* Pre-Registration Deadline! *

The deadline for bookings outside of the UK is now CLOSED. While we would love to be able to take bookings, to be honest we can’t guarantee to be able to get your confirmation packs out to you in the post and have them reach you in time before you fly out to the UK so if any of you did go on to the website and pre-registered it would be at your own risk. However, we will have places on the door so if you arrive bright and early you shouldn’t have any problems getting in and we WILL let EVERY overseas on the door attendee in.

For those of you pre-booking from the UK, the cut off point will be 9:00 pm on Tuesday 29th July and after that point the online bookings will be removed from the website. This will give us enough time to post your confirmation packs out to you by first class post on Wednesday morning and they should still reach you by Thursday or Friday morning at the latest. Please note that if you are posting your booking then they MUST reach us by Tuesday to be processed.

We expect to have in the region of 100 on the door places available so for those of you who are considering coming along you should be able to get in still!

* A New European Record? *

In 2006 we had 400 attendees and in 2005 we set the European record with 409. As we have said before, we want to set a NEW European record this year and we’re almost there with 380 pre-registrants at the time of writing this! If you are planning on coming along, why not pre-register NOW and let’s see if we can break the record from pre-bookings alone!

Well, we’re almost there but who knows, we may have even MORE announcements to make in the next couple of days… well, we ARE working on a few things!! Until next time…

As always, for all the latest information on Auto Assembly 2008, to book online or to download booking forms or for more information on anything in this weekly update, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk

Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008

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

tel. +44 (0)7860 948296 / +44 (0)7804 951406

With just over two weeks to go to until Auto Assembly 2008 – Europe’s biggest Transformers event, we’ve got a lot of major developments taking place so rather than putting everything into one big story we’ve had to split everything into two big updates.

The last one focused on our major goodie bag developments but this time it’s a little more general…

* Postcards *

In a change to our original plans, we are now going to be giving away THREE exclusive postcards this year instead of two and these will be featuring exclusive artwork from Simon Williams and Lee Sullivan. The third postcard was going to be illustrated by Mike Collins but sadly, because of work commitments, Mike was unable to do this for us so Kat Nicholson has stepped in to produce the artwork for our third card which will feature TF Animated Jazz! All three designs will also be adapted and produced as keyrings that will be on sale on the day!!

* The Cybertronian Times Issue 9 *

We are putting the final touches to the convention magazine, The Cybertronian Times, but there is still time to contribute YOUR articles and artwork! We are looking for articles, mini-reviews of the movie or any movie related merchandise or any artwork. Send them to our usual email address for inclusion by no later than Saturday 19th July 2008.

* Volunteering *

We still need more volunteers to come forward for the convention. We need one or two more to help with setting up, primarily giving our dealers a hand with their tables, but mainly now we are looking at getting support now on the day itself with our programme of activities and helping everything run as smoothly as possible. You wil have all had a volunteering form in your confirmation packs so if you want to get invovled, fill it in and send it back to us as soon as possible or download the form from the website and email it back to us!

We can’t pay anyone for helping out but we DO have a little “thankyou” lined up for everyone who does help out but you MUST register in advance as a volunteer as we need to set up a vounteer rota and need to know who will be doing what and when.

* Auction Update *

With the change to the postcards, we are now obviously changing the artwork that is available. We won’t be having postcard artwork from Mike Collins, but instead Mike has sent a couple of pages of artwork from one of the Doctor Who stories that he illustrated that had a cameo appearance from a gladitorial robot that bore a passing resemblance to everyone’s favourite Autobot…!! We will also be getting the original artwork to the TF Animated Jazz postcard from Kat Nicholson so if you’re looking for some great artwork the auction will have plenty on offer! On top of that we will also have some signed photos from Sandy Fox and Lex Lang (T-AI and Towline from RiD)!

* Pre-Registration Deadline Looms! *

There is STILL time to pre-register if you haven’t already done so but you’ll have to hurry! We are now aiming to ship confirmation packs out within 48 hours of receiving your bookings so as long as you pre-register by 23rd July from outside the UK or by around 8:00 pm on 27th July in the UK then we will be able to get your confirmation packs to you in time for the convention and you’ll be entered into all of our pre-registrant prize draws!

* Want To Be On Telly? *

Okay, not quite, but once again Auto Assembly is being filmed to be included on a DVD!! We’re not saying anything else right now but don’t be surprised to find a camera pointing in your direction at some point during the convention! Saying that, there are also going to be people from the BBC there taking photos for the BBC website and you never know, there may even be radio presenters as well…

* Auto Assembly 2009! *

We’re already looking at plans for Auto Assembly 2009 and in your packs on the day you’ll find a questionnaire asking you some basic questions to help us shape our plans for our convention to celebrate 25 years of Transformers, the launch of the second live action movie and OUR 20th anniversary as a science fiction fan organisation!! We want to do something special and we’re looking at the idea of doing a weekend-long event with not one, but TWO voice actors AND a party on the Saturday night but we need YOUR feedback so please fill in the forms on the day!

* Fast-Track Entry *

We have mentioned this idea before about allowing those of you who who have pre-registered and arrive in Birmingham on Friday the chance to check-in early so you’ll be able to enter the convention straight away as soon as the doors open on Saturday without having to queue or check in. We’re just waiting for confirmation from the venue on when we’ll have access on Friday night so we’ll be able to let you all know this for definite about when we can do this on Monday!

* Toy Collection *

Just a reminder about the toy collection that we are running for Help A Local Child. Each year, Help A Local Child – as part of their work – holds a Christmas Tree appeal, collecting toys each year that are then distributed to needy children or those who are living in deprivation or who may be in hospital etc. who may be in a position that they wouldn’t normally be receiving Christmas presents. We would ask that if you have any unwanted BRAND NEW toys that you want to donate, please bring them along and leave them at the registration desk. They MUST have the CE safety mark on them but apart from that they can be anything – action figures, board games, jigsaws, boys or girls toys and don’t have to be limited to Transformers but they MUST be NEW. Last time we collected SIX BOXES full of toys that we handed over to the appeal and we’d like to thank everyone for their generous donations. Let’s see if we can’t make it more this time!!

Well, that’s it for now, but we’ve got more announcements up our sleeves soon so keep your eyes peeled on the net! Auto Assembly 2008 is going to be a great event and we can’t wait to see you all there on 2nd August!

As always, for all the latest information on Auto Assembly 2008, to book online or to download booking forms or for more information on anything in this weekly update, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk
Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008

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

tel. +44 (0)7860 948296 / +44 (0)7804 951406

Good news Auto Assembly 2008 pre-registrants, you now have a chance to win some more stuff for your goodie bag.

Hi everyone!

With just over two weeks to go to until Auto Assembly 2008 – Europe’s biggest Transformers event, we’ve got a lot of major developments taking place so rather than putting everything into one big story we’ve had to split everything into two big updates. You may have already seen our general one, but this one is rather special…

As you know, we always produce a goodie bag full of free gifts for all our attendees. This year it has seemed a little sparse with just our usual Transform-A-Snacks, packs of G1 stickers, G1 Ladybird books for some of you and three of our convention exclusive postcards as well as a few other limited items that we’re checking on. However, that has just changed with some amazing new items we’ve just been able to confirm!

We’ve just had some incredible goodies lined up from several companies that will be with us shortly with a twist and in the last couple of days alone we secured over 00 worth of gifts to give away! However, the quantities of these are limited so we are not going to have enough for everyone. This left us with a bit of a dilemma. We could either allocate them based on the order in which people had booked, give them out to people as they came in through the door, or a different system which we have decided to adopt…

Goodie Bag Draw!!

When you arrive on the day, you will each get your Registration Pack. In there will be a welcome letter, a programme for the day, a quiz entry form, flyers from a few sponsors, your badge that you will need to wear all day and – if you are lucky enough – winning tickets for the special goodie bag items so check your packs carefully! If you have won one of these prizes, just bring the tickets to the Registration Desk, hand them over to one of our staff and we’ll give you the prize.

They are being allocated completely at random so some of you may not win anything, some of you may get one item and some of you may get everything up for grabs so it’s quite possible that some of you may go home with a goodie bag worth over ! So what are the new items? Read on…

* Hulk DVD *

Liberation Entertainment is releasing a series of DVDs featuring old Marvel animated shows including the 80s classic Spiderman and His Amazing Friends (starring Dan Gilvezan as Spiderman!). They have sent us copies of one of their DVDs from this 1996 Hulk series which features the voices of Lou Ferrigno and Mark Hamill and has cover artwork from Simon Williams and we have a staggering 200 COPIES of these to give away worth £9.99 each!!

* Activision Goodie Bag *

Another stunning package! This is a package of goodies that Activision have put together for us containing a selection of goodies and contains a Transformer movie poster, a pen and pad plus a copy of their video game based on the movie so it is going to be worth anything up to £50 depending on the format of the game they send along!! These are going to be VERY limited as we are only going be getting somewhere between 20 and 25 of these!

* Titan Transformers Comic *

Another great gift! We are getting 50 COPIES of Issue 13 of Titan’s new UK Transformers comic to give away to some of you lucky attendees which is the super-sized issue featured the Transformers Animated bonus content! This comic is worth £2.99!

One thing we do want to stress is that if you want to be in with a chance to get your hands on ANY of these goodies then you MUST book for Auto Assembly 2008 in advance as we are restricting the prize draws to pre-registrants ONLY. We think it’s a pretty good reason for booking up though… not forgetting that you’ll all STILL be entered into the MAIN pre-registrant prize draw as well!!

Well, that’s it for now, but we’ve got more announcements up our sleeves soon so keep your eyes peeled on the net! Auto Assembly 2008 is going to be a great event and we can’t wait to see you all there on 2nd August!

As always, for all the latest information on Auto Assembly 2008, to book online or to download booking forms or for more information on anything in this weekly update, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk

Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008

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

tel. +44 (0)7860 948296 / +44 (0)7804 951406

We’ve received an important update for Auto Assembly 2008. If you’ve booked your tickets and think you should have received your confirmation pack by now, read the following announcement:

Auto Assembly 2008 – Europe’s largest Transformers convention being held in the Clarendon Suites, Birmingham – is now just over three weeks away on 2nd August 2008, and there’s a massive buzz amongst all of you who have pre-booked looking forward to coming along. However, we have had a couple of you contact us in the last week with a few concerns which is why we wanted to make an urgent announcement…

It’s been brought to our attention that some of you haven’t received your confirmation packs yet. At the time of writing this, we’ve sent out packs for most of the bookings that we have received, up to the bookings received by the 1st of July 2008. We are going to be sending out the next batch this weekend which will bring us up to date with the exception of one or two where we are waiting for some further details from people who haven’t completed their forms properly.

That brings us onto those of you who haven’t had your confirmation packs yet…

It seems that there are some of you who have booked a while ago who haven’t received anything yet. This is only affecting people who have used our online booking system and – as far as we know – has only affected a few people so far. What appears to have happened is that PayPal hasn’t forwarded the booking confirmations to us so while bookings have gone through properly, the details haven’t been sent to us so your bookings are effectively in limbo.

If you think that this has happened to you and you have booked before the middle of June, please contact us IMMEDIATELY by email letting us know the details of how many places you have booked, the names and the exact date of when you paid by PayPal and we’ll trace your booking for you.

If you haven’t booked, there’s still time to pre-register and if you’re not too sure you’ll be able to come along on the day although don’t forget, pre-registrants get early admission and entry into the free prize draw!

* * *

Because of the importance of the booking update, please feel free to post this update on any Transformers website or forum that you visit, along with any other Auto Assembly 2008 update that we have issued over the last couple of months.

We’ll be back with another update in the next few days so keep an eye out on all the major TF websites and forums and we’re looking forward to seeing many of you in a couple of weeks’ time!

As always, for all the latest information on Auto Assembly 2008, to book online or to download booking forms, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk
Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008

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

tel. +44 (0)7860 948296 / +44 (0)7804 951406