Posted: 04 August 2008 at 10:30pm | IP Logged

I've now uploaded all my photos to facebook and I'll try and add them to the AA event that was on there.

There are some classics, featuring: 'Inside man in plaid shirt's briefcase', 'Me and man who wears a plastic mac in the convention heat and stalks celebrities', and not least 'The TF Net Beer Display'.

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 2:46pm | IP Logged

Specimen-17 wrote: That's fine, but the crossover between the Transformers and Star Trek fandoms is pretty minimal. I used to watch Star Trek and enjoy the films, but there's no way in hell I would ever go to a convention. Nor would I want to go anywhere likely to have any amount of Trekkies. I'd probably get drunk and smash a glass over someone for speaking to me in Klingon or doing something equally tragic.

As I said before, we were looking at the *possibility* of a MULTI-GENRE crossover, not Star Trek so why the obsession with a Star Trek crossover?! I've run enough conventions and events over the last 20 years to know that anything combining just two would NOT work under any circumstances unless one is a spin off of the other e.g. Buffy/Angel so the suggestion was a Transformers plus others with the others being a minority add-on.

Specimen-17 wrote: The main reason people go to conventions is, simply put, toys. If you want to crossover with anything, appeal is going to be limited to pretty much Gundam, Brave, Zoids, Macross and other robot anime merchandise. If anything, Warhammer would be the best partner as a lot of TF collectors play Warhammer 40k, and a lot of relevantly aged Warhammer enthusiasts like TFs to some extent. Although I couldn't see a TF/WH convention working.

Have to disagree with you on that one. We've seen clearly, from feedback over the years, talking to attendees and from all the surveys we've done on paper and online, that people attendee Auto Assembly for different reasons and are interested in Transformers for different reasons and even different forums seem to have different types of fan bases on them.

I'm trying NOT to generalise (which you have) but some are more interested in toys (with differing interest in eras), some the TV shows, some newer fans the live action movie, and others the comic and we have to cater for EVERYONE.

Personally, I got into Transformers through Beast Wars, specifically the TV show although I do collect some toys and read some of the comics. I do know that there are a lot of fans who are more interested in the comics and LOVE the comic side of Auto Assembly and the same with the TV coverage so we have to try to offer a balanced event.

Specimen-17 wrote: Now, I know you think otherwise, but this is somewhere you're going wrong. One way that we differ from ST fans is we really don't give a f**k about guests, for the most part. This year is the perfect example. Liam Shaloo - meeting him was great as I've known him online for 2+ years, but other than me, I very much doubt anyone in the hall could care less about his presence. Furman.. he's at every convention ever, and never has anything interesting to say (Though that's pretty much expected when he can't even write anything interesting...). Nobody goes to AA because of him. Most of the other guests I had no idea who they were, even when I asked what they did I still didn't know of them. Getting whichever artist it was to sketch me Shockwave was pretty sweet, but hardly a deal breaker. If you keep raising prices just for the sake of a troupe of nobodies, especially with transport costs going up and up, people will stop coming.

Two things on this... With the guests, as I've said before, I know that people attend Auto Assembly for a lot of reasons and for many guests ARE one of them and responses from past and the current survey show that so while you may not feel that way, others do so please respect their views. As I said we're trying to cater for everyone which is why we try to have as many dealers as we can to keep the toy collectors happy and why - if we do have a two day event - we'll have ONE DAY passes available for those who can't afford a weekend or for those who are more interested in just the sales side of things.

To refer to the guests as a "troupe of nobodies" to be honest is fairly insulting though. You might not be a comic fan or interested in/appreciate their work but others are.

With regards to prices, for AA2008 if we had NO guests this year, it would have made a noticeable impact on our attendance figures (probably a drop of around 25%) which would have meant us needing to have adjusted our break even point. With our venue hire and other costs rising considerably this year (and in turn for subsequent years) - our hall hire alone had DOUBLED from last time - ticket prices would STILL have been around £11-£12 for adults with no guests so I don't think an extra £4-£5 for 12 guests is really that bad a deal considering that the extra attendees allowed us to have the bargaining power to negotiate for the extra free gifts and sponsorship!

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 3:04pm | IP Logged

The hall hire doubled?

How do the Clarendon Suites think they're getting away with that? It's hardly Buckingham Palace. Was it the date change that did it, or just a straightforward increase?

I'd have thought that the attendance was attracted 60% by dealers, 40% by guests. I can't speak for anyone but myself (as much as I wish I could), but I spoke to just one guest all weekend, purchased nowt from them, and missed most of the guest talks etc. 'Troupe of nobodies' sounds harsh, but to be fair, I had no clue who half of them were. They were all jolly lovely (even when being told I had no idea who they were), so fair play to them, but when the stage isn't big enough for them all to fit on surely there's a possibility its been overbooked?

I'd say if there's going to be more focus on guests, there's got to equally be more focus on fixing up the technology. There's no point getting 4 guests, each more inaudible than the next. 3 guests and a new sound system would be better.

As for the Star Trek concerns, the questionnaire read very much like it was lobbying for a Star Transformers The Next Generation 2 convention. I note from your responses this wasn't the intention, but it was sadly the way it could easily be (mis)interpreted.

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 3:07pm | IP Logged

Blitzwing wrote: you didn't win the drinking war, war. maybe have been a tie though!

Hey, away pints don't count double.

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 3:50pm | IP Logged

I think there were probably a few things that could have been worded better in the questionnaire but it's always a problem we have with Auto Assembly - with just me and Sven doing all the work in the run-up to the weekend itself we do struggle with a lot of things (The Cybertronian Times for example was only finished at 1:30 am on the day it went to be printed - 8 days before AA took place!) but I tried to take what I had written and what Sven had added and emphasise the general multi-genre as best as I could :(

To be frank, the Clarendon Suites have caused us no end of problems this year, not just with costs and on more than a few occasions wanted to charge us EVEN MORE after we had agreed the price and been paying hire costs in instalments. I won't go into too much detail here, but if they had their way, they would have charged us double again on what we ended up paying them. Suffice to say that Auto Assembly 2009 will be at a new venue.

With the sound, I mentioned this on another forum over the weekend... I think it was a combination of issues to be honest. Some people do seem to come across better than others on the microphone and have a stronger speaking voice and we do need to work on making sure that we can either train the quieter ones to sort themselves out(!) or try to get a better sound balance. I did notice that obviously Dan, Simon Williams and Sven to name but three did come across better than, say, Simon Furman who seemed more... for want of a better word... subdued on the microphone. Now, I have no idea how I came across on the brief time I had to take to the mic, but I hope I came out loud enough for people to hear.

We know that we do need better AV gear but money has been a problem. Apart from the screen which we've hired the last few years, we've had to try to keep costs down so I've borrowed a projector and everything else is our own. It's Sven's mics/mixer and my own amp/speakers. It's a fairly powerful amp but after powering quite a few events, I think we're close to killing the speakers as they're not quite as capable as the amp is (100wpc amp, 70w speakers) so I think it's about to blow! :(

We've always been concerned about spending too much money on equipment hire, but for next year we are going to be building it into the budget so we shouldn't have any worries there... plus it saves me the hassle of carrying everything! lol

And we're going to try to see if the stage will hold everyone too! :P

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 9:24pm | IP Logged

Two questions mention Star Trek specifically as there is a movie coming out... and we did stress general science fiction frequently. I don't think it's been any secret about our background as an organisation and where we started but AGAIN the whole point of the questionnaire was for people to fill it in and tell us what they wanted and if they were interested in seeing Auto Assembly 2009 having more than just Transformers or spread over more than a single day and we are giving EVERYONE an equal chance to have their voices heard and taken into consideration.

Comparing Auto Assembly 2004 to what we are looking at doing/planning for Auto Assembly 2009 is pretty unfair. We had some ideas for 2004 which didn't work and we ADMITTED back then that we made mistakes - everyone does - and we know that we needed a TOTALLY different programme of events and that's something we certainly have in mind for a two-day event.

The whole point with the varying programme, just looking at the guests alone for a second, is that in 2004 we had a comic panel and Wally on Saturday then a more specific Simon Furman talk about his DK work and Wally again on Sunday. Even from other conventions I've been to over the years, it's hard for an actor to keep the same crowd entertained for more than one day although Wally is an actor capable of doing it. That's why we ALWAYS said after 2004 that we would only ever consider a two day convention if we were able to have different "guest of honour" talks on each day as well as a LOT more other activities taking place all day.

You have to realise as well that we lost several of our key staff for AA2004 on the weekend itself so we were stretched to the point that some parts of the programme just didn't happen, and thanks to the Britannia not doing any of the room set up for us we didn't have time or space allocated for an art or toy display... you name it, they f**ked it up for us.

Not everything that we have done with Auto Assembly has been perfect and when we look back at it, the BIGGEST problem we had with AA2004 more than anything was the venue splitting everything up all over the place and actually stopping us from running a lot of the things we had planned - it just wasn't right for us and caused us more problems that we have ever let on to anyone (and I won't go into them all here as it's just not the right place for them). It didn't get renamed the s**tannia by us without reason!

As I've said before though, I've got almost 20 years experience running events and as part of that I'll be the first to admit that we've done things we shouldn't have or things haven't worked as well as we wanted to but all we've done is changed things to put them right or found ways to make it work.

At the end of the day though, if we didn't think that the ideas we have for Auto Assembly would work, we wouldn't try them whether it's for a one day or a weekend event.

Posted: 05 August 2008 at 10:41pm | IP Logged

As with any convention taking place over several days - and this was our original plan back in 2004 which didn't quite work out :( - what we're working on IF we do go ahead with a weekend convention is basically this:-

Friday - a basic programme with videos, maybe a workshop or something, games area and displays, some dealers trading if they're ready but a teaser for the main convention. This would be a bonus for those who have booked for the full weekend.

Saturday - the first of the two main days. All of the usual activities you'd expect at Auto Assembly - dealers, comic panel, voice actor Q&A, signing sessions with all our guests who are there at the time, toy displays, art displays, charity auction (probably), raffle, quiz, workshops (new for 2009), games area, videos and anything else we can fit in along with other ideas that are coming into us thick and fast...

Saturday Night - bonus programme for weekend attendees only. PART of this will be a party/disco of some sort but there will be other things going on as well and we do have something in mind that we are working on that could be rather special and we may try to add an extra guest talk in here as well but this is still something that we're trying to flesh out in more detail before we say too much!

Sunday - Again, the same as a typical Auto Assembly - dealers, a DIFFERENT comic panel, another voice actor Q&A (with a different actor to Saturday), toy and art displays, competitions, games area, workshops, videos etc. etc. etc.

The key thing is that there will be a lot of activities, games, competitions etc. that will only be on Saturday or only on Sunday. In the case of some of our guests, some may only be able to attend for a single day and there is also the possiblilty that the same may apply for dealers so we could have some new dealers on the Sunday compared with the Saturday but the intention is to make sure that each day will offer something significantly different to the other but you will still have the option to come along for Saturday, Sunday or both if you want.

Posted: 06 August 2008 at 10:40am | IP Logged

why don't you do a cross over with star wars?

they both have toys together!

just a thought!

Posted: 06 August 2008 at 10:51am | IP Logged

Well I'm still getting questionnaire responses coming in and there's another 6 or 7 weeks for you to get your ideas in (and there have been some fantastic ones so far!) so put it on yours and get it in to us!