Posted: 22 October 2008 at 11:41am | IP Logged

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

Posted: 23 October 2008 at 9:37am | IP Logged

I presume you're referring to one day tickets...

We're expecting a massive response for next year in terms of bookings, and it's easier for us to allocate places in terms of full weekend passes first as it will be easier on a security basis alone just to check that someone has a pass rather than whether they are a Saturday, Sunday or full weekend attendee.

To be honest, with the programme of activities that we have lined up we feel that most people will want to attend for the weekend (the majority of responses from our survey are in favour of a weekend convention) and we don't want to restrict the number of weekend tickets available by selling one-day passes too early and sell out on one day and not the other.

Assuming they are available, we will have them on sale in plenty of time for you to be able to book, but once you see what we have lined up you won't want to miss a minute!

Posted: 23 October 2008 at 10:18am | IP Logged

Quote: 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.

by concessions do you mean nus student card holders

Posted: 24 October 2008 at 4:12pm | IP Logged

I shall attend next year, missed this year.

Will book a hotel too to make use of the weekend.

Posted: 25 October 2008 at 4:57pm | IP Logged

As soon as we open bookings, we'll send out confirmation emails to everyone as they book which will have details of how to book rooms at the Holiday Inn at the reduced rates.

I'll put more specific details up on the website in the next few days including hotel prices, a rough programme for the weekend, details of *some* of the activities we've got planned and as they book up we'll start to list the dealers as well.

Oh, and we should be announcing our FIRST voice actor in the next week as well...  :D

Posted: 25 October 2008 at 6:02pm | IP Logged

Any chance i can display my Classics kitbashy collection?

Posted: 25 October 2008 at 10:59pm | IP Logged

We want to try to rework the competitions next year so they're easier to enter and run more smoothly on the weekend itself so there should be the chance for you to enter the kitbash competition and display any of yours as entries if you want to do it that way.

We may consider looking into ways of making the toy/art displays a little more elaborate and involving as well but we're not 100% sure yet.

Posted: 30 October 2008 at 9:26am | IP Logged

Guest number seven guys...

Staz Johnson! 

Posted: 30 October 2008 at 4:20pm | IP Logged

Yup! Plenty of competitions next year and I'll aim to have the entry forms up online by January/February at the latest to give everyone plenty of time to enter.

At the moment I'm thinking of a few fairly straightforward categories:-

• Artwork (will cover paintings, CGI, hand drawn etc.)
• Models (will include kitbashes)
• Costumes
• Writing (will cover fiction and articles)
• Colouring Competition (one for the kids, possibly holding one each day)

Simon

Posted: 10 November 2008 at 2:55pm | IP Logged

My bad for not posting this here sooner... we've confirmed the first of our two voice actors...

Ian James Corlett, the voice of Cheetor! As with all of our guests, Ian will be appearing subject to work/personal commitments!

I'm hoping to open bookings soon once I've spoken to one or two companies about a few things I'm trying to set up and got the new AA2009 logo sorted out for all the paperwork (any volunteers?!!).

Simon