For everyone who will be, or already is, attending Auto Assembly 2013 this weekend in Birmingham England, lets get the show trending so make use the convention hashtags #AutoAssembly and #AA2013

Auto Assembly 2013, Europe's largest Transformers Convention, starts tonight in Birmingham, UK.

The event spreads from Friday night to Sunday afternoon featuring various stalls and dealers from not just the UK, but throughout the global, Comic guests (past and present), Voice Actors and established Authors.

This years show features the first Exclusive figure for the convention, Manuel X.

We hope to see many of you there

We want to thank everyone who has pre-booked their tickets for Auto Assembly 2013 and who have once again helped us set a NEW European record for a Transformers convention! We are aware that many of you will have now missed the deadline for getting your tickets for the convention, especially as we had bookings open until 48 hours before the convention last year, but don’t worry…

Despite a record turnout again, the Hilton is a MASSIVE hotel (the largest convention hotel in the UK) so we do have enough spaces left for all of you who may be interested so you WILL be able to come along to the convention and pay on the door and get into the full convention – all the panels, workshops, and experience everything that Auto Assembly 2013 has to offer. The only differences for on-the-door attendees is that you won’t get a personalised pass, and entry to the convention will take longer as you will have to complete a booking form on arrival so we will have your correct details on file for health and safety purposes. In addition to this, everyone who has pre-registered for the convention will be able to collect their passes from 12:30 pm on Friday afternoon or 8:30 am on Saturday and Sunday and will be able to enter the convention immediately when the doors open at 6:00 pm Friday and 9:30 am on Saturday or Sunday.

If you are paying on the door, you won’t be able to buy tickets until 6:00 pm Friday if you are purchasing a weekend pass or 9:30 am on Saturday or Sunday for those of you buying single day tickets after all our pre-registrants have entered the hall. Prices for tickets on the door are £50 for adults for the full weekend and £38 for Youth (under 18) and Elderly (60+). Single day tickets are £28 for Adults and £22 for Youth and Elderly. Under 6′s are FREE!

Anyway, to all of you who have booked, once again we want to thank you for helping to make the convention the success that it has become and for those of you who have missed the deadline, we hope that you’ll come along next weekend and join us for a great weekend celebrating everything that makes Transformers so special!

Simon Plumbe

Auto Assembly Committee Head

With Auto Assembly 2013 rapidly approaching you'd think that the "AA Team" would have their hands full with this years event, but no they haven't, as they have announced that tickets for Auto Assembly 2014 are open right now!!  Check out the press release below:

Auto Assembly 2014 Ticket Bookings Are Open!
 
Despite us still working on this year's event, we’ve been inundated with emails and messages over the last few weeks here at Auto Assembly HQ about Auto Assembly 2014. Many of you are – for one reason or another – unable to join us at the convention this year and have been asking us not only what the date is for Auto Assembly 2014 but when tickets will be going on sale. At the same time, we’ve seen a lot of talk online about next year’s event and it’s clear to us that there are a lot of people planning on making their return to the event to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Transformers with us…
 
So bearing that in mind we’ve listened to all of you demanding that we make tickets available for next year’s convention sooner rather than later so we are proud to announce that bookings for Auto Assembly 2014 are open NOW! Auto Assembly 2014 will be taking place over the weekend of Friday 8th – Sunday 10th August 2014 and once again it will be held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, England. While we can’t reveal too much about the convention yet, we can confirm that we have already signed a number of guests to appear already, many of whom will be revealed at Auto Assembly 2013.
 
However, we can tell you that we will be bringing no fewer than FOUR overseas guests to the UK next year. Who will they be? Well, you’ll have to wait until 10th August 2013 to find out more…
 
Once again we have arranged special room rates for our attendees at the Hilton which are £53 a night for single rooms and £64 a night for twin/double rooms inclusive of breakfast and details of these will be available very shortly. As with Auto Assembly 2013, we expect the convention block to sell out very quickly so we strongly recommend booking sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment if you want to stay on site!
 
To book your tickets, go to the Auto Assembly website now! We look forward to seeing all of our old friends again next year and plenty of new ones and hopefully many of you next weekend at Auto Assembly 2013!
 
If you haven't booked for this year, tickets are still available for this year from the website as well and this is set to be one of the best Transformers fan events of the year! So remember, pre-registrations close on Thursday 1st August 2013!
 
Auto Assembly 2013 is Europe's largest Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 9th - 11th August 2013 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers attending, all of our guests and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk
 
Hope to see you all in August!
 
The Auto Assembly Team
 
Web: www.autoassembly.org.uk / www.ct-alpha.com
Auto Assembly Europe: www.autoassemblyeurope.eu
Youtube: www.youtube.com/autoassembly
Twitter: www.twitter.com/auto_assembly
Forum: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/forum
Email: contact@autoassembly.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)7860 948296
 
Auto Assembly is sponsored by
 
TF Source - www.tfsource.com
Robot Kingdom - www.robotkingdom.com
Transformers @ The Moon - www.transformertoys.co.uk
Big Bad Toy Store - www.bbts.com
Benscollectables - www.youtube.com/Transformermegazord
Geek-station - www.geek-station.co.uk
Comic Toys - www.comictoys.nl

TFW2005.com have posted a nice summary of the figures which were shown off during the 3rd Party Panel at this years TFCon.  Some of the stand out figures were the Voyager sized G1 Skyfire but a yet unnamed 3rd party company, Make Toys showing off their Computron figure, Make Toys Swerve with drinks tray and additional damaged faced head and Fans Project revealing their Quickswitch figure.

EchoTF
- will be making Fall of Cybertron Bruticus Kits

Unnamed Company
- making Voyager size Skyfire

Mayhem Mechanix
- "Robo Dominion Saga Unrustable Bastards" Non-TF based with a rider.
- Bike turns into robot and rider in chest piece.
- Fiction has robot cycle gangs roving wastelands.
- Mayhem Mechanics, one of the of the mastermind Creations designers. Same who designed Hexatron and most of Feral Rex.
- Will be a kickstarter project.

Ori Toy
- Acid Rain toys. Stronghold out now. More soon. Converting mechs that fit 3-3/4" figures

Fanstoys
- Nothing new shown.

Keith's Fantasy Club.
- VOLTRON redeco of Ironpaw
- doing Raindance, Grandslam, Overkill and Slugfest.
- Overkill and Slugfest will have Dinobots color redecoes
- Showing Perceptor and Magnificus
- Doing a Skybyte called "Haiku"! and doing a Captain Shark deco as well!

X-Transbots
- Huffer and Pipes being shown
- Huffer comes up to MP-10 Optimus' waist

Renderform
- Nothing new to show

BTS
- Doing a Blaster that turns into a walkie talkie
- Senator Ratbat head design also shown for that same mold
- Triple changing Energon cubes - cube, bug, weapon
- Some will be on display here
- will be "Low Cost"
- Nova Lord box art shown, has a base mode
- Prototypes of Nova Lord's head sculpts will be on display. Possibly also his powermaster partners
- BTS was working on a Fortress Maximus, project cancelled when Encore was announced

Mastermind Creations
- Peaugh has full color test shots of Fortis and Bovis here (Jarodimus has handled them, they're outstanding)
- Will be on display
- Peaugh did a live 5-foot drop test of Bovis. Zero Damage.
- Talon pushed back to November for design changes and new features. He is a sniper -- has 2 helmets, rifle, wings act as cloak
- 6th Feral Rex bot is saber tooth tiger remold of Tigris, deco like Catilla, name is Felisaber (G1 Colors) Mostly yellow, some red
- Showing femme bots
- MMC doing a very G1-ish Perceptor. Will have toy and cartoon face. 3 modes, super articulated
- Prototype looks very good

Headrobots
- Iguana is next - finally!
- Doing an Apeface head

Perfect Effect
- IDW Fort Max - seen at Botcon

Maketoys
- Doing Scourge version of Battle Tanker -- no suprise. New head
- IDW Swerve WITH A TRAY OF DRINKS
- COMPUTRON all five shown in bot mode
- concept shown for combined mode

FANSPROJECT
- No news on release date for Steelcore trailer -- still happening
- Showing combined Intimidator (Menasor)
- Roadbuster! Very nice, a half track
- 4th and 5th Glacial bots being shown
- Wooly Rhino and deer
- Announced a Quickswitch/Sixknight

We have mirrored the slides which were shown as well as some images of the 3rd party figures within the dealer room attached to this news story.

 Simon Plumbe, head of the Auto Assembly Committee, has posted a personal apology over the confusion caused by a recent press release. You can find a copy below

Dear friends,

Over the weekend, I posted a press release offering a 20% discount to any person who opted to buy an entrance ticket to Auto Assembly 2013 between now and the convention.  It has since come to my attention that quite a few of our loyal attendees are understandably less than pleased with this, feeling they have missed out through no fault of their own.

Please accept this post as my full and unreserved apology.

The discount was purely intended to be a bonus incentive for those people who were on the fence about coming to the convention or not for the first time; but with hindsight, I now realise that this sadly may have left some of our attendees feeling alienated.  This was absolutely not my intention and, having now spoken to the AA committee and numerous attendees, I realise that I jumped the gun a little this time.

As we have said all along, late bookings hurt the convention. They really do, because so many of our costs need to be paid in advance – more than ever this year.  But I now realise that my attempts to try and avoid this situation by encouraging bookings now, rather than in the last week, were counterproductive.  Sadly, I unintentionally added to the very problem I tried to address!  I hold my hands up completely for that. In the words of Optimus; “Sorry, my bad” :(

So, how do we move forwards? Having now spoken to the AA committee (who I wish to thank for their help and honesty at this time), I have decided that the following action is the most appropriate;

    I am hereby formally retracting the discounted ticket offer. It was, I now realise, unhelpful and has caused some upset. So I firmly believe that removing the offer is the right thing to do.
    For anyone who has booked a ticket whilst that offer was live, I will honour the price you paid. It is not your fault that this has happened.
    I will make everyone a personal assurance right now that there will not be any repeat of this situation in 2014. All year, my committee work hard to encourage people to book early for the good of the convention – I do not want to undermine their exceptional work and I do not want to appear ungrateful to those who support us so fantastically well with their early bookings.
    In lieu of rising costs, we were reluctantly in the position of having to raise ticket prices by £10 for 2014. However,by way of an apology to each and every one of our attendees, I have decided to FREEZE ticket prices at their current levels until 31st December 2013 and beyond that point, a continued reduced level of £55. Once you have all seen the reveals we will be making at this year’s Saturday night show you will truly understand why Auto Assembly 2014 is going to be our most expensive event ever. I guarantee that these reduced prices will not have any adverse impact on the convention although this will mean that the team and I will have to shoulder some extra work, and indeed, work harder than ever, but I think it is the right thing to do to show everybody just how sincere I am with this post.

At the end of the day, Auto Assembly is YOUR convention. Its continued growth and success is down to YOU and YOUR feedback. Bar discount… Swerve’s diner… the fantastic new hotel… my team and I have worked hard to make all of these things a reality because of YOUR excellent feedback over the years. Sometimes, very rarely, we do get things wrong. Because we are human and because we try as many different things as possible to improve the show for you. But we will never try to hide behind a mistake. The special offer, whilst made with the very best of intentions, was misguided and I hope you will accept my full apology and then, join me to help make Auto Assembly 2013 the best darn Transformers convention on that planet. The convention which each and every one of your DESERVE for your tremendous support over the years.

Thanks for your understanding. I really appreciate it and truly value your continued support of the show.

Til all are one

Simon Plumbe
Auto Assembly Committee Head

Auto Assembly have sent out the following press release:

Auto Assembly 2013 Pre-Registrations Close In Two Weeks
 
It's hard to believe that Auto Assembly 2013 is only three weeks away! We're still working hard to bring everyone our best convention ever and we STILL have a lot more surprises in store... we have a fantastic free gift giveaway to announce in conjunction with one of this year's sponsors and we may even have one last surprise guest up our sleeves.
 
2013 is set to be the biggest year yet for Europe's Largest Transformers Convention. We have more dealers attending the convention than ever and not only is our dealers area a total sell-out but we have a large waiting list of dealers wanting table space. Tables are in such high demand now at the convention that spaces for AUTO ASSEMBLY 2014 are now over 50% sold!
 
We have a stunning guest line up - we have three voice actors joining us - Steve Blum (TF: Prime Starscream), Dan Gilvezan (G1 Bumblebee) and Neil Kaplan (RiD Optimus Prime) supported by a plethora of comic talent headlined by Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman, Nick Roche, James Roberts, Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, Jim Sorenson and many more...
 
Over the three days we have guest Q&A Panels, a special themed Bumblebee night with an exclusive reading from Bumblebee And Me by Dan Gilvezan, special panels with IDW creative talent and a panel dedicated to Regeneration One, two charity auctions, free workshops, a script reading featuring all our voice actors on stage together in a brand new original story, a cosplay competition, and much more. And if you get hungry or thirsty during the day, why not pop into our themed bar / restaurant... SWERVE'S DINER!
 
If you haven't already got a copy of Bumblebee And Me, Dan will be bringing copies with him for sale but these will be limited so if you want to get this before the convention to get signed, you can get your copy before the convention here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1467929565/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1467929565&linkCode=as2&tag=vitpla-21
 
If you've never been to Auto Assembly before everything taking place at the convention is included in the ticket price! Once you have paid for your tickets, all you will need to pay for after that is your travel, accommodation, food and drink and for anything that you buy from our dealers. We don’t charge for workshops, autographs (our artists will sell original artwork, prints and sketches and some of our voice actors may bring items with them for sale, but none of them will charge to sign any items that you bring with you to the event), Q&A panels or for our "Premium" Friday and Saturday night events - all you need for these is a full weekend pass!
 
The full Schedule for the convention, including a map of all our function rooms, is available to download from the Auto Assembly website so you can see for yourself what a packed weekend we have on offer. If you've already booked for one of the days but now want to upgrade for the full weekend so you don't miss out on anything, email us at contact@autoassembly.org.uk to take advantage of our great upgrade offer!
 
Tickets for Auto Assembly 2013 are selling quickly and once again we are on target to set a new European attendance record. If you want to be a part of the convention this year, pre-registrations close in TWO WEEKS on 1st AUGUST 2013. We may have on-the-door places available, but if you want a personalised pass for the convention and to guarantee early admission for the weekend then you will need to book in advance.
 
Auto Assembly 2013 is Europe's largest Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 9th - 11th August 2013 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers attending, all of our guests and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk
 
Hope to see you all in August!
 
The Auto Assembly Team
 
Web: www.autoassembly.org.uk / www.ct-alpha.com
Auto Assembly Europe: www.autoassemblyeurope.eu
Youtube: www.youtube.com/autoassembly
Twitter: www.twitter.com/auto_assembly
Forum: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/forum
Email: contact@autoassembly.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)7860 948296
 
Auto Assembly is sponsored by
 
TF Source - www.tfsource.com
Robot Kingdom - www.robotkingdom.com
Transformers @ The Moon - www.transformertoys.co.uk
Big Bad Toy Store - www.bbts.com
Benscollectables - www.youtube.com/Transformermegazord
Geek-station - www.geek-station.co.uk
Comic Toys - www.comictoys.nl

Hasbro have sent out a series of official stock images of the toys which were shown at SDCC including the previously unannounced Minicon combiner team.  You can view all of the images by clicking on the headline of this news stroy

Since we are in the UK and are simply two brothers maintaining this site whilst working, we have no means to be able to be out at SDCC in person, sadly, so instead here are some links to Seibertron.com, TFW2005.com and TheAllspark.com's coverage of the event.

Seibertron.com - Preview Night (Masterpieces, Platinum Edition, Linkin Park Soundwave)

TFW2005.com - Generations and 30th Anniversary figures including Whirl and Rhinox.

The Allspark - Preview Night

The folks at Kotaku have got their hands on the San Diego Comic Con exclusive Transformers / GI-Joe Crossover set.

The set contains the Jetfire Skystriker, Hound Vamp, Baroness with Ravage, Blugeon (recolour of Budo), Snake-eyes (with Autobot Symbol) and Blaster (geto-blaster mode) with his cassettes

You can read their review by clicking the link Kotaku

Auto Assembly 2013 Presents... Night Of The Bumblebee!

Auto Assembly 2013 is just ONE MONTH away and we're pleased to be able to bring you the first exciting details of this year's schedule starting with the Friday night of the convention, which is EXCLUSIVE for weekend ticket holders...

We are really excited about this extra special programme and we believe that it is going to be our biggest Friday night programme ever. Attendees will be able to collect their passes for the convention from our Registration Desk from 12:30 pm on the Friday afternoon but when we open the doors for Europe's Largest Transformers Convention at 6:00 pm, you're going to be in for a great night!

We're going to start the night off with a a special look at Overlord, first deconstructing the character in a special session hosted by none other than James Roberts, Nick Roche and Alex Milne! Following on from that will be a discussion panel and Q&A session with the More Than Meets The Eye creative team.

But that's not all. We then move up a gear into our special theme for the evening... the Night Of The Bumblebee! We're shifting gear to take a look at everyone's favourite yellow Autobot - G1 Bumblebee as portrayed by one of our guests of honour for Auto Assembly 2013, Dan Gilvezan.

We'll be kicking things off with a special panel looking at the legacy of Bumblebee over the last three decades in the toys, comics and on screen followed with the night's main event. Dan Gilvezan will take to the stage to give an exclusive reading from his biography "Bumblebee And Me" and will then take part in a Q&A Panel talking about his books!

We may even have a few other things mixed in as well as all of this! For those of you who don't have a copy of "Bumblebee And Me" yet, Dan will be bringing some over to the convention with him but supplies of these will be limited so if you want to get your copy before the convention to get it signed by Dan, you can order it from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/14679...=vitpla-21

As we have said, this night is EXCLUSIVE for weekend ticket holders but if you have only booked for the Saturday or Sunday then you can upgrade your tickets. Just email us at contact@autoassembly.org.uk for more details on how you can do this.

If you have not already booked for the convention, tickets are still available and they can be purchased from the site at: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/auto-asse...-bookings/ but they are selling faster than ever this year and ticket sales are far ahead of where we were this time last year so book NOW to avoid disappointment as we do have a cut-off of 1,000 attendees this year! Pre-registrations close on TUESDAY 30TH JULY 2013 so hurry to book your tickets for what is set to be the biggest and best Auto Assembly ever!

We have a great guest line-up this year and as well as Dan Gilvezan we are being joined by Neil Kaplan (RiD Prime) and Steve Blum (TF: Prime Starscream), as well as comic guests Simon Furman, James Roberts, Andrew Griffith, Nick Roche, Alex Milne, Jim Sorenson and many more!

Auto Assembly 2013 is Europe's largest Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 9th - 11th August 2013 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers attending, all of our guests and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at http://www.autoassembly.org.uk

Hope to see you all in August!

The Auto Assembly Team

Web: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk / http://www.ct-alpha.com
Auto Assembly Europe: http://www.autoassemblyeurope.eu
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/autoassembly
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/auto_assembly
Forum: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/forum
Email: contact@autoassembly.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)7860 948296

Auto Assembly is sponsored by

TF Source - http://www.tfsource.com
Robot Kingdom - http://www.robotkingdom.com
Transformers @ The Moon - http://www.transformertoys.co.uk
Big Bad Toy Store - http://www.bbts.com
Benscollectables - http://www.youtube.com/Transformermegazord
Geek-station - http://www.geek-station.co.uk
Comic Toys - http://www.comictoys.nl

The Transformers Collectors Club announced their two exclusive figures for this year will be Protoform X  (a recolour of Transformers Prime First Edition Megatron) and Transmutate (a recolour of Transformers Prime First Edition Arcee)

Also annouced were three of the six figures of the Subscription service (that servie in which fans wait and wait for the exclusive figures to be made).  Series 2 of this line include

- Chromedome from Transformers Prime Wheeljack, will feature a new head.
- Action Master Treadshot from Generations Warpath
- Ironfist from Generations 2.0 Roadbuster / Swindle

latimes.com have the scoop on the SDCC exclusive Transformers figures which are bound to leave some fans disappointed.  This years offering see's three sets of figures.  The first is a tribute set to Generation 1 with a release of "Titan Guardians action figures" which are non-transformable versions of G1 Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave and Grimlock.  Think ActionMaster but with less articulation.  Next up is a Transformers Prime Beast Hunters offering in the form of "Shockwave's Lab".  The set consists of Shockwave a legends class transparent Predaking  and his "cloning chamber".  Finally, the third release is the figure which has been expected for some time in the form of Titan Class Metroplex with two guns and chromed legs.  Whether this release will be convince fans especially with the 3rd party Six-Gun set on the way remains to be seen.

The images havw been mirrored after the jump

The Auto Assembly team have announced that attendees to the convention will be able to receive a 20% discount at the bar during the event with a food discount currently being negotiated.  Below you will find a copy of the announcement

Good News! Food And Drinks At Auto Assembly 2013

Let’s face it, hotel bar prices are always that little bit more expensive than what you’d pay at your local pub. Although be honest, if your local pub was hosting several hundred friends and tens of thousands of pounds worth of robot goodness one weekend, you’d probably expect them to charge a little extra too! As fantastic as the Hilton is being, we will never hide from the fact that prices are very important to our attendees. Which is why we think you will LOVE this news!

Working in conjunction with the Hilton, we have secured a generous discount for our attendees, which will cover all drinks bought in the main Lounge Bar during the convention days of Friday until Sunday. Auto Assembly 2013 attendees will receive not 10, not 15, but a whopping 20% discount on all drinks purchased from the Lounge Bar during these times! That should be a huge help to your Transformers laden pockets!

But wait… There’s more…

Remember our Showcase Event on the Saturday evening? You know, that awesome event where we hold the Script Reading, Cosplay Competition and surprise announcements… The one where we have our own PRIVATE bar (which we are christening Swerve’s, for a giggle – musical blasters not supplied). Well guess what, we listened to your concerns and you’re getting 20% drinks discount there too!  No more having to run back to the main bar!

How can we make this happen?

Easy. We listened to your comments from last year and came up with a crazy-complex system. Just show the bar staff your Auto Assembly 2013 pass (which you must be wearing). The bar manager will be provided with a mockup AA pass so the bar staff expect you. That’s it!

Wait… Is That… More…?

Just a teaser for now but… You know how quite a few of you were worried about food prices? And you know how we want you all to be able to afford to buy your meals without having to sell your spare energon…? Well watch this space… Exciting plans are being finalised!

So in summary;

• 20% drinks discount in the Lounge Bar for the duration of the programme days
• 20% drinks discount in Swerve’s on the Saturday night
• New food plans… Watch this space…

The Auto Assembly Team