Auto Assembly 2008 Update - 23rd June 2008
With just under six weeks to to go until Auto Assembly 2008, it's time for another pre-convention update on the latest developments with Europe's biggest Transformers event in 2008! We've got a few bits of news to bring you as well as some important reminders for all of you...
* Booking Confirmations *
We've roughly sent out the first two hundred of these give or take a couple where there are one or two isses that we need to resolve before they are sent out. The remainder will be sent out by this weekend so they will all be done apart from any bookings that arrive with us from this Thursday onwards.
* Pre-Registration Reminder *
I know we do keep saying this, but we can't stress enough the importance of pre-booking for Auto Assembly 2008. It DOES make our job a lot easier in terms of planning the convention and does help us with our budget planning to help bring you a better convention. One thing we have noticed looking on a lot of forums over the last month or so is the number of fans who have been talking about attending the convention this year and who have said that they will be there but who have NOT currently registered! With early admission and the chance of extra free gifts and entry into our pre-registrant prize draw isn't that worth it for that alone?!
There are a few things I would like to say in terms of our pre-registration targets however. We do have our break-even point that we ovbiously want to reach from pre-bookings but we do have a couple of other targets that we want to reach with YOUR help. Our first main goal is to beat the all-time European record from pre-registrations alone so we would love to have 410 pre-bookings.
However, the dream figure for us would be to reach 450 pre-bookings by at least 10 days before the convention. If we can manage this it *should* enable us to produce a THIRD postcard to give away to all attendees, potentially secure an ELEVENTH guest AND there is a surprise we are hoping to work on for the convention that may need extra money to fund it. So if you haven't booked up and you are planning to or were thinking of paying on the day, you know what to do. If you've already booked, get your friends to come along as well!!
* Pre-Registration Prize Draw *
Tying in with this, as we have mentioned before, we are running a prize draw for all pre-registrants. To enter, all you need to do is pre-book and the winner will be announced during the opening ceremony and the winner will receive a bundle of goodies including a G1 graphic novel, a Transformers Titanium figure, a family ticket (2 adults and 2 children) to Auto Assembly 2009 and more besides!
* Fast-Track Entry *
This is just something we are considering right now and we'll confirm it closer to the day itself, but for anyone arriving on the Friday night we may give fans the opportunity to collect their registration packs assuming we can get our registration desk set up in time. You won't be able to spend time in the hall with the dealers, just collect your packs, but this will mean that once the doors open on Saturday morning you'll be able to walk right in at 10:30 am!
This is just an idea right now but we'll let you all know if this is going to happen. Again, this will be for PRE-REGISTRANTS ONLY!! Keep reading these updates for more news on whether we do this fast-track entry system!
* Charity Raffle Update *
Thanks to a very generous donation from Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham, we now have a massive selection of almost 20 prizes in the charity raffle covering the movie and G1 including t-shirts, comics, books, toys, figures and more! Tickets will be just 20p with all proceeds going to our nominated charity Help A Local Child. If every attendee spends just n tickets that will help us raise almost 00 for charity just from the raffle alone so please be generous!
* Toy Collection *
We're running another toy collection again for Help A Local Child so 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 and we'd like to thank everyone for their generous donations.
* Guest Update *
A quick update on one of our guests, Kat Nicholson. Contrary to what we have said before, while Kat made her Transformers debut colouring the Beast Wars Megatron postcard for Auto Assembly: Target 2006 she has since worked professionally on Transformers working on IDW's Beast Wars Source Books and has now done work for Titan's Transformers comic and will also be working on their forthcoming Transformers Animated comic... although they seem to like referring to her as Kat Robinson!
* Volunteering *
We still need more volunteers to come forward for the convention. While we have had plenty of offers, not many of you have sent in your volunteering forms which we need to be able to allocate everyone to their duties during the day so please get these in to us as soon as possible!
Well, that's it for now, but we should have a few more announcements over the next few days so keep an eye out on all the major TF websites and forums and look out for our next update next weekend and we hope to see a lot of you all 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
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