After having to cancel last year, the <a href="http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/" target="_blank">Auto Assembly</a> has announced it will open it's doors once again on August 2nd 2008, at the Clarendon Suites, Hagley Road in Birmingham, UK.
The following has been taken from their <a href="http://autoassembly.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=aa2008&action=display&thread=1195564974" target="_blank">board</a>.
"<i>Yes, it's finally here! We are pleased to announce that Auto Assembly 2008 has been confirmed for Saturday 2nd August 2008 and will once again be taking place at the Clarendon Suites right here in Birmingham, England. After taking a much needed year off, we're back and hoping to bring you the biggest and best Auto Assembly convention EVER with loads of activities, and what could well be our biggest guest line-up to-date...
This time we're running the event to raise funds for Help A Local Child (formerly known as Cash For Kids) - a local children's charity founded by BRMB radio station - through a charity auction and raffle and any excess funds left over from the convention.
Help a Local Child was launched in 1994 with a commitment to helping the children and young people of the West Midlands, who experience the negative effects of poverty, abuse, neglect, homelessness, violence, crime, illness and disability. There are many children in and around the Birmingham area who are carers for their own parents or who are indirect victims of domestic violence or suffer daily pain due to illness. In this world of glamour and gain, these are the children that BRMB want to help. Their focus is local fundraising, with all money raised being awarded locally and really benefiting our community. With the help and support of their listeners, local celebrities, corporate partners, volunteers, and their employees, the fundraising year on year will help more and more children in the area, enabling them to achieve dreams and ambitions they would never have thought possible.
Back to this year's convention and we're going to be having the usual mix of activities - plenty of dealers, video screenings, a bar or two(!), toy and art displays, competitions and guest talks. We're hoping to have our usual mix of UK comic guests including all of our "regulars", another voice actor (who we will announce as soon as possible) but this time we want to have the biggest guest line-up ever at a British Transformers convention!
In 2005 Auto Assembly was the biggest ever held in Europe with 409 fans attending and last year we had 400 attendees and we are confident that we're going to smash the European record next year. Every year we have a fantastic amount of interest for the convention with fans booking up from across Europe and as far afield as Australia and America!
We'll be producing another issue of our fanzine, The Cybertronian Times, producing another one of our infamous "goodie bags" with plenty of great free gifts including two more convention exclusive postcards, and much more!
Anyway, we hope to see many of you there next year and feel free to get in touch if you want to know more! There will be full information about next year's convention going on the website over the coming days and weeks and bookings will be open in the next week or so!
Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008</i>".
<u><b>UPDATE:</b></u>
The following announcement regarding their guests has been directly taken from their <a href="http://autoassembly.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=aa2008&action=display&thread=1195593728" target="_blank">board</a>.
"<i>Things are moving along at a blinding pace already for Auto Assembly 2008! No sooner have we announced the convention, that we're now able to announce our first guest!
We are pleased to announce that once again we will be joined by comic artist Simon Williams who will be making his fourth appearance at Auto Assembly. Simon has recently started working for IDW on some of their Transformers titles and doing some work for SFX magazine and is hoping once again to work on one of our exclusive postcards.
Also joining us will be Lew Stringer. Lew's work will be known to fans of the original UK comics published by Marvel when Lew wrote and illustrated the "Combat Colin" backup strip that appeared in the comic. Lew will be making his first and long-awaited appearance at Auto Assembly in 2008!
As always, all of our guests will be appearing subject to work and personal commitments.
Simon and Sven
Auto Assembly 2008</i>"
