Auto Assembly 2005 Bookings Update

Simes · Post by **Simes** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:57 pm

Hi,

We thought I'd post and give you all and update on the pre-booking situation regarding Auto Assembly 2005 along with a bit of a warning about the state of play we;re in. Bookings are coming in a lot faster than ever before so we're strongly recommending that you all book sooner rather than later if you're planning on coming along if you want to get in this year. I'll come onto why in a minute...

Sorry about this being a long post, but we wanted to make sure we brought you all up to speed on where we are with AA2005 and our bookings.

Pre-Bookings

As we've said, bookings are coming in at an astonishing rate but even we're surprised at how quickly. With four months to go we've got almost 100 pre-registrations - about a third of the total from AA2004's 320 attendees. While this might not seem like a lot, let me try to put this into perspective.

For Auto Assembly usually, bookings are slow and steady with a massive surge in the last 6-8 weeks before, and then we tend to get about 50% more people on the door. AA2000 had 30 people (with 15 pre-registering), AA2001 had 61 (30 pre-reg), AA2003 had 233 (155 pre-reg) and AA2004 had 320 (222 pre-reg). At the moment we have just under 100 booked but the astonishing figure at the moment is where we stand....

With just under 120 days to go, I compared the figures to last year. When we reached this number of pre-registrations last time, we were only 56 days away so as you can see and that was outside of the last-minute rush! If bookings continue at the pace they are coming in, WITHOUT the late rush we can expect about 300+ pre-bookings and about 450 in total. However, if we get the expected last minute rush and the steady increase in rate of bookings as always happens, then it is almost certain that AA will be a sell-out in advance so we will NOT have any on-the-door places available.

Another thing to bear in mind is that we are still talking to sponsors in order to try to bring a voice actor over to the UK again. If this happens again we can expect ticket sales to increase if we make an announcement there.

Finally about a third of those booked so far are new to Auto Assembly and we are reaching a new audience from outside the UK (including Norway and Australia) so more people are making their first venture to AA!!

As you can see, this makes it all the more clear why pre-booking is going to be essential this year and why early registration is going to be a must!

Goodie Bag

We're still doing our usual Goodie Bag for AA2005 and at the moment there are four items confirmed currently worth about £3.40 including a copy of the latest issue of Model & Collector's Mart magazine (courtesy of Trinity Publications), a bag of Transform-A-Snacks (thanks to Red Mill Snack Foods), a pack of G1 stickers and a poster.

However, the latter two items are limited to the first 150 pre-registrants and as we are rapidly approaching that figure, we'd strongly recommend you book fast.

We are negotiating for more freebies and hope to announce more soon, but we can't guarantee that EVERY attendee will get every item and we do expect that more of the goodies will be limited to early registrants so if you want more freebies, the earlier you book the better!

Already Registered?

For those of you who have already registered, I'd like to clarify what we are doing this year regarding tickets. If you don't know, we lost about about £1,000 last year on Auto Assembly, part of this was because of some people getting in without paying which wasn't helped with the split-floor set up of the venue. Because pre-registrants had their tickets sent out, and we were short-staffed many went straight to the dealers room and straight in and some who hadn't paid followed them in. As a result of this happening, we are not sending tickets out in advance this time (although we do have better on-the-door security this time anyway!)...

Anyway, what we are doing is to send out a confirmation slip to everyone along with an information pack which I'm putting the finishing touches to at the moment (easier said than done when we do this in our spare time!). The slips have security measures on them that make them difficult to copy if people try to pass them on to friends or copies to their friends to sneak in twice (believe us, we've seen it happen before!).

This slip will have the names and ticket numbers of everyone you have booked for and you'll need to keep this confirmation slip safe. You need to present this slip on arrival at AA to one of our team where you will then be handed your packs. In there will be your personalised name badges (which you'll need to wear at all times to gain access to Auto Assembly), your copies of The Cybertronian Times if you pre-ordered it, a copy of the programme for the day, a complete list of all the items in the aution, any other information about AA2005, possible a registration form for AA2006 plus your goodie bag.

* * *

Sorry for the long rant, but we thought you'd want to know where we are with bookings right now! If you've got any questions about pre-registration or anything I've mentioned here, feel free to ask!

Simon
Auto Assembly 2005

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:18 am

Thanks for the update Simes.

Have you got a website? Are date and location confirmed?

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:33 am

spiderfrommars wrote:Have you got a website?

It's in his sig. Your spider sense must be on the fritz?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 12:05 pm

Aww ****, its because i'm using the 'safe for work' template.

I'm really not that stupid...

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 12:08 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:I'm really not that stupid...

And we'll back you up on that. Even if they question us seperately.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:00 pm

whats our story again?

anyone up for this?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:40 pm

Best First wrote:
anyone up for this?

Yep!

Post by **Best First** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:45 pm

4th JUne... don't se why not.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:35 pm

I will be there

But will you be on a toy hunt besty?

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:50 pm

Brendocon wrote:It's in his sig.

How many of us do you think have them on any more?

www.autoassembly.org.uk off the top of me head...

Secret Incognito Brend · Post by **Secret Incognito Brend** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:06 pm

Denyer wrote:
Brendocon wrote:It's in his sig.
How many of us do you think have them on any more?

Oooh, take my head off, why don't ya. Spidey has sigs on because all good mods should be doing so.

So

to you.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:18 pm

Who said I'm a good mod anyways?

So, shall we have an AA headcount?

Worst Last · Post by **Worst Last** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:25 pm

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous are now banned.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:11 am

Secret Incognito Brend wrote:Spidey has sigs on because all good mods should be doing so.

Er, I mean, er...

Post by **Best First** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:25 am

*cough

Simes · Post by **Simes** » Thu May 05, 2005 8:46 am

Latest mini-update on the bookings situation...

We've now shattered our pre-booking total for Auto Assembly 2004 and we're well on track to beat last year's total figure from pre-bookings alone! We've also just entered the rush period about a week early so things are hotting up now on the bookings front!

It's our guess that we're going to see bookings coming in at a rate of about 5 a day between now and AA2005 which will mean between 350 and 400 pre-bookings leaving us with just 100 on-the-door places at most. Bearing that in mind, we could be looking at over 200 people turning up on the day wanting to get in so we will have to turn some people away and with the on-the-door prices being higher as well, it does make sense to pre-book!

One last thing to add is that we have also sold out of dealers tables so if any of you were thinking of coming along as a dealer and booking a last minute table, they're all gone! We may have a late table or two released if we can re-arrange floor space, but we're having to build a waiting list right now!

Simon