Yes folks, your eyes do not deceive you! Auto Assembly 2013 is still 10 days away, but the good people at Auto Assembly are making strides with next year’s event! We have for you the first news of Auto Assembly 2014 including the confirmation of the date and the venue – and tickets are available too!
Auto Assembly 2014 will be taking place over the weekend of 8-10 August 2014, and will be once again held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, England.
Tickets are available now at a special rate of £50 for a weekend pass – click here to book your tickets! The hotel block will also be available shortly with special convention rates of £55 per night for a single room / £64 per night for a double.
But wait, there’s more! For this special 30th anniversary of Transformers convention, Auto Assembloy have announced that at least FOUR overseas guests will be attending the 2014 convention. Who are they? You won’t have long to wait to find out – they will be announced as a part of the Saturday night programming at Auto Assembly 2013!
But let’s not forget about Auto Assembly 2013, taking place next weekend, 9-11 August 2013. Tickets are still available – but pre-registration closes on THURSDAY 1 AUGUST 2013. After this, only door entry passes will be available – but why wait in line? Book your passes today!
bchorean
even at 3 a week, you would expect most of us would have received this item already….i dont even know if 1 single person has proof that they received theirs
sunlink
Really? Three a week? These things must weigh a ton or something.
AutobotSoldier
The guy told me that he can only send out three a week. Now there's no excuses. They got everything they just don't have any sense of urgency nor sense of doing the right thing. At this point and at this rate, you can expect your package sometime within a decade.
bchorean
still waiting for the 2013 nonattendee packs…wow…
AutobotSoldier
Here we go again. Big announcement that the they were sending out 2013 Non-Attendee kits and STILL nothing! A few weeks away from 2015. Can you PLEASE send these long overdue kits already!
AutobotSoldier
Two months later and still no package has arrived. Have you guys shipped everything and if not what are you waiting for? Tracking numbers?
Simes
We've tried to keep everyone updated on what has been happening with the packs both directly via emails and through the website with updates but as we have tried to explain, with our Non Attendee Packs the whole intention behind them was to offer all of the convention exclusives to people who couldn't make it to the convention, not a way of Auto Assembly making any money on them as we never have with any of the packs we've offered over the years.
Including the 2013 packs, we've unfortunately encountered issues repeatedly with suppliers that have left us unable to ship packs as soon as we would have liked several years running meaning that we haven't been able to send packs out as fast as we have wanted to. While we've had most items available in many cases, there have always been some that we've been waiting on that had been promised to us either at or just after the convention and it's left us just as frustrated as all of you with the packs.
As a non profit making event, the packs are produced with a zero margin at best with most of the income from them going immediately to all of the external partners who have supplied most of the content and in the case of the 2013 packs we've literally been sitting on a box of toys, add-on kits and autographs but until a few weeks ago we had been waiting for all the t-shirts to be delivered and all we had been given were a string of promises – something we had been promised over a year ago by our exclusives partner.
Unfortunately, from our end while sending out multiple packages may seem like a simple option, financially it's not a practical one for us. With a lot of overseas orders it would leave us as a convention running at a heavy loss on the packs and it's something we simply can't afford to do.
The comments about us ripping people off… that would only be a fair statement if we had no intention of sending packs out to anyone and nothing could be further from the truth. As we have already stated on the website, packs are shipping at the moment and this week I'm aiming to take the fourth batch of parcels to the post office and by the end of the week we expect to have shipped about 50% of the packs.
We do appreciate how frustrated everyone has been with the packs which is why we have taken the decision here at Auto Assembly not to offer Non Attendee Packs in the future because we simply can not rely on external partners to ensure that everything we need to offer value packages can be with us when needed. It's not fair for us to take promises made to us from partners and to pass that information on to people in good faith only for us and everyone else to be let down which is what has happened constantly for the last year.
With the t-shirts and the 2013 packs, we deliberated originally about their inclusion but we made the conscious decision to have them as part of the pack because we didn't want to leave any of our exclusive partners out in favour of another so all our convention exclusives – the toy, add-on kit and t-shirt – were all included (rather than just the toy and add-on) although we know that not everyone was bothered about the t-shirts. In hindsight, we probably could have made the shirts optional or offered customisable packs but we felt that we were working with someone we could trust to deliver the goods on time.
It is because of this that we informed everyone who ordered the packs a couple of months ago by email (which you will have received) that in addition to bonus items in the pack, we are giving everyone who ordered the Non Attendee Pack a complimentary ticket to a future Auto Assembly event (2015 or any other year that they are able to attend) worth at least £60 as an apology. We know that it's not a lot but we felt that it was the least we could do under the circumstances.
bchorean
if there is anyone else out there who spent money with these guys with nothing in return, please pm me to be added to a list of people who got ripped off from autoassembly in 2013
AutobotSoldier
Also, at this point, I prefer a refund but I guess that would too much like doing the RIGHT thing again.
AutobotSoldier
Im in the same boat. I still haven't received the auto assembly 2013 deluxe non-attendee pack! out almost $275US (totally regret that purchase as well) The funny part is that they got everything and the wont ship it to us because of a dispute with a shirt vendor. The right thing to do would be to ship us our exclusives and ship the T-Shirts later when the dispute is over but I guess these guys don't know how to do the RIGHT thing!
I totally feel ripped off as well. Im pretty sure the guy who started this thread (Simes) is one of the guys involved with Auto Asembly 2013. Maybe he can comment.
bchorean
its been since june 5, 2013!
I still haven't received the auto assembly 2013 deluxe non-attendee pack! out almost $275US (totally regret that purchase)
anyone know these guys? totally feel ripped off
AutobotSoldier
Still no Non-Attendee package….. Auto Assembly is a joke!
sunlink
Thanks! Glad to hear you like my designs.
And yeah. Still no word on the 2013 non-attendee kits.
AutobotSoldier
Still no Non-Attendee package….. Auto Assembly is a joke!
AutobotSoldier
Still no Non-Attendee package….. Auto Assembly is a joke!
AutobotSoldier
Sunlink dude you are the man your shapeways designs are awesome. I have not received my non-attendee kit from this poorly run show yet. At this rate, AA 2014 is gonna get here before we get our 2013 non- attendee kit.
sunlink
Same here. Last I checked they were still have issues with something (the "something" I can't remember…was it Tshirts?)
AutobotSoldier
I'm in the same boat buddy. These guys don't care about the fans/customers. They can't even respond. I'm telling you guys …..stay away From Auto Assembly non attendee kits.
bchorean
I still haven't received the non-attendee package from 2013…anyone else in the same situation?
siccoyote
Well I've booked my ticket a month ago bust still trying to find someone to shack up with.