Auto Assembly:
Sapphire's Report
Venue: Clarendon Suites hotel, Birmingham, England
Dates: 3rd June, 2006
The night before the convention I was hurriedly packing my bags
with all the Bwint Merchandise I intended on showcasing at Bwint.net's
Fan Table. I aimed to get a good night's sleep as I had to get
up early to catch my train to Birmingham, but packing ate up a
lot more time than I thought and then I was too excited to sleep!
I probably caught about 5 hours or so. I had to get up at 5:30am
and catch my train to London at 6:15 and even then I was remembering
last-minute stuff, one of which was bringing some things for David
Kaye to sign. I was there in time, thankfully, caught my connecting
train in London and then and sat on the crowded and cramped train
for 1 hour and 37 minutes. I emerged into sunshine in the Birmingham
town centre and made my way to the Clarendon Suites. It was a
long walk and by the time I arrived, the convention was just about
to open, so I went straight there. I'd have to check into my hotel
later.
I joined the back of a very, very long queue and caught my breath.
A guy with a speaker came round shortly after and asked if we
were all pre-registrants, which we were. Then he looked at me
and asked if I was who he thought I was. I told him he was correct
and then told me to come with him. I chuckled at the "aww,
how come she gets to go first!" reactions that murmured through
the crowd. The person turned out to be Sven, one of the organizers
of the event, and he was showing me to my Fan Table.
When I got there I frantically pulled everything out my bag and
in those last 5 minutes before the doors opened I set up my table.
The venue wasn't like Botcon - it was smaller and in one large
room, but it still had a lot of dealers and the stage was very
intimate with the audience, which was nice. The packs pre-registrants
got were awesome. You can see the contents here in a photo at
the bottom of this page. There was a collectors magazine, a G2
colouring book, four postcards, 6 stickers, a badge, a nifty pass,
an actual G1 TF storybook (illustrated, too), the convention fanzine
and Transform-A-Snacks (very tasy!)
I chatted merrily with every person who lingered by the table
and told them about the site and its online shop, that it was
the biggest BW site on the net and all the other cool things Bwint
can boast about. Some people merely smiled and walked away, others
hovered staring at the designs, others erupted in "awesome!"
or "cute!" or, my favourite, "can I buy this?".
The items were on display only but a lot of the Bwint Business
cards went so I was content.
I hadn't had a chance to contact Amber again before the convention,
so I didn't recognise her when she came to my stand and stared
at the t-shirts. I started chatting about the chibis and she looked
me in the eye and said: "Sapphire? It's Amber." I greeted
her enthusiastically. Amber would later help me man the Fan table
and also showed me to my hotel room. She was definitely a help
and I'm glad to have met her in person, finally.
In the time amber looked after the stall, I explored the convention.
There were many dealer tables, some selling toys and merchandise
I'd not seen at Botcon, including UK exclusives and Beast Wars
exclusives (some of which were selling for over £70 (about
120$). In fact, the Botcon exclusive set from last year which
I bought with my Botcon ticket was selling at £275, which
is almost twice what I paid for it! The only toys I bought were
a TM2 Dinobot which was actually selling at just and an Airazor
which started at 30£ but I bargained the seller down throughout
the whole day to 10£. I also bought a very cool Beast Wars
bag which I'd never seen before.
I finally sucked up the courage to go to the guest table and talk
to David Kaye. I took a little rubber ducky with me which I was
going to give as a gift and the stuff for him to sign. When I
got to him I started telling him about the interview over the
Internet he did for my website and he interrupted me with "That
was you!?" extended his hand for a handshake and I took it
thinking "Wow! He remembers me!" and suppressed the
urge to squeal. He said of course he remembered, and he's checked
out the site, and how's it going? I told him it's doing very well
and he was pleased. I then gave him the rubber duck and he laughed
and said "oh yeah, I remember this! What was that episode
called, where he's in the bath and he gets interrupted by...by
Tarantulas!" I told him and we joked about it. Then I asked
him if he wouldn't mind signing some autographs and he did so
with cheer. He signed with his lovely gold and silver pens and
was really nice about it. I gave him a Bwint card and he asked
my name again and wrote down "Sapphire" on the back
of it and kept it. I was so thrilled! And may I say this... David
Kaye is very handsome in person. He also has a very nice manner
about him, is quick-witted and has a great sense of humour. He
said he'd chat to me later because I had to go and get back to
my stall. It was so awesome, and little did I know how *much*
I'd be seeing him that day!
I continued promoting the site for a while at my stall when I
was approached by a lady from 2ndstar (the stall near mine) and
she said "I noticed you've been manning that table alone
today and wondered if you have anyplace to go tonight? We're all
going to a dinner and thought you might like to come along."
I agreed, particularly when she mentioned "some of the guests
are going to be there". She and her friends were really nice
people and it was there I met John, who's since joined the Bwint
forums. I made a number of friends and acquaintances at Auto Assembly.
I took a break to watch the charity auction. I'd missed a lot
of it because I'd been talking people but fortunately I didn't
miss the one 'item' that I really wanted... Without giving
too much away, I won it and it's going towards the site. :)
I had to check into my hotel so unfortunately I missed some of
the guest talks. The other guests were Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman,
Lee Sullivan, Guido Guidi, Simon Williams, Jason Cardy, Mike Collins.
I'd returned in time for David Kaye's turn to do the "guest
talk" and he came up on stage and I saw that he had the rubber
ducky with him (which he got asked about and duly squeaked.) He
was fantastic, doing voices, telling the audience about the business,
working on Beast Wars etc. He did a Q&A and was very gracious
about answering questions. He also did a script reading from the
Agenda with a few fans and entertained the audience with random
voices he'd done over his career.
After that the events and activities started to round off. I said
goodbye to Amber who left 2 hours before me and then I watched
the raffle, gave a few more cards, snagged my Airazor toy and
drifted around a bit.
When the day was finally over I went with my new friends to a
big Chinese buffet and 18 people from the convention, stall owners
and staff, arrived. David Kaye was one of the guests who attended!
I thoroughly enjoyed me meal and chatting to everyone at the long
table. After a great 3 hour dinner I was given a lift back to
my hotel where and I showered and crashed, because I was exhausted!
It took me a while to fall asleep, though, because I was so pumped
up on adrenaline and my head was spinning with all the things
that had happened that day.
Overall, the convention was a great success and I enjoyed it very
much. I hope I can attend next year, which should be even better
as it'll be the same year as the Transformers movie! I encourage
any European Transfans to make the trek to this fantastic event.
It's definitely worth it!
