There we have...
Revenge of the Fallen Voyagers Mixmaster and The Fallen, Henkei Inferno (the unboxed ones... what can I say, I was impatient, and wanted to play about with them!), Universe 2-pack Springer vs Ratbat, Alternity Convoy, Encore 15 & 17 (G1 Cassette sets: Ramhorn/Steeljaw/Ratbat/Slugfest & Eject/Rewind/Ravage/Buzzsaw), Henkei Ratchet, TFClub accessory sets TFC-003 Screamer's Coronation & TFC-004 Gears of War.
Probably quite a meagre haul, considering what was available - I passed on Alternity Megatron for the time being, several other Encores, several other Henkei, many, many RotF figures, and all kinds of other cool stuff - but I kept to my self-imposed strict budget of about £350, and managed to come away with enough money to buy lunch at work this week. This haul also represents the things I felt I had to get: Henkei Inferno and Ratchet have better colour schemes than their Universe equivalents, and some chrome on crucial parts, The Fallen and Mixmaster were substantially cheaper than they would be if they were currently available in the shops (Deluxes were cheaper too, but by a smaller margin, otherwise I might have grabbed loads... Dead End, Chromia, Mudflap, Ravage... etc). The TFClub stuff is hard (or expensive) to come by over here, tending only to be available internationally or via eBay, the Springer/Ratbat set may not be released over here (not anytime soon, anyway) and is too cool to pass up, the Encore cassettes both supplement and replace parts of my original G1 collection (Ratbat being one in particular I've wanted for most of 20 years, and Buzzsaw replaces my old, broken one), and I felt i had to sample Alternity.
I'm pretty happy with all of it but, to be honest, when I got it all home and unpacked the bags, I found myself wondering "is that really all I bought?"
The show wasn't that great. I'd actually hoped to do the whole weekend, but came away (relatively early!) on Saturday feeling that there just wasn't that much to do other than wander round and buy things. Considering how bad I am at 'just browsing', I was basically done buying stuff within the first hour of the show. In particular, most of what I bought came from one stall - Xybertoys, manned by the excellent (but very much overstretched) Aaron. I honestly don't know how he managed to stay polite with that many drooling, sweating TF fans blocking his way every time he tried to deal with a sale.
The much-vaunted programme of events was as sparse in print as it had been online (far too much listed as 'To Be Confirmed'), and the few events there were seemed desperately unstructured. What I saw of the kitbashing workshop, for example, wasn't so much a workshop as a 'Show & Tell' with a pile of spare parts on one table, and paints and brushes on display on another. The problem with this is exactly the same as Joust's 'Living Mediaeval Village'... We Brits just don't tend to want to get involved unless there's something specific to get involved with. A kitbashing workshop would have to follow the formula of BotCon, and have a specific project, for which everyone had the same parts and paints... but the individual details are left up to the punters. Sure, there were a couple of attendees with their own kitbashes... but one seemed to fox the folks running the workshop - Kup made from Energon Snowcat and an original G1 Kup head. Seemed pretty straightforward to me...
I was also a little annoyed that so much of the (very loud) opening ceremony was given over to introducing the AA staff... I'm sorry, call me grumpy if you will, but one does not show off "the people that made this happen" until the end of the first day at the very earliest. You let people experience the event before asking them to applaud those that arranged it.
Which brings me to the MC for the day. Sure, Simon and Sven (the latter being notable by his absence this year) weren't particularly good comperes, but they guy they had this year got very annoying, very quickly. While the star guests told us how much all the AA staff cared about the show, our MC frequently reminded the audience that he needed a beer. Tacky, annoying, unprofessional...
It didn't get off to a good start - my companion and I arrived just after 9am (intended doors-open time), only to spend the next half hour or so in a queue, with very little idea of what was happening. Some people seemed to be drifting in regardless of the queue, but these turned out to be guests rather than attendees (sorry, but they were all a shabby-looking lot... God, I sound like such a snob). Before we'd even got inside, my companion was getting bored and had started on the name-calling and character assassination of others in the queue.
When the queue finally started moving, registration was complicated by the fact that the registration desk was in the main hall, rather than in the side hall/bar area. I suspect many people headed straight for the comics stall thinking that was Registration. This also meant that they missed the Hasbro stand (but then, as the guy manning it pointed out, Hasbro had supplied him with things that were already in the shops - some of the vendors at the show had newer stuff. Bizarrely, the TransFormers Collectors' Club was also represented. Whether they signed up any new members seems doubtful, considering they were strategically placed for minimal impact.
Once inside, my companion frequently pointed out overexcited TF Fans who were shaking like addicts and floundering around, completely unaware of anything other than the lumps of plastic in their sweaty hands, the bizarre dress-sense of some attendees (including, but not limited to, a few girls who'd come dressed as G1 Seekers, whose wings got very annoying, very quickly - both to them and to other attendees), and how sad it was that people were being asked to get excited over mere Colourists ("it's just not that big a deal...").
The PA was set far too loud, and had many in the audience sticking their fingers in their ears, particularly when the MC and some guests (notably not Gregg Berger or Ian James Corlett) basically shouted into the microphone. Even the later ones, who had heard how loud it was.
Part of my companion's problem is that she has organised similar events and, apparently, done it better. The first Auto Assembly almost had her strangling Sven and Simon and, while this one was certainly bigger, the 2007 event - she felt, in retrospect - was better-planned and laid out in a more sensible fashion. Over the last few months, I honestly believed she didn't really want to go, since she avoided registration for so long... and kinda still do, considering the amount of complaining she did. Even lunch (in the hotel's sandwich bar, no connection to the show) wasn't good enough.
In a quick pre-lunch break from AutoAssembly, we popped into a comics show, just round the corner from the hotel entrance... they had a nice selection of stuff... including a graphic novel that was a collaboration between a writer whose name now eludes me (and I can't be bothered to look it up right now) and the writer/artist of Stray Toasters (whose name is difficult to spell, and I can't be bothered to look that up either). With bags deposited back in the car, we returned to the show just long enough to hear that they'd set a new record and, at that point, very nearly reached 500 attendees, had one last turn around the stalls - my companion was tempted by a Mighty Muggs Bumblebee, but decided to buy nothing as she's strapped for cash right now. I'd picked her up a transforming Bumblebee (the translucent yellow limited/exclusive Legends Bumblebee from the first film) for her collection, so she didn't leave completely empty handed.
One the way back, I think she summed it up pretty well: Unless the programme of events can be beefed up, so that there's always something going on, many of the people who attended this year won't be returning next year, as there simply isn't enough to occupy anyone but the die-hard fans. Hell, on the strength of this one, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to go to next year's.
Don't get me wrong - for anyone active in the UK TransFormer fan communities, it's probably wonderful. Meet up with all the folks you argue with online, see the UK's most extensive collection of Lucky Draw TransFormers (for the last time, according to the owners), meet and greet voice actors and artists... But the main stage was unused (apart from the G1 cartoons showing on a very big screen) for far too long, and having the stalls around the edges of the seating area made it very difficult to get anywhere quickly. Maybe they need an even larger venue, so they can more effectively zone it - separating the stage area from the commercial parts, and keeping the 'alternate programme' events closer to the main event.
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