Infinite Frontiers is a name that most of you reading this won’t be familiar with. For the last 15 years, those in Transformers fandom across Europe will know us for our Transformers convention Auto Assembly. In fact, that’s all people know us for and what they know us as. Some only know us for our work in video games and through our website Vita Player. It’s time for a change though and 2016 is going to bring about some of the biggest changes we will have ever seen in our involvement in sci-fi fandom…
Contrary to popular belief, we have been active for longer than either Auto Assembly or Vita Player began… a LOT longer. We started out in sci-fi fandom 27 years ago when we launched our first Doctor Who club back in August 1989. Our non-profit geek organisation Infinite Frontiers has been working continually since then running a massive variety of projects. In our lifespan we have run Doctor Who, Star Trek and even sports clubs. We’ve produced Star Trek, Transformers and sci-fi fanzines. We’ve been innovators in the field of computer software, both free and commercial, and have run a number of websites. And alongside running our Transformers convention Auto Assembly we’ve also been running our video games website dedicated to the PlayStation Vita console, Vita Player for the last four years.
In that time, a few things have remained constant. First, we have continually evolved, always adapting and doing new things, changing as the geek community has changed around us. Secondly, we have never stopped working on projects, even when we’ve appeared quiet to those on the outside. Finally, our team is constantly changing. Since being founded by Simon Plumbe, over 50 people have been a part of our core team (not counting additional volunteers who have helped out at events) but as personal lives change and our plans change, so does our team and our future is no exception.
2016 is now seeing our biggest change ever. While all of our individual projects are carrying on, we felt that it was time to bring the Infinite Frontiers name back to the forefront. A new website is being launched today. We already have a Twitter account that launched just over a week ago and a Facebook page that launched a few days ago. To support all of this, we’ll be launching a new forum in the coming weeks and a Tumblr account is on the way. This central hub will act as a focus for all our geek activities – sci-fi, gaming, movies, television, comics and everything else. This new website will feature retro video games (including hundreds of free downloads), articles, features, reviews and more. We’ll be working with partners to bring you great video content including our friends at Geekology and Toy Therapy and we’ll be recruiting new team members to bring you a great helping of news as well.
Transformers fans won’t be ignored though. Auto Assembly will still have its own identity and will operate its own website, providing dedicated Transformers content, free fanzines (with The Cybertronian Times being released quarterly), and will continue with it’s Youtube Channel featuring archive footage from past conventions and new exclusive material.
The Vita Player team will also carry on providing gamers with great reviews and news on their dedicated site but all three sites will be more integrated, working together to provide a cohesive hub for all things geek!
That’s not all though. We’re revisiting our roots and taking a trip down memory lane. We’re once again heading back into software development for all you retro computing enthusiasts. All we can say for now is that if you loved the Commodore Amiga computer, we’re going to have something special coming for you later this year…!
It’s going to be an exciting time for us and with the Infinite Frontiers team already exapnded as a result of our restructure things have never looked brighter and if you have a passion for anything geek related – sci-fi, gaming, movies, television or anything else, we’d love to hear from you as we’d love to talk to you about being a part of the team!
Simon Plumbe
Infinite Frontiers
www.infinitefrontiers.org.uk
www.autoassembly.org.uk
www.vitaplayer.co.uk
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