Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 15th December 2009
A Place in the Sun auction cancelled
A Place in the Sun (APITS) cancelled its Spanish property auction in London on Sunday due to a lack of bidders.
Despite an extensive PR and marketing campaign fronted by television presenter Amanda Lamb, the exhibition only attracted 20 members of the public who were told that there were not enough participants to hold a public auction although they were allowed to make private bids to the developers who paid £350 to participate.
Commenting on the auctions failure, APITS managing director, Andy Bridge said: "There’s no definitive answer as to why more people didn’t attend but I’d guess it was to do with format…Maybe our audience finds the idea of an auction too intimidating, maybe the properties did not appeal at the reserve price or maybe people think the market has further to drop.”
He also speculated that the event two weeks before Christmas may have been an issue but said that an auction in the New Year would have been too close to the APITS exhibition in March.
12000 downloads but no cigar
Although only 20 people showed up, the marketing campaign that included national press advertising, PR and database mail-outs resulted in more than 12,000 people downloading the auction catalogue prior to the event. The organizers are now in the process of contacting people who downloaded legal documents and further information to find out exactly why they failed to turn up.”
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