In other news, Breyer posted the Breyerfest surprise model "reveal" on the blog today for St. Patrick's Day! Behold!
From the blog:
You know we can’t reveal this one – we can’t even give you a hint! All we can say is that Sláinte is how the Irish say “cheers” and we know you’ll be cheering when you unwrap this beauty at BreyerFest.
Edited to add: there's another sneak peek in the March collector club newsletter! Observe:
Ooh, maybe something with the Prism color scheme, like I just talked about on Saturday? I hope so!
Also, unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you've probably heard about the COVID-19 virus that's been circulating the globe. There's been a lot of online speculation about whether Breyerfest and the Seattle Soiree will be postponed or cancelled, and I wanted to give my two cents on the issue. Personally...with the news that the Land Rover Kentucky three-day event has been cancelled, and the delay of the Kentucky Derby to September....I don't think it's looking good for the Seattle Soiree being able to go on as scheduled. Best case scenario, it's postponed - but that means everyone who attends would have to reschedule their flights, hotels, work schedules, etc. Unfortunately, I think that's the best we can hope for. The federal government now recommends that gatherings be limited to no more than 10 people; while Washington has been limiting events to 250 people, I think it's entirely possible that they shut down large gatherings altogether.
So, the Seattle Soiree probably won't happen as scheduled. How will people get their plastic ponies? The Redmond and Stablemate models could be mailed to the people that were supposed to attend, but Breyer would have to figure out how to sell the rest of the event models in a way that's more-or-less fair to everyone. How that ends up working is anyone's guess, but it'll probably give Breyer some practice for how to distribute the Breyerfest special runs, should that event end up being cancelled or posponed as well.
And postponing or cancelling Breyerfest opens its own can of worms. Again, the celebration models could probably be mailed. Tickets for the raffle models could be sold through the website and names drawn from those entries as well, with those models also being mailed to the winners. The live show could either be converted to a photo show, or the live show prizes could just be raffled off amongst everyone who paid to enter the show (I expect the distribution would probably be about the same). Then those models could be mailed to the winners (UPS is going to be the real winner here!). Same thing with the volunteer models - just have Robin make her selections like normal and then, well, just mail them all out (along with a celebration model and two randomly-selected special runs, since being a volunteer gets you all of that). The live auction could also be done online. The diorama contest and best customs contest stuff could probably be judged through photos at a distance and the prizes mailed.
From there, though, things get a little more iffy. How do you distribute the special run models in a way that's fair to everyone? It would be easy to limit purchases to people who bought three-day tickets, but where do you go from there? Limit them to 2 different models per transaction, obviously, but how do you keep people from placing a billion orders? How do you keep track of how many tickets everyone bought? They don't make enough models to cover all of the tickets, and if it's all done online, there will be more people trying to order than are normally there at the event trying to buy.
I think the simplest solution (if time-consuming) would be to go through each account that's purchased three-day tickets, count how many they bought, then contact each account owner and tell them "this is the number of randomly-selected packs of 2 special run models you can buy, take it or leave it." That doesn't solve the problem of not enough special run models for tickets produced, though. And I have no idea how to handle the single-day Stablemates, since they don't make enough of those to cover all of the tickets sold. There's also the problem of the Store Specials and the pop-up store - those aren't limited to two, so how do you sell those fairly? What a headache.
At this point, I think it's more likely that Breyerfest is postponed, not cancelled, if only because of the aforementioned issues with selling the products. Let's hope it all works out, I guess? The problem is, Breyer can say all they want right now about Breyerfest still being on schedule, but if the state of Kentucky bans all gatherings of more than 250 people (or all gatherings, period), well, that's the ballgame. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, eh?
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