Gumball 2006 Entry fee announcement

Published Oct 26, 2005 in Gumball 3000 News

Letter by Gumball HQ received by one of the Gumballers including entry fee information:

Dear Gumballer,

You are one of the 40 past Gumballers to have already confirmed your wish to participate in the 2006 ‘World Rally’, and have paid the initial deposit to secure this place on the grid.

It is understood that you paid this on the understanding that the total cost of the rally is to be £20,000 GBP. However, after having carried out subsequent and now complete budgeting for the rally we have found that we are unable to offer the 2006 rally on such a large scale with that fee, with the whole event costing us itro $45million dollars (if you only knew what some Governments are like!!!). The predominant single cost associated with flying your cars around the world in particularly specialised and rare Russian Antanov Cargo Planes and passenger Jumbo jets has come in at over £2million alone, leaving us with an unrealistic sum to carry out the various functions in all the various cities throughout the 10 days . We could have offered this rally to you for £20k but accomodation would have been at the local campsites en route, (marsh mallows and baked beans over the camp fire!).

Therefore, as the costs are so extensive we have decided to make the entry fee merely represent the basic booking costs of the various venues, aeroplanes and basic logistics of the event, and as such we are forced into increasing the entry fee accordingly. 120 cars will be able to participate in the whole event, and we are offering 60 places to past Gumballers and 60 places to Gumball virgins. The entry grid will be made up as follows:

25 cars – UK participants
25 cars – North American participants
25 cars – Asian participants (China, Japan & Korea)
25 cars – European participants
20 cars – from the rest of the world (Middle East, South America, South Africa, Oceania, etc…)

As we have done in past years, as loyal past Gumballers you will recieve a discount of 20% with the total entry fee being £30,000 to you (based on 2 persons per car); and £40,000 to new participants.

I realise this sounds alot, however it is basically just £1,300 per day per person, and includes so much that its ridiculous; 5-star everything for 11 days, across 3 Continents, 20 countries, private Jumbo’s and cargo planes, music concerts, a feature film, parties galore, and will undoubtedly go down in the history books!

We know that this news will be upsetting to you but we hope that you understand the situation. This may of course disuade you from participating next year, if so we will be happy to refund you your deposit immediately… although we hope that that will not be the case.

The proposed payment Schedule for the 2006 rally will be as follows:
Deposit (£10,000) by July 31st
2nd Installment (£10,000) by October 31st
3rd Installment (£10,000) by January 31st

We would really appreciate it if you can confirm to us as soon as possible if you still wish to participate in 2006, as already over half the places have gone even before we managed to print up the entry forms, and we have a waiting list hot to trot!

If you have friends that you are trying to get on the rally, they must confirm their place immediately.

Best Regards,

Maximillion