Putting the event on is not the problem, its getting the people to attend. There is nothing worse than organising an event, putting in all the effort and costs involved and then having a handful of people turn up.
The main issue is that Abarth in the U.K. does not have a current customer base, so you have no direct mail opportunity to get people in. Just advertising an event in the local paper does not work, as people like to feel special by having an ivitation drop through the post.
This is the perfect media to advertise an event, because only people who are interested in Abarth are reading this forum.
We as a company, probably do 10 - 12 events a year, mainly Ford, and get very good turnout due to the huge Ford customer base we have. (60 years worth).
I did an Italian evening in September, with Fiat, Abarth and Alfa all in same showroom and we had a turnout of about 120 people from a mail shot base of about 3500.