As someone who owns a PR agency for my full-time work, I've learned how to spot the hidden message in news announcements over the years. And in terms of Amelia Island 2025, it's clear Broad Arrow didn't have the best of times.
In 2024, they were quick to release an announcement citing the year-over-year improvements, sell-through rate, and how significantly the auction grew from 2023. Total sales literally doubled over the first year of its auction showcase at Amelia, jumping from $31M to eclipsing $63M in 2024. That's a massive spike, and even though it was somewhat unrepeatable, one would expect a strong result in '25 - especially since we were already seeing significant fracturing of the collector car market in '24, safely past the overused excuse of COVID-flation and "return to normal" pricing.
In 2025, total sales dipped to $61.7 million. Sell-through rate also fell, dropping from 92 percent in 2024 to 88 percent in '25. (And for another clue as to the overall lack of enthusiasm for the results, the word count of the Broad Arrow press release went from 278 in 2024 to 152 in 2025 - c'mon, guys, don't be that obvious about how disappointing the auction was.)
I've often wondered just how much weight the Hagerty name carries in the auction arena. They've been famous for drawing down events that they've "bought," including Radwood - and as a publicly traded enterprise, you can bet there's someone on the back end looking at the output, both in terms of manpower and dollars, exhausted on events like Amelia and asking whether the juice is worth the squeeze.
In the auction universe, it's impossible to deny that the model of online auctions for some of the most sought-after cars in the world will continue to grow when you compare the expense and liability headaches of organizing a large-scale public event. No matter my gripes with the BaT comment army, it's hard to deny that enterprises like theirs and Cars & Bids will face any significant competition from live gatherings any time soon.