That's quite a haul. I was honestly surprised to hear the Hoth UCS set did so well in sales, since it has the lowest rating on LEGO Shop's website.
If you don't mind me asking, Pete, how much did the Space Slug set set cost you? I had heard they were going for a few hundred dollars due to the scarcity (and $150 MSRP).
I don't mind you asking at all - I paid $239 in a Buy-it-now from a seller with good reputation. There are some sellers that have it for cheaper Buy-it-now - but their feedback was either non-existent or had some blemishes, so I am okay with paying a bit more.
I am curious as to what the criteria was for getting the invite, not that I feel that I should have been entitled to one or anything, but if there is something I could do, purchasing behavior-wise, to put myself higher up in the running, that would be great to know. For example, when I buy from Lego it is a mix between going to the nearest store and ordering online, was this based purely on frequency of purchasing from my nearest store? If so, maybe I need to make the trek over to that store more often.
I'm not going to open this set, I'm probably going to buy the parts from another seller so I can have the set built and then leave the official set from Lego MIB/unopened. I've done the same thing with some of the other convention/event exclusive sets I've picked up (like Rocket's Warbird and Ultron's Throne). I have a sneaking suspicion that the set will end up being the Star Wars Celebration Europe exclusive as well, but I suppose it's entirely possible that it will be a different set entirely. They seem to be doing this micro-environment scenes lately so now we have one from ANH and two from ESB, I wouldn't be surprised if a ROTJ one isn't around the corner at some point.