Exclusive announcement: Festive (official) boat trip in London on 25 or 26 November (ENTRIES NOW CLOSED!)

UPDATE - 19th November @ 7pm GMT: Applications for passes to the the official festive London boat trip next week have now closed. The following members have won a pair of passes for the trip. If you have a ticket but need a guest, or have no ticket and are willing to be a guest, please check the find a partner thread immediately!

We have a special announcement of a Coldplay HQ/Coldplaying boat trip next week in London, on either 25th or 26th November. Here is the official annoucement from Coldplay HQ directly to us:

Dear Coldplaying, In recognition of your support for Coldplay throughout 2010 (and long before that!) we'd like to take 100 of your members (50 pairs) on a Festive Boat Trip in London next week. As well as cruising along the Thames, you'll get to have Q&As with Coldplay's creative director and fifth member, Phil Harvey and with two of Coldplay's touring crew (Matthew Miller and Matt McGinn). We also have a few special surprises up our sleeves for the evening.

The trip will take place on the evening of either Thu November 25th or Fri November 26th. Unfortunately, we may not know until the beginning of next week which date it will be (because of one of our surprises...), so anyone wishing to come will need to commit to being free on both nights. This means if anyone comes from outside London or UK, they will need to be staying in London on both the Thursday and Friday night...

We expect the boat to board at around 6pm in central London, and disembark at the same location around 11.30pm (fans should plan their journeys home for that time - and, in case of delay, later). Refreshments will be provided. Please dress up warm as it could well be quite chilly. We will only be able to take Coldplay fans over the age of 16 on the boat trip - with anyone aged 16 or 17 needing to be accompanied by someone over the age of 18. We look forward to seeing you all next week! Coldplay HQ.

Here's what to do next if you are interested in applying for passes for the boat:

Deadline for entries is (5pm GMT) on Friday 19th November and winners will have to make own travel and/or accommodation arrangements. This gives you 6 days from knowing you've been selected until the event. Coldplaying will be selecting the winners in a similar fashion to that of the Today Show VIP passes organised in 2008 - which means:

To be in with a chance of winning two passes (one pair), all you need to do is send a private message to Coldplaying here with a short message answering the following questions:

1) Full name, age and email address;

2) why you, as a Coldplaying.com Coldplay fan, deserves to be on that boat.

3) How many times have you seen Coldplay live?

In order to ensure that all the passes go to genuine Coldplay fans we are only selecting members who have registered and posted on the forums yesterday (18th November) or earlier.

Don't forget to include your full name, age and email address otherwise your entry will not be accepted. Winners will be contacted by email and Private Message after the deadline.

Good luck!