POTTERMANIA hits York tomorrow and the city's booksellers are gearing up for a price war.

The recommended retail price for the latest Harry Potter adventure has been slashed by the big chains as they compete for sales of the publishing phenomenon of the Millennium.

Stores have put on special events and one is to open early in the expectation of bumper crowds desperate to get their hands on Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire.

Borders in Davygate is expecting a special delivery of 450 copies today, priced at £11.99 - £3 below the RRP. The shop will open at 8am tomorrow.

Marketing manager James Kerr said interest was huge and the store had already taken 100 advance orders.

He said: "We have never seen anything like this before - the last Star Wars book, the Phantom Menace, is the only thing that even comes close."

A day of special events is planned, including a Harry Potter quiz, a reading for the children, and the shop's caf will be selling Potter-themed fare.

JK Rowling's fourth book will be selling for £9.99 at both branches of Waterstones in High Ousegate.

Manager Paul Doughty, of 9/10 High Ousegate, has more than 500 copies being delivered today and has taken 130 advance orders. He said: "We are expecting people to begin queuing early and we are opening the doors at 8.30am - half an hour earlier than usual."

The first ten customers will get a special golden ticket which will allow them to meet JK Rowling in person at the National Railway Museum on Sunday.

The other branch of Waterstones opens at 9am.

A spokeswoman for WH Smith said the store would be selling the new book at £9.99 from 8am tomorrow.

Potter fans sign up to meet author

FIVE lucky Evening Press readers are set to meet Harry Potter author JK Rowling when she arrives in York this Sunday on her Hogwarts Express book tour.

Ms Rowling's fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is published tomorrow, and she will be signing copies at the National Railway Museum when she arrives by steam train on Sunday afternoon.

But only 400 people will get their books signed, the holders of much-coveted golden tickets, which each allow one person with one book into the signing.

We got together with the National Railway Museum to offer five of the golden tickets as competition prizes and received a bumper mailbag of nearly 200 entries by post and e-mail over the last two days.

The first five correct entries to be drawn were from winners Joseph Abell, from Acomb, York; Jimmy Bellwood, from Holgate, York; Andrew Day, from Bishopthorpe; Natalie Klays from Malton Road, York, and Thomas Roffe, from Dringhouses, York.

Each winner will also be entitled to up to two adults' free entry to the museum for the day on Sunday - children and over-60s already go free.

The winners should all receive letters confirming their prize today or tomorrow. The other entrants should not lose hope though - there are many other golden tickets available at bookshops in York which will be giving them out tomorrow either with books or in competitions.

One of them is WH Smith in Coney Street.

Manager Andrew Felstead said they had ten of the tickets which would be put inside a random ten copies of the many reserved books at the store. The shop opens half an hour early at 8am.

The answer to the competition question, of course, was that Harry Potter boards the Hogwarts Express from Platform 9.