One of the most difficult venues to hold an auction is in a gym. Though the venue often offers adequate space, it is a difficult place to control audio. By design, gyms are noisy venues. No one wants to sit through a quiet basketball game, so gyms are designed to deflect the slightest utterance. The shape of the building and the hard surfaces reverberate the sound, bouncing it around the room to make the noise louder and less clear. This presents a problem for fundraising auctions. We ... Read On >
silent auction
[VIDEO] Silent auction layout when using mobile bidding
I'm in the thick of the fall auction season. Last week I was working all across the country, so expect to see more videos down the road -- as I have time to organize them. :) In this first clip, you'll see an auction layout of an event I worked two weeks ago here in Washington, D.C. The organization, Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation, is only five years old. Yet the group has already raised a whopping $7 million dollars to fight colon cancer. (Impressive!) They have three core ... Read On >
An alternative to the silent auction
Last week I received an email. A benefit auction volunteer was reaching out. Her charity-of-choice raises money for schools in overseas countries. They have a smaller auction (~120-150 guests) managed in a walk-around food station-styled event. She wrote: We have begun discussions about next spring fundraiser. We have found that the silent auction route has not given us much in return for all the work it takes. We want to keep the live auction, but are looking for an alternative to the ... Read On >
Wine silent auction idea: Sommeliers drive bigger bids
I'll be working a wine auction later this month in Texas and thought I'd share a wine silent auction idea I witnessed at another event. If you've got a lot of wine in your auction, why not have a sommelier onsite to educate guests and "talk up" your packages? At a school auction earlier this year, one entire silent auction section was devoted to wine. Large formats. Hard-to-find wines. Rare vintages. Some were sold as cases or collections; others were sold as single bottles. Though many of ... Read On >
Part 3: The raging debate on silent auction bid numbers versus names
This is a 3-part blog post, explaining why benefit auctions should identify guests with bid numbers instead of names. The first post looked at the benefits of using numbers in a Fund a Need. The second post examined the use of numbers in the live auction. Today we'll turn to the silent auction. +++++++++++++++++ Why you should use silent auction bid numbers (not names) on your bidding sheets. Why do this? It's an easy answer. Because you'll raise more money. A big ... Read On >