I am new to our school Auction Committee. Last year I was involved but just helped and observed. Now this year I have started to make a few waves and need some back up, so to speak. Our Auction has about 200-250 attendees each year and last year we profited about $35,000. We have few "outsiders" that attend, its mostly people part of the school and parish. I would like to get it so that it is attended by outsiders as we are just recycling money. How is the best way to get this moving in the advertising department?

Also, we have almost 500 silent auction items and over 150 item live auction...my intuition is telling me that this is way to much because when everything is out it looks like a glorified yard sale and a lot of items do not go for their value and a lot are left over because no one bid on them. I am thinking that we should have about 125 quality silent auction items and 50-75 live auction items. What do other auctions do?

I appreciate any help you can give me.

Wow! That is alot of items!

Our school has been doing the Auction Gala for the past 4 years now. We used to do something like the "yard sale" that you speak of. Our formula for a successful aution is 100 items in each closing (3 closings for silient auction), Dessert auction (at least 50 desserts), and 45 live auction items. Last year we raised $132,000.

We do advertise this event as open to the public, although we do rely heavily on parish and school families support. We are able to advertise through local businesses, local tv stations, and newspapers. Not to mention that our Dinner Auction has been around (in some form or another) for about 30 years.

I would be happy to tell you more details, if you are interested. Feel free to email me: SPCSPTO@yahoo.com

As far as the number of items, have you thought of grouping similar items into baskets for auction? We started doing baskets a few years ago and they are very popular. For instance, if you have lots of gift certificates, maybe pick out 4-5 of the same theme (pizza, Asian restaurants, Mexican restaurants, etc) and maybe fill out the baskets with items of that same theme. We have done patriotic baskets, Irish, Easter (our auction is in the spring), kids games, the possibilities are endless. Look over your list of items and see what goes together - I think that will make your display area look less cluttered and should bring in more money.

In the past, we have done 2 live auctions so folks aren't too overwhelmed with so many items at once - is that something you could do?

I'm not involved with the advertising part of our auction/dinner, but I have seen our local news channels will mention upcoming events both on the local weekend news and on their websites and I think some of our local papers (like the ones you find at the grocery stores) will advertise at pretty reasonable costs.

Good luck with your auction!

Kathy is the expert. But I'll throw my 2 cents in. You have too many items. People can't circulate thru that many silent items. Even if they bid once, they don't have time to monitor the bidding or up their bids. Most people attend an event like that with a spending budget in mind. With so many choices, they are likely to hold back bidding because they can't be sure they'll wont' get stuck spending way more than they planned. Do you close the silent items in groups? That's a great strategy regardless of how many items you offer.

As far as the live auction goes, even with a very talented auctioneer, I've never seen a live auction hold the guests' attention for very long. The more items you offer, the less likely folks will stay seated and attentive. If someone really wants to bid on the 40th item, they will either sit around thru items 1-39 feeling bored and trapped, or they'll circulate and have fun but risk missing the bidding for the item they really want. Typically, the live items are the ones that will generate the highest bids. By offering so many, I think you'll end up with less than if you have fewer items, and an auctioneer who can really ratchet up the bidding wars. No one should feel "taken" by a high bid, but it's just as uncomfortable if people walk out of an auction with too many ridiculous bargains. Plus, giving away donations for a pittance isnt' what your donors had in mind when they chose to support your cause.

There are lots of variables, obvisously, but with 200-250 guests, it seems to me you should be clearing way more than $35,000.

Good luck. Be strong.

We usually have 12-15 items in the live auction, which makes the bulk of the money for the event (we grossed over $100,000 with about 150 attendees). Packaging is very important. We would put together a limo ride, a restaurant certificate and an "event" like a show, for instance, plus wine usually. For our last event we also held an online auction with specific items, which was pretty easy.

We had some specific items that are highly desirable, we posted them on craiglist.com with our website and got some traffic that way.

One idea we have for our next event (November 2009) is to trade packages with other schools. If we get a bed and breakfast certificate in our area, it might not bring as much $$ in, but if we traded it for one in another area, it might be really appealing. We could also put together a whole package like I talked about above, and trade for a similar package. We are in Napa. What do you think about that idea?

Another thought would be to have some of the items for raffle. We usually display 10-15 items. The tickets all go into one bin, a volunteer selects an item and the principle randomly draws out a winner. this works well for the less expensive items that will not draw many bids if in the auction.