CoPrez....Where I live it seems pretty much everyone knows what a tricky tray is,as that is what anyone who has one calls it. So it may have to do with location.

We actually do not hold ours in the school and do it in a large banquet facility that holds about 600 people. We advertise the tricky tray in all the local papers and get a serious number of outside people that come from the surrounding area. We wish we could find bigger facilities then that as the person who sold the tickets last time was literally turning people away.

We did this for the first time last year. Each classroom had a theme and parents were asked to bring in a small item if they could. Since we are a low income area I didn't excpect much, but that went well. We also did our regular Prize Walk. I figured we would have to use some of our donations for the baskets, but we didn't. Our Prize Walk has always been very successful with local donations. It is hard work, but well worth it.

I've never heard of the phrase 'tricky tray'. Are people confused as to what it is?

Our last auction was part of a family event and did much better than expected. I've seen a lot of places that do the carnival and auction together. I was thinking that we could ask local dance and karate schools and the like to do a short demo on the stage at the front of the gym and have the auction in the back. Our gym is in the middle of the building so you have to go by it no matter where you are going.

We had three raffles done like the tricky tray but it's possible to set up a room with dedicated to more items.

Our most successful auctions were strictly auctions - but also included what you call "tricky tray" (we just referred to those as raffle items) and live auction items. But, we didn't have other activities that pulled our guests into different areas. All of our activities took place in one big room at a country club.

Last year, one of the schools combined a silent auction with an indoor carnival. In my opinion, there was too much going on for the auction to be as successful as it could have been. When there are other activities (or even kids)that distract your guests, it's hard for them to concentrate on the bidding. They might make one bid, then move on to some other activity and never get back to re-bid.

Though you'll certainly make some money on the auction part of a big event, you often can't ask for donations more than once per year. Given the option, I would vote for an "auction only" event, separate from a family fun event.

Is it too much to have a silent auction as well? We are looking at doing a carnival too. Would people get confused and not do it?