If your auction is like the ones at most schools, then you put your most exciting offerings in the live auction and push the likely less competitive items into the silent auction. This is a smart model and a good way to make sure your live auction doesn't last five hours.
But what about when you're wrong and a few of your silent auction items get competitive? You've seen it -- two or three parents boxing out around a bid sheet trying to be the last bid down before the deadline. And if those parents want to get a final bid down on a few different items, then they have to be Olympic sprinters. The result is that you don't get as much money as you could for those donated items.
The solution: the quickie live auction. Mention right in your program that you reserve the right to turn any silent item into a live auction item if there is heavy interest at the deadline. Then, at deadline time, have a small step stool (nice, but not a required touch) for your bid sheet collectors and allow them to run a quick live auction (literally one or two minutes) for any competitive item. If two dads want to bid the baseball tickets up to $400, that's how your auction maximizes its profits. The winning bidder and the price can go right down on the bid sheet, and all your processing and billing can proceed just like the rest of your silent items. Voila.
It's definitely a switch from what parents are used to, but there's no rule that says silent auction items should be won by the parent with the best ability to box out other parents. It's a fundraising auction, and the quickie live format helps raise more funds.
