Ours is held in the school during our Spring Fling. It's our big annual family event which includes a sock hop, silent auction, concessions, bingo, and few other activities.
The auction is held in the main foyer/hallway. Oh - and here's another tip we learned the hard way during the first year. If your event is at night, be sure and view the space at night . Our foyer is pretty light and airy. Everything looked wonderful when we set it up ...in the afternoon. But as the event got underway and the sun set, we discovered how dark and gloomy it was and that it was impossible to read bid sheets in certain areas/corners. We managed to scramble a few lamps from classrooms and got by.
But now we know to plan for that and bring floor lamps for the dark spots.
Wow,
You girls have some great information!! Critter, could you please send me a copy of your bid sheet and closing statement? My e-mail is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is our second auction and it is certainly a learning experience. so most of you hold them in your school or off premise?
Thanks!!
Critter brings up a good point. We quickly found that the smaller items (value $10-$15 and less) often weren't worth the effort of auctioning stand-alone.
For example: last year we made two "dine-around" baskets worth $100 each from a variety of restaurant certificates. (Free meal, free appetizer, buy-one-get-one-free, free dessert, etc.) These were each worth maybe $4-$10, but together made a very nice collection. We used one as an auction items and one as a raffle.
Sierra - how many guests are you expecting? What else is going on that night to keep the kids occupied? You might find that the kids pull M&D away from the bidding because it's boring to stand near a table and watch bids. With the number of items you have, I think 15 minutes is too short between waves. The intent is to let people see if they've been out bid and then make their way to the remaining items to increase their other bids. Can you stretch it to 20 minutes?
You are very lucky to have secured so many items; 150 standalone items is a lot. Can you display them all in the multipurpose room or do you need to spread them around the school?. Can you bundle smaller items into theme lots (ex:manicure, massage, and toiletries for a "Take Care of Me" bundle). If you have the inventory and the time to organize the bundles they might bring more than those same items standalone. A gift certificate for a manicure, for example, will never get a bid over the face value.
