The #2 option listed in the post above is what we did last year at our silent auction. Several of those people did end up being the highest bidder
-Diane
I agree with your re-thinking of the situation. Holding a secret bid until the end would be unfair to the others - unless you gave everyone bidding the right to counter-offer. I think your options are:
1) They can give the authority to make ONE bid, you write it down as the first bid so everyone can see it. It's up to them to decide if they want to bid high enough to scare away potential bidders and it's up to everyone bidding to decide if they want to top it.
2) They coordinate with one of their friends who will be attending (someone not working auction) to bid for them. That person would bid like everyone else (like you suggested).
Our Silent Auction and Carnival is ON april 24th. I am running the silent auction part. There were some parents and staff concerned that they would not be able to attend the function but wanted to know how they could still bid on an item. I thought about it and decided that they could pre-register, with an option to make a maximum bid. At the time, I hadn't thought it out completely, this bid would be something no one would know about until the end and the highest bidder of the night would be outbid bythis pre-bid. I realize now that this isnt really fair to the bidders who came to the auction and watched the bidding and thought that they would be the winner. So i think that I should call these pre-bidders and tell them that they will have to have someone bid on the item they want using their bid number to insure that they get what they want. Just wondering what others thought, not sure if I have explained it well. Please help! Any other suggestions welcome.
Shannon This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
