Placing your main entertainment at the appropriate point in your profit auction is important to the ultimate goal of raising more money. Sometimes your event will dictate when the auction and entertainment should take place, but here are some guidelines.
For gala evenings with dinner, Ideally, hold the auction live during dinner and follow the fundraising with the owner. Sometimes this format is not practical.
For example, my company recently worked on a prestigious auction of 600 guests. The headliner for the performance was Wynton Marsalis, and his performance schedule only allowed him a short window during which he was able to make an appearance in Washington, DC before heading to New York. Because we had to work around their schedule, the guests enjoyed their 45-minute performance (and even danced!) before Dinner. During dinner, we ran the auction live and got record results.
For daytime events, multi-day conventions, and trade shows, the headliner is often placed during lunch. This makes sense because the midday meal tends to be when the attendance is highest. Hold the auction first and follow with the main performance.
A customer asked me if they should put the auction on a separate day. Although the variables can be many, consider these advantages of keeping the auction and the header on the same day:
- You’ll have the most people in the room and the crowd won’t leave until the headliner performs. A larger audience often results in higher auction revenue.
- Their sound system is already set up to accommodate the artist and could easily be adjusted for the auction.Renting the sound system for one day instead of two is more cost effective.
- You can tally up the auction results and prepare to pay while your guests listen to the headline. When the crowd shows up at your checkout table to pay for your items, you’re all set!