We have a silent auction every year, coupled with our FUN RUN. This year we made over 6,000.00 last year about 8,000.00 just in the silent auction portion. We have every class donate a basket. They get lots of items and some parents really have connections...tee hee. We make sure the baskets are presentable, i.e. plastic wrap, pretty ribbon..etc. We sold a basket full of Dollar tree stuff for 300.00 one year because it was so pretty and people were "fighting" over it. We plainly write at the top of the bid sheet what the value of the basket is and then let the bidder know what the starting bid is and what the bid increments are. If you have a basket worth 500.00 you don't want the bid to start at 5.00 and go up a dollar or so each bid. You won't make any money!! We also have local business donate individual items. The class who's basket raises the most $$ gets a pizza party and the teacher gets a paid day off! It really motivates the parents to bid. I hope this helps!
I was chair of our school's silent auction for 6 years. I understand completely what you're saying. But we found that when we held a large raffle for a big prize - the most popular was a Harley motorcycle, was when we made the most money in the auction.
Don't start out your bids too low. And you have to make it attractive - many times, people won't see the value of just 2 amusement park tickets - you might have to couple it with a local hotel in the area - or maybe a limo service to and from - You get the idea. We never had as much luck with 2 tickets to anything - we always worked it with something else in the auction.
Our auction was always in March and we would start writing letters and gathering prizes beginning in the summer! That is how long it took to really think out of the box and get "different" prizes that nobody else has.
You should try it again - did you have a good attendance at the event? At the event, did the person who announced the item when it was about to end really talk it up? All of those things make a difference.
Thats a good question. I'm not sure, I'll have to check on that one. I only worked the fest as a volunteer last year so I didn't have any imput or alot of knowledge of the set up.
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
I have seen several people mention these on here. Last year for our Spring Fest we did a silent auction and it was a complete bust! People won the stuff for little or nothing. Seriously, one couple won 2 amusement park tickets for 25.00. The tickets sell for 35 a PIECE!!! We have decided that we won't do a silent auction again. We had a real auctioner, sp?, come out for our fall fest last year and it was a lot of fun and the PTO raised a ton! What is everyone elses thougths on Silent vs. live auctions?
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
