Summer Olympics in Paris, 2024: How to get the Hottest Lot in Your Auction this Year

The auction lots that sell best are those that offer access to your bidders. Access to that which they could not otherwise obtain or access to relationships they wouldn’t otherwise be able to build. Professional sports championships and – every four years – the Summer Olympics usually do exceptionally well in most auctions.

And while the Summer Olympics are always popular, in 2024 the Olympics are going to be in Paris, one of the most desirable destinations in the world. If you could acquire tickets to the Olympics now, and build a package around them for next summer, it would be a huge addition to your auction in 2023.

Obtaining tickets is always a challenge. You can register for a drawing to “win” the right to purchase tickets by registering on the Paris 2024 website. They will be drawing winners until March 15th, and offering each winner a finite amount of time to purchase tickets for various competitions.

The list of available sports and rounds of competition are varied and very few Gold Medal opportunities are going to be offered in this drawing. But you could still easily build a very compelling Summer Olympic package for as little as $30/ticket.

Tickets to the Olympics may also be available to high-level Visa card holders. It is worth exploring perks and offers to see if any of your supporters are able to get tickets for you.

Once you have the tickets, accommodations are the next obvious challenge. As of this writing (2/15/23), AirBnb had not implemented surge pricing yet for Paris. I was able to find a number of flats and apartments available in very reasonable price ranges. Hotels are currently only booking through June of 2024, so pricing remains to be seen .

Is this all a long-shot? Yes. Would it be worth it if it came through? Absolutely. The best auction lots, after all, offer access to the otherwise unobtainable, and the Olympics are the pinnacle of hard to get events.

Case Study: Manhattan Wine Auction Virtual Gala

The Manhattan Beach Education Foundation normally holds its “Manhattan Wine Auction” in early June. A crowd of 2,000 people spends the afternoon enjoying wines from 70 vintners and food from 50 chefs on six tennis courts, before settling in for a 28-lot line auction. Netting over $1,000,000 annually, the Manhattan Wine Auction is a significant source of income for Manhattan Beach’s public schools.

The 2019 Manhattan Wine Auction: the stage is set for over 2,000 attendees

As soon as the pandemic struck, we knew there was no way they could hold anything akin to their normal event in 2020. And the money the wine auction raises is extremely important, as executive director of MBEF Hilary Mahan notes, “Although we have a robust donor campaign, the Manhattan Wine Auction is the only fundraising event hosted by our organization each year and raises significant money for our schools.”

We reached out to Hilary and her team in mid-March to encourage them to consider holding a virtual event this year. There were a lot of concerns, not the least of which was attendance and participation. “I was concerned that our stakeholders would not embrace tuning into a livestream show,” says Mahan. “It just didn’t sound as appealing as our traditional in-person event. But our need for funding was still prevalent…and Greg assured me that he would partner with us to make it happen.”

The first step was to partner with an audio visual company who could produce the show and broadcast it to a streaming platform. MBEF chose to work with The Lux productions based on the fact that they were one of the first AV companies in California to create a virtual gala solution for non-profit events. MBEF also brought in event planner Beth Sandefur to help produce the virtual event.

“We collaborated on ways to guarantee an audience, reach virtual attendees prior to and during the event, and maximize the attention span of our audience,” says Mahan.

One of the ways MBEF engaged its attendees was to create six different virtual tasting events to be held immediately prior to the main gala. These varied in price from $75 for a beer tasting with a brewmaster to $400 for a high-end wine tasting with a vintner. “The goal was not to make a lot of money on the virtual tasting,” says David Brennan, Director of Development & Partnerships, “but to get our community members involved at 6pm with the hope they would transition over to our 7pm live stream event.”  

And it worked! MBEF sold over 250 virtual tastings on a per-household basis, which means approximately 500 people participated. And over 1,000 screens tuned into their livestream. Their fund-a-need raised over $550,000 during the stream, and brought in another $100,000 over the course of the next week. “We could not have been happier with the results!” says Mahan. “Our event netted just $25,000 under what our in-person event typically does, raising over $1M for our schools.”

The 2020 Manhattan Wine Auction virtual event was a stellar success, tripling previous years’ fund-a-need totals and raising over $1,000,000

Two of the key factors of MBEF’s success were committing wholeheartedly to the concept of a virtual gala, and getting their stakeholders to buy in to the concept. The number of people who watched the stream is roughly equal to the number of people who normally attend the event in person. MBEF did great work in making the virtual gala fun and accessible and working hard to get their crowd to be there. And they did it all in under eight weeks.

Stellar offers new Catalog Copy Writing Service

Stellar Fundraising Auctions has partnered with copy writer Chaia Milstein to launch our new catalog copywriting service. Any fundraising auction team looking for clean, crisp, well-researched catalog descriptions of their live auction items can now get Stellar copy delivered on time and on budget.

Some solicitation teams love to write the descriptions for all of the auction lots they have worked so hard to acquire, and we totally get it. We say more power to you! But sometimes, the act of getting the lots is enough – you still have to line up potential bidders, let alone plan the rest of the event – and writing each of the catalog descriptions is just one thing too many.

Stellar can provide professional copy for all of your live auction items. We thoroughly research each auction lot, seeking the hidden “sizzle” that will engage potential buyers, and assure your donors you are handling their donation with aplomb.

We thoroughly understand the intricacies of the planning process, and will work with your team to establish a timeline that works with your needs. Bringing in a successful auction is enough work, let us make it sound great for you!

For more information about our Catalog Copy Writing Service, or to request a quote for services, please contact us here. Whether you are an existing Stellar client, or simply looking for help with your catalog, we'd love to chat with you.

The multiplier effect of good sponsorship

Event sponsorship can have many potentially positive and negative impacts on an event, but the natural tendency is to focus solely on the positive. Planning committees tend to look at the amount sponsorship raised pre-event or the number of tables pre-sold. People seldom focus on, let alone proactively work to mitigate, the potentially negative impacts sponsors can have.

Good sponsors do more than "just" buy tables, good sponsors bring qualified guests who are prepared to engage with your event.

Obviously, sponsorships help generate income pre-event and can guarantee profitability before the doors open. Table sponsorships are an integral part of every large gala I work with and account for a significant percentage of the seats sold at many events. Raising money before the doors open is a good thing, but it is meant to be a means, not an end.

Challenges arise when sponsors make their pre-event contribution and then count their job as done. We see it frequently: the sponsor who uses their table as a chance to reward employees, clients, or some friends with a “fun party.” Or the worst-case scenario: the sponsor who doesn’t even bother to fill their table and lets it sit there, empty.

The opposite of this is when sponsors see their contribution as an opportunity and leverage their donation to help generate more donations. We need sponsors to commit to utilizing their position of influence to help create more supporters for your organization by bringing people of potential to the table.

The way they do this is by strategically seeding their table with individuals who have capacity and making sure that those individuals understand their role at the event. It doesn’t have to be as brash as, “I’m expecting you to come spend money and support this cause.” But sponsors believe in your cause for a reason, and if they share their passion for your work with potential supporters in their network, it will yield short-term and long-term benefits.

When sponsors take this approach, they apply a multiplier to their initial donation that can be felt the night-of your event. In this way, a $10,000 table sponsorship can yield $25,000 in contributions – if the right bidders join the sponsor at their table.

This approach also helps fill your donor development pipeline with potential long-term donors. Once a potential donor is “in the room,” it is up to you to meaningfully engage them, motivate them to contribute, and cultivate them for future support. But it only works if they are qualified individuals who come open to being engaged.

These sponsor conversations are not always easy to have – no sponsor wants to hear that their cash gift isn’t enough. It is important that the right person discusses it with your sponsors and that the message is couched in utilizing their generosity to help create even more success for your organization.

Sponsors support you because they believe in your work and they want to help you change the world. Engage them on a deeper level, it will be more rewarding for all involved.

The dangers of the biennial event

Producing a successful fundraising auction is no small challenge. A successful auction requires hundreds of hours of planning, solicitation, and marketing. It requires leaning on your closest supporters to bring their friends and contacts to support you. It requires a lot of work.

It is therefore understandable that many organizations would perceive holding their auction every other year as the solution – especially if they can raise enough in one night to cover two years of need. What we’ve found, however, is that holding an auction every other year is actually more challenging in the long run. 

Your Date is Your Date

When you hold an event every year, it becomes established within your support base. People have busy schedules, and getting something on their calendar is a challenge. Keeping it on their calendar is your responsibility. Do you hold your event in one of the two busiest times of year, spring or fall? Odds are, if you take a year off of your event, a good portion of your crowd is going to get invited to another event – and it’ll be up to you to win them back. Every. Other. Year.

Donor Cultivation Suffers in a 730-Day Cycle

Fundraising auctions are an established pipeline for attracting new potential donors. Auction events are a known commodity, and donors understand what is being asked of them when they are invited to a new event. Once a potential donor is “in the room” at your event, it is up to you to engage them and convert them to becoming a long-term donor. Inviting them back to your next gala is one of the more simple means of cultivation. Inviting them back to your next gala – two years from now – lacks imperative.

Institutional Knowledge Retention

One of an auction committee’s many responsibilities is to pass along the institutional knowledge of an event from year to year. Unless you have an incredibly well-documented event, much of the information on how to get it done lives in the heads of your staff and volunteers.  Staff and volunteers that may turn over.

An entire planning committee recently had to start from scratch on an every other year event because I was the only person left who had worked on their last auction, two years ago. All of the institutional knowledge was gone. Caterer? Auction lots? Recording of the previous auction?

The Message of We Make Enough

Every organization holds a fundraising auction out of need. What does it say about your need if you only need to do your auction every other year? There is a good chance that your large donors understand your needs well enough to keep you on their list of planned donations. But smaller, newer donors? The same donors you should be trying to cultivate in the long term? They are more likely to misinterpret your lack of annual event as a lack of annual need.

Auction Solicitation Challenges

Much like cash donors, the people and businesses who donate auction lots often have a finite number of donations they can make in a year. If you let them off the hook one year, you run the risk of losing them long-term. I’ve seen this happen in the most innocuous of ways. A donor who put their Italian vacation home in an every-other-year auction donated it to another event in an off year. And it did so well at that other event that they doubled it on the spot, taking away her ability to donate to the every other year event.

Maintaining Your Venue/Vendors

The competition for venues is extreme, and if you walk away from your venue one year, you better have a plan in place for getting it back the next. Same goes with your vendors. As a company we give our clients the first right of refusal on “their” date on a year-by-year basis. If an event chooses not to hire us one year, we’re going to do our best to fill that date the next year, even if they say they are coming back in two years. Our budget doesn’t allow for a two-year cycle of income.

If you are currently holding a successful event on an every other year basis, my goal isn’t to convince you to change your model. But if your event has become more challenging to produce every other year, or your biennial results are no longer meeting your needs, take a hard look at your goals and why they aren’t being met. More often than not, the challenges of producing an annual event are outweighed by the benefits.

Creative & memorable save the date card idea

The sheer number of fundraising auctions makes it difficult to stand out from crowd. Every event sends a save the date card, and most of them that come through my mailbox get a cursory once-over before they wind up in the recycling bin.

But this save the date card from the John Muir Health Foundation popped out from the first moment I saw it. Maybe it's a lifelong fascination with holograms, or maybe it is the fact that the card is vibrant and interactive. Either way, this save the date card is unique and eye-catching. 

What is the most creative save the date card you've seen or done?

The most creative save the date card we've seen in a long time, thanks to holograms!

Philanthropic potential is fleeting

The lights are low and the buzz is high. Silverware is clinking, people are happily chatting over some light background music while wait staff deftly move throughout the room. The energy is slowly building, and everyone at your event is having a great time.

You can see the energy in this room as people start to network other tables. Time to start the auction!

That buzz permeating your event is philanthropic potential. It is the result of months of planning and preparation, an ephemeral “vibe” that you and your committee work so hard to create. It is fleeting, it is delicate, and if you wait too long, it will dissipate into the ether, unused. Wasted.

It is up to you to capitalize on the philanthropic potential of your event, and make the most of your potential while it is at its peak. This often means cutting your guests’ “social time” short, and asking them to focus on the needs you have asked them to help you meet.

Efficiently utilizing your attendees’ time and attention to help you achieve your mission is your right. If you have properly communicated the message of your event beforehand, your guests will be ready to help your fundraising efforts succeed. Instead of putting your fundraising auction off until the very end of the evening, conduct your auction and fund-a-need while your potential is at its peak.

In many cases, this means conducting your auction and fund-a-need during dinner, not after it. Dessert is the turning point, when people start to get up and leave. If you haven’t done the most important element of your fundraising (for most of our events, this is the fund-a-need) before dessert is served, you’re losing money.

Efficient time management will help you raise more money and will ensure your event ends on time. It will also help attendees form an emotionally-charged long-term memory that they associate with your event. Long-term memories are formed when an experience is paired with an emotion.

No offense to your caterer, but few people will remember the food at your event, unless it is ridiculously good or bad. Everyone, however, will remember the way they felt when your event transcended a mere “gala” and became a life-changing experience. 

This only happens if you capitalize on the potential you’ve worked so hard to create while it is at its max. Because the philanthropic potential of your event is ephemeral, once it is gone it is gone. If you don’t take advantage of it while you can, you’ll never get it back.

Creative ideas for buy-in parties

The structure and nature of buy-in parties often encourage much more creativity than your “standard” winner-take-all type of auction lots. This is partly because buy-in parties need to be enticing enough for people to be willing to do them with potential strangers.

But it is also because the cost of participation in a buy-in lot is typically lower than your standard auction lot, making buy-ins seem affordable in comparison. People are therefore more willing to spend a “little” on a party or idea that might be cost-prohibitive if they had to buy the whole thing. [If you need a primer on what a buy-in party is, read this previous post: “How to: Buy In Lots in Your Live Auction”]

A Poker Tournament is but one example of a buy-in lot.

We’ve seen buy-in parties created by hosts who had a great idea, and we’ve seen buy-in parties created by cobbling together disparate small components to make something appealing as a whole. Whether you are new to buy-in parties or a seasoned veteran, following are some of the creative buy-ins we’ve seen over the years. Feel free to try to replicate these, but feel even freer to use them as creative springboards for your own unique buy-in lots.

Sushi, Sake & Karaoke

I love this party because it tells you everything you need to know in the title. If you like eating sushi, drinking sake and making a fool out of yourself singing karaoke – this is the perfect lot for you! If any of those things are a turn off, you won’t go near it.

The first time I saw this lot was at a school event, and a well-known family was the host. They had a friend who had a sushi restaurant, and the chef was going to come do a sushi preparing demonstration/class for everyone as the beginning of the party. I’ve seen variations since that just involved eating and drinking. Oh, and singing. Probably poorly.

Other Themed Parties

The vast majority of buy-in parties I’ve seen have been…well…parties! And the themes have been as diverse as the hosts throwing them:

Second Chance Prom

Bust out your turquoise tuxedo and neon prom dress, it’s time to reclaim the prom.

Black Tie Bar-B-Q

Don your BBQ best (think JR in Dallas) for a day of live music, fine wines, bourbon cocktails, and a gourmet feast of Southern fixins.

Sinners and Saints

Mardi Gras. Need I say more?

Martini Madness

1950’s themed party with Don Draper as the role model.

Moroccan Dinner Party

Mediterranean food, belly dancers, maybe a hookah or two.

All Aboard the Love Boat

Dress like your favorite character from the Love Boat, enjoy cruise themed food and drinks. Emphasis on the drinks.

The nature of buy-in parties also gives you a chance to add competition to the mix, and sell access on a per-team basis.

SCDS Grand Prix

Teams of four compete on a go-kart track to see who can record the fastest time. This lot was cobbled together from a few disparate elements: we had two races for 16 people at a local go-kart track; a mobile pizza oven that would do dinner for up to 20; and a few cases of beer and wine. We combined them all, along with a cheesy trophy for the winning team and a T-shirt for the person who had the slowest time, and sold it on a per-team basis.

Four teams of four people, opening bid of $250/team. It wound up selling for over $600/team – a great return on value.

Dip, Duck, Dive, Dodge!

Dodgeball! Eight Teams Enter, One Team Leaves!! Buy-In Tournament for 8 teams of 10 players each Held at a gymnasium that donated the space, with food, a keg of beer, and a round-robin tournament of dodgeball. For adults.

Balls of Fury

A bocce Ball Tournament, replete with food and beer.But I've also seen Beer Pong parties as well. These are obviously aimed at a crowd of people who know each other well and like to party together. Hard.

Poker Tournament

Pulled pork, lots of beverages and a night's worth of Texas Hold 'Em. It is good to have a grand prize of some sort for the person who wins the tournament. I hosted a poker tournament for my son's school and first place won a stack of EA games and a cheesy trophy made up; the person who lost all their money fastest got a T-shirt declaring such.

Amazing Race/Scavenger Hunt

These are sold on either a per-couple or per-team basis. These types of events really need a group of organizers who are deeply committed to setting up and running them; either extremely dedicated volunteers, or even professional scavenger hunt companies.

Not all of these ideas are appropriate for every event, obviously, but I believe that buy-ins of one type or another will work at almost every event. I’ve done plenty of high-end events that included buy-in parties that opened up at $1,000, $5,000 or even $10,000 per spot to attend them. The key is to create an event that is appropriate to your crowd and the culture of your event.

If you would like to implement buy-in parties in your auction, the best thing you can do is find some willing hosts and begin brainstorming ideas. If you ever have any questions, feel free to contact us directly. Otherwise, we’d love to hear about some of your creative buy-in parties in the comments below.

How To: Buy-In Lots in the Live Auction

One of the growing trends in fundraising auctions is the use of buy-in parties as live auction lots. Also known as “count me ins,” “sign-up parties” or “buy-a-spots,” buy-ins are auction lots sold on a per-spot basis (usually per-person or per-couple, but sometimes per-table, or even per-team).

Buy-ins can be a valuable addition to a live auction because they effectively lower the cost of participation in your live auction without reducing the amount you raise as a whole. This makes your auction feel more egalitarian and encourages more people to participate while maintaining or even increasing your bottom line.

And, contrary to what many believe, the price for a buy-in lot does not have to remain static. If there are more hands in the air than slots available, the price goes up until supply and demand balance. We’ve seen buy-ins lots start at $250 per person and sell for $1,900 per person for nine people! It doesn’t take a mathematician to recognize how big an impact that can be.

The annual Lobster Buy-In Party is one of the biggest sellers at the Boys & Girls Club event in Sonoma. Attendees can buy an auction lot for only $200 - and we offer 100 spots. That is good (and easy) math.

There are four keys to creating a successful buy-in lot: Date, Allure, Price, and Pre-Sales.

Date: Any buy-in lot needs to have a fixed date set in advance and publicized to your attendees. It is difficult to coordinate a dinner when one winner is in charge of working out a “mutually agreeable date.” It is nearly impossible to coordinate a dinner when eight couples are all comparing schedules and have equal shares of ownership. Set the date in advance and publicize it.

Allure: Successful buy-ins also have an element to them that is alluring enough to encourage people to hang out with potential strangers. It can be access to a venue, access to a guest of honor, or simply an activity that sounds fun. But in every case, potential attendees need to look at the lot and think, “Yes, I’m in!” without concern for who else is going.

Price: Set your opening bid at a level you are comfortable selling each slot for. If a donor insists that their lot sells for $500 per spot, you should start the bidding at $500 per spot. As mentioned earlier, the price need not remain static, but you need to plan realistically. If you have a party for 75 people, the price isn’t going up. That’s just too many hands for your auctioneer to keep count of to know if demand is higher than supply. But if you have a party with 20 or fewer spots, there is the potential for the price to go up – as long as your crowd is into it.

Pre-Sales: When the auctioneer says, “Now who wants to do this, let’s see those paddles!” it is extremely important that a few paddles immediately get raised. It lends the lot momentum and also proves that the experience is going to be fun. “Oh, hey, look: the Golds are going to be there. Everyone knows how cool they are, this is going to be a great party!”

Buy-ins are ideal in the school environment because of the built-in community to be found amongst parents. But we’ve also seen successful buy-ins at everything from Cal Shakes’ Gala to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Wine Auction.

If you have never had a buy-in lot in the live auction before, your crowd is going to need some education both before and during the event. Make sure they understand the concept in advance. Get a few people or couples to commit to attending in advance, so the lot has momentum as soon as it goes up for sale. And most importantly, make sure your auctioneer takes the time to describe both the lot and the process, and commits to the process wholeheartedly. Buy-in lots can be daunting at first, but when successful they can bring in many new bidders and help you raise a lot more money.

Next up: creative ideas for buy-in lots.

Revenue enhancer: the golden paddle

One of our favorite revenue enhancement additions to fundraising auction events is the Golden Paddle. Simply put, the Golden Paddle is a chance drawing to win a credit that is good only in the live auction. The credit is represented by a golden paddle that the winner uses to bid with in the auction – letting the auctioneer and everyone else in the crowd know who they are and what they are up to.

Make sure your Golden Paddle stands out in the crowd. The brighter and louder, the better.

I’ll try to make this more clear by way of an example: sell 100 tickets for $100 each, generating $10,000 for your event. Take $5,000 immediately off of the top, and apply it towards your proceeds for the evening – that’s pure profit. Take the other $5,000 and apply it to the Golden Paddle – you aren’t losing this money, you’re just making sure it is spent in the auction.

This doesn’t just generate $5,000 for your event, it has the potential to generate a new bidder who can help drive the prices up on lots of other items. At the very least, it adds to the amount an existing bidder is willing to spend. We’ve seen lots of people who won the Golden Paddle immediately “get it” and use their windfall to bid lots of other people up in the live auction. When this happens, you wind up making a lot more than just the $5,000 they have to spend – because they increase the price on multiple items.

You shouldn’t set the Golden Paddle amount to be higher than the amount typically spent on any one item in your event. You don’t want your big bidders to be priced out by someone who spent $100 and got lucky. You also don’t want your Golden Paddle winner to dominate the auction and buy a large percentage of the items. You want someone to be able to push your big bidders up to their limits, and possibly buy one high-end item or two low-level ones.

So crunch the numbers and alter the metrics to work best with your event. We’ve seen Golden Paddles raffles where 100 tickets were sold at $50 each and the paddle had a credit of $2,500 on it. Alter the numbers to best fit the culture of your event.

There are just a few things to note. The winner must be present to win. The paddle is only good in the live auction – and sometimes the fund-a-need, depending on whether or not you want to funnel the money towards that restricted bucket of funds.

And finally, make sure the actual Golden Paddle is very flashy. Have your craftiest volunteer or staff member create it, challenge them to come up with something so over the top that it can’t be ignored. We advocate LED lights, sequins, glitter, gold paint – whatever they can come up. So that way, every time your Golden Paddle winner bids the whole crowd knows – and thinks to themselves, “Next year, I’m going to win that Golden Paddle!”