How many live auction items should we have? This is one of the most popular questions
asked when planning a fundraising auction event.
In a standard “Gala style” event with silent auction,
welcome speech, live auction and fund a need there is what’s called a “Golden
Hour”. I would suggest that an hour for
a live auction at a fundraiser is a bit too much, but it is a good rule of
thumb to keep your live auction no more than one hour long. I
really like to be more in the range of 30-45 minutes if possible.
Now, that brings up the question: “How many items does that
mean we can sell?” A good professional
fundraising auctioneer will take around 3
minutes per item (including the item description). If you
do the math that means that 15 items are the most you should be selling, but
ideally you want to stay between 8-10.
Be careful of filling the auction with lower quality items just to say
you have ten items! I would rather have quality, not quantity in the live
auction; even if that means having an auction with 4-5 items. You only have a short attention span with
your guests, so make it count!
Written by Mike Grigg, AARE, BAS
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