How to run an auction

Put your lots in

Add everything you have collected, one lot at a time. A title, who donated it, and what the bidding starts at. Say what kind of thing it is — an artwork, clothing, an outing, a voucher, food — and you get exactly the questions that matter for it: a signed shirt asks the size, a weekend away asks for how many people and until when it is valid.

Those answers end up on the lot page and on the printed card. That is the whole point: they are the questions the room would otherwise ask you, out loud, while you are trying to run an auction.

A photo is optional for a room auction — the thing itself is on the table. For an auction that runs online, the photo is the whole thing.

Set a starting bid low enough that someone dares to be first. The first bid is the hardest one; after that the room does the work.

Choose how the evening runs

Over a few days: everything is open at once and each lot closes on its own time. Right for an online auction, or for things on a table at a party that runs all evening.

One evening, lot by lot, on a clock: you put one lot on the screen and a countdown does the rest. Right if you would rather not stand in front and call it.

One evening, lot by lot, until nobody bids: every bid restarts a short count, and when the room goes quiet you drop the hammer from your phone. The closest to a real auctioneer, and the most fun in a full room.

Fill in the screen

Your logo, what you are raising money for, the story behind it, and a target. The beamer is already on while people are finding their seats — that is free attention for your cause, and a shame to waste on an empty screen.

Pick a light or a dark screen. Dark is beautiful in a room with the lights down. In a hall with the strip lights on, choose light: a beamer cannot make black, only less light.

Try it in the actual room if you can get in beforehand. Two minutes there tells you more than any guess from home.

Say how winners pay you

You choose once: a bank transfer, PayPal, or your own payment link. Every winner then gets their own page with exactly what they owe — including everything they won across several lots — so you never have to make forty payment links by hand.

With a bank transfer they get a code they scan in their banking app: your account, the amount and a reference all filled in. It costs nothing and nobody needs an account anywhere.

The money goes straight to you. We never hold it and we take no share of it.

Print the codes

One card per lot with a big code, the lot number, the title, the starting bid and the details you filled in. Put it beside the item. Forty things side by side? Print the sheet of small labels instead — same button.

Cut the cards in the middle: two per A4.

Print a few spares. Someone always spills something.

Walk through the whole evening once

Open the big screen and the auctioneer’s screen and click from top to bottom: your story, the code everyone scans, the countdown, every lot, and the closing screens. Nobody can bid while you are practising — not your guests and not you. This is only to check that everything looks right and works the way you expect.

You can go back into the rehearsal as often as you like. And if you have made a mess of it, one button puts everything back to the start; your lots, settings and printed codes stay exactly as they are, so the codes keep working and you never reprint.

Get the room ready

The auctioneer’s screen opens on your phone by scanning a code from your own dashboard — you will be standing in front of the room, not sitting behind a laptop. Sign in once and you are set.

Open the big screen as its own window and drag it onto the beamer, then press Full screen. Your own window stays where it is.

Check the wifi with a phone that is not yours. Yours is already connected and will lie to you.

Before the first lot

Leave your story on the beamer while people come in. When everyone is seated, tap “Everyone join in”: one enormous code, and in plain words where their name and e-mail end up. Give the room a minute — it is much better to have everyone ready now than to have your first bidder fumbling with e-mail during lot one.

Guests need no account. They scan, fill in a name and an e-mail, and they can bid on everything that evening. With Google or Apple it is two taps and no e-mail at all.

Running it

Your whole evening is one list on your phone: the opening screens, then every lot, then the closing ones. Tap a card and the big screen goes there. The card with the thick purple border is what the room is looking at.

The lot on the block opens up in that list with the bid, the countdown, and Sold and Pass. Every bid restarts the count, so the room sets the pace. Hammered too soon? Tap the lot above and it goes back on the block.

Somebody without a phone — a flat battery, or someone who is simply not going to do this on a screen — can still bid. Under the lot, tap “Someone in the room is bidding without a phone”, put in their name and the amount, and it counts exactly like any other bid. The screen shows it came from the room.

Say the lot number out loud each time. Half the room is looking at their phone and needs to know which card to scan.

The end

After the last lot, tap “The result”: the total in enormous figures, whether the target was beaten, and the highest lots with who won them. Then “Thank you”, with your cause on it. That is the last thing on the beamer, and it should be — it is what everyone came for.

Settling up

Every winner gets an e-mail with what they owe and their own payment page. At the door you tick off who has paid and who has collected, straight from your phone.

You get one printable sheet per buyer, so whoever is handing things out knows what goes where.

And then it is done

Once everything is settled you can wipe the whole bidder list in one click. Names and e-mail addresses were only ever visible to you, and there is no reason to keep them.

A new evening next year means a new auction. Nothing renews on its own in the background — not even a yearly plan.