GIRS Spring Frag Auction

[tibbs2]

I think I'd prefer silent auction.

We need lots of room and tables for the silent auction but I think the silent auction should go quicker than the live auction.

If anyone had common frags they could just dutch auction those. I think some people did that at the last auction.

If we did live I'd like to see the following.

Sellers draw numbers to determine selling order

Sellers sell up to five items at a time and then rotate to the next person.

Chris

 

[glaspie69]

I would definitely have to agree that we should do some sort of a rotation with the sellers, it will help to break up the types of corals being sold and hopfully keep the interest throught the whole auction

 

[sgarrett1108]

We could also do it where every one brings their item with a number or name on it . Place it on a table and randomly pick an item and auction it off. That way no one person is selling all thier items at one time. Silent is good to.

Scott

 

[jbrunken]

I've never been to a frag auction before. But I'm in the process of making my Tank "SPS Capable" (just ordered new lighting) and I'm really interested?

Just out of curiosity, what type of prices are fetched for the items on aution? It is (on average) more or less than you would pay to get the items from somewhere like Fosters & Smith?

-JB

 

[leeweber85]

I just think the live auction takes WAY too long....last year people were leaving half way through (also didn't help it started raining).

 

[glaspie69]

J, the prices are far under F&S plus no shipping costs.

 

[Coralfreak]

Well, having been to both types of auctions, they both have advantages and disadvantages which you all know.

I am tending to lean towards the silent auction, it allows people to look over EVERYTHING that is there, and then decide what they want the most etc. By placing a time limit on it, it also keeps it from dragging on to long. The difficulty has been in getting it all sorted out at the end. I feel that if we had a group of people assigned to tally it all up, it could be done fairly quickly, its just a matter of being organized. This person is in charge of this table etc. Just my $.02

Allen

 

[JEFF SCHENSE]

Frag Auction Format

Frag Auction Format

A spring aucton sounds good.

An idea for the format could include the following:

Have several tables set up with the frags, dry goods, equipment, or whatever is being sold. Each table is labeled with a number. Each item/frag for sale is labeled with a number, (seller/bidder number) plus the item number. (Example 33-1, 33-2)

Table numbers are drawn at random to determine which table is sold first, and you continue to draw table numbers to determine the order the tables are drawn from for the auction.

This way, if the sellers place items at each table, their odds of selling early, middle and late in the auction are the same.

This format has worked well for years with the EIAA (Eastern Iowa Aquarium Association) semi-annual auction.

Jeff

 

[Coralfreak]

Hmm, I kinda like that. What does everyone else think?

 

[glaspie69]

That might work nicely, I've also been thinking over the idea of starting the tables in five minute increments, this way if your bidding on several items you only have to focus on one table at a time and the team thats tallying could in theory be done tallying by the time the auction is over. Again just an idea

 

[overanalyzer]

I like the idea of a mix of live auction and silent auction. Several folks will be interested in buying some cheap common corals (especially those getting started or those who like a variety of common corals) and then there are those are willing to spend a bunch on a rare frag.

One thought was have a max limit - so every submitter can sell two live. All live auction items are tagged and displayed and must be there by x time and then each item goes up for live auction after the silent auction ends.

We need someone with a large outbuilding or look into getting a conference room that is fairly good sized....

 

[bgreenlee]

Think a limit of 2 rare frags might be a little low. Iknow some of the people in our group have some wonderful corals to share. Even if the limit was five corals for the live auction, as long as they are broke up in how many they sell at a time, I think it will keep this from favoring the first couple sellers.

 

[overanalyzer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9087622#post9087622 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bgreenlee
Think a limit of 2 rare frags might be a little low. Iknow some of the people in our group have some wonderful corals to share. Even if the limit was five corals for the live auction, as long as they are broke up in how many they sell at a time, I think it will keep this from favoring the first couple sellers.

My thought was to move the live auction along and also allow someone not comfortable with live auction getting a really cool or rare frag in the silent auction ....

I know all of my frags are not rare but I'd put in some reddish purple zoos but not my nepthea rock ... so I think maybe instead o number we limit type of things in the live auction?? just an idea ....

 

[bgreenlee]

I think we have a lot of good ideas to work with here.

The only real issue I had at the last auction was that the late sellers didn't sell much of their stuff That and I didn't get enough of Allen's corals but I don't think that counts) The rest of it, the accounting, etc, went really well I think, Bob, Ed, and the others did a great job with that. It did run long, but being obsessive compulsive like I am it doesn't bother me.

 

[einsteins]

I like live....but I think each seller should do 2 corals at a time and keep rotating...
It is also critical that the corals be displayed prior to auction as this would give bidders the chance to have a plan on their bidding....at the last auction, I had already bought a coulple that I would have not bought, if I had known about a few that came out later on.

Just my 2cents worth...I am good with whatever we come up with though.

ein

 

[leeweber85]

An idea for the live auction would be to draw names and limit each person to 3-5 items each time their name is drawn. For instance if someone brings 15 frags, then their name would go in the hat 3 times. This could still bring an unfair advantage to the people at the end and the person with the most frags would have a higher probability of getting drawn first. To make it more fair you could just not let one person go twice in a row if they happened to get drawn again right after.

 

[got2lb]

Wow we def. got a lot of good ideas, keep them coming!

We are looking into a large climate controlled facility but we have to check on availability and cost.

 

[Atticus]

Maybe we should all make a run to the Rockford frag fest and see how they do it. They seem to be well organized with 20 frag tables, 10 vendors, and $6000 worth of prizes.

 

[wenszoo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9095858#post9095858 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Atticus
Maybe we should all make a run to the Rockford frag fest and see how they do it. They seem to be well organized with 20 frag tables, 10 vendors, and $6000 worth of prizes.

I was just going to suggest this. Maybe we could do this style for the fall auction?

 

[eshook]

I never attended a silent auction, and only part of the live auction so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but here goes: (based on other ideas presented here)

1. People/vendors buy tables from GIRS and have the choice to silent auction or sell anything on the table.

2. People/vendors can sell at most 6 items in the live auction. If the number of items exceeds 3, the items will be split up evenly into two groups to be sold at different times. (i.e. 6 items will be 2 groups of 3, at the discretion of the auctioneer) Groups are drawn at random to determine order.

The choice of silent auction / sale should make everyone selling items reasonably happy and should hopefully limit people wanting to silent auction all their Xenia at a high starting price.

The 6 item limit should be a reasonable amount of items for those with several rare corals. By having 2 groups, it should reduce the advantage of going first.

Accounting can be simplified by having a designated person to a table. A percentage is charged to the table owner for silent auctions, as usual. The person tallies up the amount and calculates the percentage and collects the money. For the live auction the percentage will be calculated after each group of items is sold and will be charged to the owner of the group. Flat fee items will be difficult to track and accounting may not be possible.

Sorry for the long post, and if all these ideas have already been expressed.

I vote for a second auction.

I'm working on my tank now to have it online for this auction Too many delays, waaaay too many delays .....