ORGANISING A FINE ART AUCTION by Jackie Newey

Organising a fine art auction was possibly one of the most stressful and chaotic things I have done. As a newcomer to this kind of event it was certainly a challenge for me to pull it all together on the night. The occasion, according to those who attended, did run smoothly and it was a success both as a fundraising event and as a social occasion. Despite appearances however, the following ‘been there, done that’ is written in hindsight and is something could have used myself before I took on the organization of the evening. Learn from my mistakes.... Help The first thing I think you need to ensure you have is lots of support and 'gopher - type' friends to help with various jobs before and on the evening. Attempting to take on the organization of an auction on your own will ensure the event falls flat on its face if you haven't fallen flat on yours from exhaustion before that. The work Collect a substantial body of work together before you start publicising the auction. The actual art works to auction off on the evening are the first and most important thing you should be worrying about. Without work, you have no auction. Record details of the work as you collect it. You will need to take details such as the correct spelling of the Artist’s name, the title of the work, the date, size and medium etc, and it is important that you communicate regularly with your artists. The last thing you need to do is offend and lose those artists you are relying on for your event. The type of work you collect may even affect aspects of the evening such as the venue, additional entertainment and the publicity you choose to undertake. Is your work of a very varied genre, maybe even including music, contemporary installation, or performance? Would it be appropriate to hold your event in a traditional gallery or funky bar, and would a band or a DJ be appropriate for the evening? The venue The venue is again an important part of the auction and needs to be organized at an early stage. It is important to communicate regularly with the proprietor of your chosen venue so that both parties know exactly what to expect from the evening and the events leading up to the evening. The auction is likely to monopolise your chosen room for the evening and you may wish to display the work before the date of the auction so that buyers may see the work and make a decision. This will prevent impulse buys and may create publicity based on word of mouth, which is quite often the most effective type of publicity. The Auctioneer It is essential to allocate and communicate with your auctioneer at an early stage in the proceedings. Your auctioneer can ‘make or break’ your evening. He/she should be able to build an atmosphere and enthuse the crowd as well as conduct the auction itself efficiently. He/she may have specific requests as to the order of the work, the information they wish to study before hand, and help in presenting lots to the audience. Your auctioneer may have additional ideas to help you ensure the evening is a success. The Display Works should ideally be displayed before the evening so that buyers may have an idea of what they want before the evening. Displays should be thought about carefully to maximize the visual impact of each piece of artwork. Publicity Publicity is extremely important and the most effective kind of publicity is even more important. As a social event you certainly don’t want your evening to be a flop, so ensuring numbers are boosted with friends and colleagues etc is good. However, it is important you also invite people that are willing to spend money as well. To keep your auction as professional as possible, it may also be advisable to write to large companies and to art galleries and organizations offering a personal invite along with number of invitations to be distributed throughout the company/gallery. Arts colleges and universities can be very receptive, but do not rely on vast amounts of spending from students! Additional publicity will be necessary! The Organisation The way in which the actual process of auctioning off your artworks is organized is essential to an efficient and professional event. Each work will need a lot number corresponding to distributed information about each piece of work. This may depend upon discussions with the artists and with the auctioneer. As the auctioneer introduces the works he/she will use the lot number. A buyer of a piece of work should be handed the appropriate lot number so that the work may be claimed and paid for. It may also be useful to implement a system that ensures the lot number used to claim the work is genuine. A simple signature may work; you may need something more sophisticated if you are dealing with large numbers of work and large sums of money. Payment and collection An area some distance away from the main auction would be most appropriate for payment and collection of the artworks. More than one person needs to be involved in this process, depending on the size of your auction. The bulk of the payment will probably occur in a sudden stampede as the auctioneer brings the selling to a close. This can prove to be absolute chaos and it may be useful to have somebody simply controlling buyers, forming an orderly queue, particularly if your venue is a busy bar. I would suggest that contact details of each buyer are recorded very carefully and a receipt is given to each buyer. Artworks should not be issued without a receipt whether they are collected on the evening or at a later date. Jackie Newey is an artist based in Coventry. She organised an art auction to raise money for the MA Fine Art Show whilst at Coventry University.