There’s a funny thing about seeing and hearing: everything is better with both of these elements. No doubt you could make do at your auction with a megaphone and a couple of poster boards, but what are you communicating with that? Are you communicating at all? Creating a successful auction requires a robust audio and visual experience for your audience. Events that take the time to ensure a strong audio and visual set-up for their auction consistently show higher returns happier audiences and less stressed-out auction workers. We’re in favor of all these things.

The audio/visual experience is so important, we’ve got a person on staff who does nothing but manage audio and visual all the time. As a result, he’s awfully good at what he does. He tells us there are some common questions he gets when an auction organizer contacts him to discuss audio/visual needs:

“The hotel has speakers in the ceiling that we can plug into for free. Can’t we just use the house system?” For a live auction, house sound does not provide necessary power to provide clear and crisp sound in a fundraising environment. Your auctioneer might sound like s/he’s speaking from the bottom of a long, dark hole. A hole that’s very far away. With intermittent jets passing overhead.

For a silent auction, house sound is adequate in some cases. This is because the auction is silent, of course.

“The band said we can use their microphones. Isn’t that cheaper than renting equipment?” Of course it’s cheaper, in much the same way hot dogs are cheaper than a t-bone steak. Band sound systems are set up so that the sound is loud in front and the bass tones are maximized. People sitting in the front of the room or near the speakers – probably your VIP guests – will have an uncomfortably loud experience. Guests toward the back won’t be able to hear the auctioneer or emcee clearly. For that reason, the band’s system is going to hurt your bottom line in the long run. Frankly, it’s a hot dog.

“What kind of microphone does the auctioneer need?” Our auctioneers use cordless hand held microphones. This is because they hop and leap and skip and jump while they’re entertaining the crowd. On occasion, there might be a sommersault. But we’re not making any promises. Please have a set of back-up batteries for the cordless microphone.

If it’s the case that you’re not going to use our audio/visual services, we’re actually ok with that. Just be sure you’ve tested all of your audio/visual systems thoroughly before the doors open to guests. Be sure also that you have an audio/visual expert on site during the entire event.

Every venue has its own acoustical and visual challenges. Stokes Auction Group tracks information on nearly 100 venues in Washington and Oregon – chances are we’re already familiar with your selected venue and can tell you what will or won’t work best there.

Check out our A/V site www.sagav.net.