How To Chair A Gala (by someone who's never done it)

Having gone on a whirlwind tour of gala events, and having spoken with lots of people on the subject and being married to someone who recently developed the unfortunate habit of chairing same...I have some suggestions on the matter. As is my wont, this will all be stream-of-consciousness-like, so learn to cope and adjust.

Silent Auctions
This is an area where almost all galas fall apart, and where all galas fall apart to some degree. Usually you will see some item with a blank bidding sheet attached, and a little tag reading along the lines of:

"John Smith Widget. Valued at $1000, bidding starts at $500. Donated by The Widget & Gizmo Emporium."

Later that evening you will see frantic gala organizers futzing with the tag, dropping the opening bid, wringing well-manicured and bejeweled hands and wondering Where It All Went Wrong. Well, I'm-a-tell you where:

1. You are assuming the potential bidders will "buy" the valuation and therefore consider this opening bid a bargain, and will append their name to bidding sheet. What you are not counting on are these folks being savvy shoppers who just saw the very same widget littering eBay, or Overstocks.com for about $100.
2. You are further assuming the goodness of the cause will motivate people to bid. The goodness of the cause makes people who have bid--possibly (ideally!) considerably more for the item than its open market value--to rationalize their bidding, but nothing more.
3. Value aside, what moves people to REALLY take notice of an auction is how unique or unusual it is...at least to them. You may think a John Smith widget is hot stuff, but to people who have a full time staff to handle widgeting, or who will--at the very least-- already have a perfectly serviceable widget, it's a yawner.
4. The display is static. Maybe the widget is inside a lucite case, or maybe it's in the box. Even if it is somewhere where people can grab and grope and feel, they can't really take it out for a test widgeting, can they?

How should a silent auction be structured?

1. The price should start at $1. The goal, like the goal of any (intelligent) seller on eBay is to create a frenzied bidding war. A properly structured auction of an item, will, at some point, cause the leading bidders to forget the item's open market value and continue bidding the item up just to win, i.e., "to make sure THIS idiot doesn't take it!" You will note the most frenzied bidding wars are for items with no reserve and which appeal primarily to men.
2. Have detailed brochures or, ideally, a video. We are a visual culture and we respond "like Pablo's* dog" to a 30 second video loop of people widgeting happily.
3. Have silent auction items as widely disseminated as possible. A lot of people tend to avoid the silent auction area to avoid the temptation, but this is made more difficult if, everywhere they go they see something biddable.

Live Auctions

The same rules as for silent auctions, mostly, apply here as well. The one which REALLY needs emphasis is the one regarding price. You cannot assume the bidding crowd will accept the valuation at face value and the bidding must start low. Frankly, it's pretty embarrassing all-around when something can't even manage an opening bid. AMHIK.

MC-ing

Get a good one, if possible. Local celebrities usually volunteer like crazy for this, just go and ask. Just make sure their personality jibes with the tone of the gala in question.

Presentations (i.e. "who we are or what we do")

Avoid. At very, very best this is really long and boring and at worst (say, if this is for a charity that teaches the lepers how to sing) it's impressively depressing. AVOID. AVOID. People already know why they are attending and already know where to go (or know where to ask) should they want to volunteer. AVOID.

Food

1. Avoid anything that cannot tolerate sitting around under a warming lamp. Consider any denials of the use of warming lamps, trays or other devices of warmage as outright fabrications.
2. Hors d'ouvres shouldn't be too drippy, too goopy, too saucy. They should be able to be consumed in a maximum of two clean bites. People will not be so keen on bidding for things when they consider how they got garlic butter all along the front of their gigabuck attire.
3. No chicken. Chicken will be kept warm and it will inexorably overcook and therefore will invariably arrive at the table in a perfectly moisture-free state. If people wanted that experience, they'd bite into their shoe or eat a bowl of desiccant. Beef, although more expensive, is far more tolerant of variations in doneness and far more edible along a broad spectrum of peak internal temperatures. Chicken ain't.
4. The salad should be a leaf-free experience, which is neater to eat and will not wilt from sitting in a puddle of vinaigrette.
5. Avoid "Chocolate Sensory Overload" desserts. It's overdone and you simply cannot top whatever has been done before, unless you encase people's heads in a block of Valrhona and dare them to chew their way out. That doesn't mean chocolate is out, mind you, just that those kinds of desserts are trite and you ought tread carefully.
6. Truffles, petit-fours, et al. oughtn't be brought to the table on a plate. Most will stay uneaten. You may either have a staff member walking around with one of those tiered plate things or you may put, say, four in a teeny little thank-you box.

Goody bags

Gotta have them. Lots of little things is better than a few big things, all else being equal. Coupons from whatever businesses sponsored the event are a nice touch and give excellent publicity to the sponsors. Cheap publicity, too, since most people will never actually redeem the coupon. Little magnets, keychains, golf balls/tees, pens...all that goes far.

Attire

I'm a sucker for black tie events, but I realize I'm aberrant that way. Poppy's pal FiddleDD, suggested--and she's quite right--that the ideal sort of attire is "creative black tie," Miss Manners be damned. Black tie implies, not only the event is a Serious Big Deal Thing, but also (paradoxically!) that one is likely to get a good value for one's ticket price. Making it "creative" relieves people of the pressure of going all-out to look spiffy, and injects great good humor into the event.

Tickets

Print some. People like tickets and putting them in scrapbooks and photo albums and stuff.

Photography

Have, wherever possible, two or more photographers. One to take pix of the VIP types (both the people important to the event as well as people whose smiling mugs will guarantee media--news & society--coverage) and another to mill around and take assorted candid pictures of myriad attendees. The pictures will invariably be fun, and it is an additional source of (cheap!) revenue. If the gala is to benefit some arts organization, DVDs of the performance/exhibit and the gala are another source of cheap revenue.

Committees

These are usually filled with more deadwood than in all the deciduous forests of the continent. Be ruthless with the useless. These people are just there to get their names on the program. Print the program LAST, and excise the layabouts.

Program

Include:

• Your mission statement (or the abbreviated version thereof)
• Honored guests, if any
• Gala committee, listing the chairman at the top or bottom of the list
• Sponsors & sponsorship levels. If the levels have pretty obvious names (Diamond, platinum, etc.) you needn't append the dollar levels required to achieve a given level. If the names are something like "Sofa Level", "Loveseat Level", "Ottoman Level", etc., then you may want to specify how much moolah is involved.
• Performers and/or artists
• The organization's staff
• A thank you to all attendees and a discreet "To find out more about..."

Exclude:

• A list of every single ticket buyer. The idea is to exalt sponsors and if everyone is exalted, nobody is.
• A complete history of the organization. I'm not keen on even a short history, myself, but you do what you want.

OPTIONAL

• If you can get away with a "Playbill" sort of program, you may be able to sell ad space.

Random suggestions

If you have a lot of opportunities for sponsorship (donating items to the silent auction, coupons for the goody bags, supplying some food or wine, buying ad space in the program if that's appropriate, making a direct financial contribution, etc.) try to bundle them together in a package. Generally, this helps companies and individuals become (or feel they have become) more invested in--and wedded to--your organization.

If you can find a "funky" jeweler, bring him (or her) to sell bits and baubles (however loosely)related to your organization/event and take a cut. Don't ask me why, but people go nuts for this.

Put a number underneath the centerpiece and match that number to a ticket number or the number of a goody bag. The most unseemly things happen when the time comes to dispose of the centerpieces.

Raffles are a good idea, but make sure you have at least 3 prizes. The cheapest prize should be about 1.5x-2x the cost of a ticket. This way you could raffle off a trip for 2 people to France, a magnum of Bordeaux, and some Baccarat trinket. Not a bad idea is also having a door prize. One of my favorite ones was a Chinatown-themed event where the door prize was hidden in a fortune cookie.

Themes are good, but make sure you have theming. It's pointless to call your gala "A Night In Pompeii!" if you make no reference to it. You needn't have the bartenders dressed in togas, but, for example, the goody bags should have something Roman-ish or volcano-y to them...you get the idea.

Lastly, keep a journal of things to pass on to the NEXT person to chair the event.

-J.

* A slight homage to a Andrew "Dice" Clay, from when he worked clean.