Hire an auctioneer: what to check before you book one for your event

If you’re planning to hire an auctioneer for a gala, dinner, or fundraising event, the quality of the person you book affects the total raised as much as the lots themselves do. This is a practical checklist: what to ask, what to check, and whether to go direct or through an agency, before you commit to anyone.

Most of these questions apply whether you’re booking someone for a small dinner or a 400-guest gala. What changes is how much is riding on getting the answers right.

What should you check before you hire auctioneer services?

Before you hire auctioneer services for your event, check for experience with your specific event type, verifiable results from past events, and a written agreement, not just a friendly conversation and a good feeling.

Gabriel Dos Santos, a trustee of the OCU Foundation, put it plainly after booking me for an event with just over 300 guests that ended up raising more than double what the charity had achieved the previous year: “We hired Kevin after researching online and seeing the outstanding feedback he had received from others, and he absolutely lived up to every word of it.” He added: “As complete novices in organising an event of this scale, my colleague and I relied heavily on his guidance, and we felt completely confident every step of the way.”

That’s the standard worth holding any auctioneer to. Not just energy on the night, but guidance that gets the format and the lots right before the guests even arrive. If someone can’t point you to real events with real numbers attached, that’s worth noticing before you sign anything, not after.

Read more client reviews from events across different causes and sizes before you decide. Look for detail, not just enthusiasm. A review that mentions a specific target, a specific total, or a specific moment in the evening tells you far more than one that only says the night went well.

Should you hire auctioneer talent direct, or go through a booking agency?

Hiring auctioneer talent direct usually costs less than going through a booking agency, since there’s no agency fee built into the price, and it gives you direct access to the person who will actually run your event rather than a point of contact relaying messages.

A booking agency can still be useful if you have no idea where to start and want a shortlist of options put together for you. That’s a real advantage if you’re planning your first event and don’t yet know what to look for.

But once you know roughly what you’re looking for, going direct tends to be more transparent too. You can see what an auctioneer services package actually includes and get a straight answer on pricing and availability before you ever pick up the phone, rather than working through an intermediary who may not be in the room on the night themselves.

Questions to ask before you book

A short list worth working through before you commit:

• Have they run this type of event before? A gala dinner, a pledge drive, and a corporate MC booking all call for slightly different skills. Ask specifically about your format.
• Can they show verifiable results? Ask for real numbers from past events, not just warm testimonials. Naomi Chaning Pearce of the Jigsaw Trust said the value went beyond the night itself: “It was not just during the event where Kevin showed his skills, but also in guiding our planning for the event and highlighting to us what could be achieved.”
• Do they offer a consultation before the event? A short conversation about your audience, your lots, and your programme tells you a lot about how seriously someone takes the planning stage.
• Is there a written agreement? Under the Fundraising Regulator’s code for working with others, charities should have an appropriate written agreement in place with any third-party fundraiser they work with, and remain responsible for checking that the agreement is kept to. Ask for one before the event, not after.
• What’s actually included? Full-evening hosting is a different booking from someone who only appears for the auction segment.
• What happens if it doesn’t go well? Not every auctioneer offers a guarantee, so ask.
• Do they handle the pledge drive as well as the auction? A live pledge or fund-a-need moment is often the highest-earning part of the evening, so it’s worth knowing upfront whether that’s included or treated as a separate add-on.

None of these questions are awkward to ask. If I have genuinely run events like yours before, I welcome every one of these questions, because the answers are exactly what let me plan a better evening for you. You can read more about Kevin’s background and how these questions apply in practice.

Does it matter where you hire an auctioneer from?

Not as much as it seems. Most professional event auctioneers travel to the event rather than working only in one city, so who’s available for your date usually matters more than who’s based closest to your venue.

I travel across the UK, Europe and the US for events, and several clients have booked me more than once regardless of where they are. Nolan Hough, a Chief Growth Officer who booked me as compere and auctioneer for an annual charity ball, said simply: “we’ve already booked him for the next one.” Cerys Dawson at Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice has worked with Kevin twice. Neither client chose based on postcode. They chose based on the result the first time.

If proximity mattered as much as search terms like “auctioneer near me” suggest, repeat bookings like these wouldn’t cross cities, countries, or continents the way they do. A gala in Manchester, a yacht club event in Monaco, and a corporate dinner in London can all be run by the same auctioneer in the same season, provided the dates line up.

If you searched for a benefit auctioneer instead

“Benefit auctioneer” is the term used more often in the US for the same role called a charity auctioneer or fundraising auctioneer in the UK. If that’s the phrase you searched, the checklist above still applies in full: event-specific experience, verifiable results, and a written agreement, regardless of which side of the Atlantic the terminology comes from.

Jordan A, who hired me as master of ceremonies, summed up the broader point well: “If you’re looking for someone to help, whether that’s for a charity auction or to host an event, you won’t be disappointed if you choose Kevin.” The label matters less than the checklist.

Whichever term brought you here, the underlying job is the same: read the room, keep the bidding moving, and get the pledge or fund-a-need moment right when it matters most. See more on what a charity auctioneer actually does across a full event.