Most charity auction themes get chosen for how the room will look in photos. That is not wrong, exactly, but it misses the bigger question: does the theme actually help you sell lots and land the pledge drive, or is it just decoration around an auction that would run the same way regardless?

What makes charity auction themes actually work?

A good charity auction theme changes how guests behave, not just how the room looks: it should suggest what kind of lots will land well and set the emotional tone for the pledge drive, not just dictate the tablecloths.

I have worked rooms where the theme was beautifully executed and the auction still fell flat, because nobody thought about how the two connected. A theme is a tool for shaping donor psychology for the evening. Treat it that way and the lot selection, sequencing, and pledge framing all get easier.

Why do masquerade and black-tie themes work so well?

A masquerade or formal black-tie theme suits high-value, story-driven lots and a structured pledge drive, because the atmosphere already signals that this is an evening for serious giving rather than casual entertainment.

The mood does a lot of the work for you here. Guests arrive dressed for occasion, which means they arrive expecting to spend. That makes it the right setting for your best lots: a luxury travel package, a signed piece with a real story behind it, an experience nobody else in the room can buy elsewhere. I would sequence two or three of these as the anchor lots and let the pledge drive follow while the room is still at its most generous.

Great Gatsby and vintage glamour themes

A Gatsby-era or vintage glamour theme works particularly well for events built around a strong pledge drive, because the decadence of the setting creates a natural contrast with the emotional ask, and that contrast is what moves a room.

I have found rooms respond to this specific pairing, opulence followed by a direct, personal appeal, better than almost any other combination. The lot selection can lean playful (vintage champagne experiences, jazz-age entertainment packages) while the pledge drive carries the emotional weight of the evening. Do not let the glamour crowd out the ask. It should set up the ask.

What about a casino night theme?

A casino night is a legitimate format with its own legal rules and planning considerations, and I would rather point you to a proper breakdown of it than squeeze it into a general list of decor ideas, because it changes how the whole evening is structured, not just how it looks.

If chips and tables are genuinely what your donor base wants, read my full guide on running a casino night fundraiser first, since the format needs its own approach to lot sequencing and pledge timing that a masquerade or gala theme does not. The themes below are where I would point most organisers by default, because they tend to give the auctioneer more room to build a single, room-wide fundraising moment rather than splitting attention across scattered tables.

Arts gala themes

An arts gala theme suits audiences who respond to culture and craftsmanship, and it works best when the lots themselves reflect that: commissioned pieces, artist experiences, and items with a genuine creative story rather than generic luxury goods.

This audience tends to bid on meaning as much as value. A lot with a clear artistic provenance, who made it, why, what it represents, will consistently outsell a similarly priced item with no story attached. I go deeper on lot selection for this format in my arts gala fundraising piece.

Why do sports dinner themes need a different pace?

A sports dinner theme brings a competitive, high-energy crowd that responds well to fast-paced bidding and social proof, which changes both the pacing of the live auction and the framing of the pledge drive compared with a formal gala.

Sports audiences tend to bid more openly and enjoy the competition of it, which means I can push pace harder here than at a black-tie masquerade without losing the room. Signed sporting memorabilia and experience-based lots (meet the team, matchday access) tend to be the standout performers. My sports dinner auction guide covers lot sourcing for this format specifically.

How do you choose lots to match your theme?

Match your lots to the emotional register of the theme, not just its visual style: formal themes want story-driven high-value items, playful themes want experience-based lots, and competitive themes want items with social proof built in.

A masquerade theme with generic hamper lots undersells the room’s mood. A sports dinner with only quiet, understated lots wastes the crowd’s natural energy. Once the theme is set, work backwards from it: what would this specific room want to bid on, given how they are already feeling when they walk in.

Does the theme change how the pledge drive should be framed?

Yes. A formal or glamorous theme suits a pledge drive framed around legacy and significance, while a high-energy theme like a sports dinner suits a pledge framed around momentum and collective action.

I adjust my language for the pledge drive depending on the room’s mood coming in. A black-tie crowd responds to being asked to be part of something significant. A sports crowd responds to being challenged, to matching what the table next to them just gave. Same mechanic, different framing, and getting that wrong is one of the most common reasons a pledge drive underperforms even when the theme itself was well executed.

★★★★★

“Everything was very upbeat during the event, getting very involved with everybody. It wasn't just standing on the stage, it was all very interactive and engaging.”

It was interactive and engaging

Fitting auction themes around the whole evening

• Pick the theme before you pick the lots, not the other way round, so the auction feels like part of the evening rather than bolted onto it.
• Brief your auctioneer on the theme’s emotional tone, not just the dress code, so the pledge drive framing matches the room.
• Do not let decor budget crowd out lot quality. A stunning room with weak lots still underperforms a modest room with the right ones.
• Consider your donor base’s actual preferences, not just what looks best in event photography.
• If you are torn between formats, my charity auction ideas page runs through the full range, or get in touch and we can talk through what would suit your specific audience.

Whichever theme you land on, the theme sets the room’s mood. What happens after that, whether the mood turns into competitive bidding and generous pledges, still comes down to someone actively reading and driving the room. That part does not change no matter how the tables are dressed.

When people search for auctioneer services, most are picturing one thing: a person on a stage reading out lot numbers and taking bids. That is part of it. It is also the smallest part of what a professional actually does for your event.

What do charity auctioneer services actually include?

A full charity auctioneer service covers six things: the live auction itself, the pledge drive, event hosting, silent auction guidance, fundraising games, and pre-event strategy consultation. Booking a professional means all six work together, not that you are choosing one from a menu.

That distinction matters because of how most charities have been burned before. They book “an auctioneer” expecting someone to arrive, do their bit for the bids, and leave. Then they discover, halfway through planning, that nobody has thought about how the pledge drive is structured, how lots get sequenced, or what happens in the twenty minutes between the main course and the auction starting. That gap is where a lot of fundraising gets lost.

The live auction: the most visible part of the service

The live auction is the most visible part of the service, using sharp pacing and strategic calls to keep bidders engaged, but on its own it is rarely where the biggest money is raised.

I run the live auction as the headline moment of the evening: high energy, competitive, and paced so the room stays with me from the opening lot to the last. That said, in my experience the segment that consistently outperforms it, when it is structured properly, is the one most organisers plan for least.

What is the pledge drive part of the service, and why does it matter more than people expect?

A pledge drive (also called a live pledge or fund-a-need) is a structured giving round where I build emotional connection with the room and ask for direct donations in tiers, and it is often the highest-earning segment of the whole night.

I have watched rooms that were lukewarm through the live auction come alive during the pledge drive, because it removes the barrier of needing a specific lot to want. People do not have to be interested in a signed shirt or a holiday voucher. They just have to believe in the cause, and my job is to make that belief easy to act on, at a level that feels right for each table. Most event planners do not know going in that this segment can outperform the auction itself. It is not a lesser cousin to the live auction. Structured well, it is frequently the main event.

Does the service include hosting the whole evening, not just the auction segment?

Hosting a charity gala from start to finish

Yes. Event hosting and MC work covers the full programme, from arrivals and introductions through dinner transitions to the final thank-yous, so the pacing and energy stay consistent all night rather than dipping whenever the auction is not actively running.

This is where the entertainment background changes what a room feels like. A gala where the auction is bolted onto someone else’s programme tends to have dead spots: awkward handovers, silence while people work out whose job it is to speak next. When one person owns the whole evening’s pacing, those gaps do not happen, because I am watching the room the entire time, not just for the forty minutes I am selling lots.

What does silent auction guidance actually mean?

Silent auction guidance is in-house consultation on sourcing lots and choosing how to run the silent element, structured to keep more of what is raised with the charity rather than paying commission to a third-party platform.

This is a genuine pain point for a lot of organisers I talk to: over-complicated pricing, or commission buried in a platform contract that nobody read closely until after the event. I am not affiliated with any auction software provider, so my advice here is about what actually works for your specific event and audience, not about which tool pays me a referral fee.

Fundraising games fit alongside the auction, not instead of it

Fundraising games are interactive activities woven through the evening to boost donations and create memorable moments, on top of the live auction and pledge drive, not instead of them.

These work best as connective tissue between the bigger fundraising segments: something that keeps energy up during a lull, or gives a table that did not win a big lot on the night still a way to feel involved. They are a small line item on paper and a noticeable difference in how the whole evening feels.

What happens before the event: is strategy included, or is that extra?

A fundraising strategy consultation is part of the service, covering lot sourcing, programme structure, bidding strategy, and audience psychology, with a free initial consultation to talk through your specific event before anything is booked.

This is the piece organisers most often assume they have to do themselves, and it is exactly the pain point I hear about most: charities who have been asked to build the whole strategy in-house, then bring someone in only to read out numbers on the night. That is backwards. The planning conversation is where the biggest gains actually get made, weeks before anyone puts on a dinner jacket.

How does this compare to booking “just an auctioneer”?

Booking a professional charity auctioneer service means one person is accountable for the strategy, the pacing, and the execution across the whole evening, rather than you coordinating a host, an auctioneer, and a fundraising consultant separately and hoping they are aligned by the time doors open.

I have raised over £10 million for charitable causes across my career, and the pattern behind that number is never one brilliant auction segment. It is the strategy, the pledge drive, the hosting, and the lot sourcing all pulling in the same direction, planned together rather than assembled at the last minute.

★★★★★

“He did an absolutely fantastic job. He was the compere for the whole charity event, controlled the floor and got everybody involved. I would thoroughly recommend anybody to hire his services.”

Health charity compere review

What to ask before booking auctioneer services

• What is included in the fee, specifically: live auction, pledge drive, hosting, silent auction guidance, games, and pre-event strategy, or only some of these.
• How far in advance does planning start. The strategy conversation should happen well before the event, not the week of.
• Who is running the pledge drive, and do they treat it as a core segment or an afterthought tacked onto the live auction.
• Is there a free consultation to talk through your event before you commit to anything.
• Does the commission structure change depending on how much you raise, or is the fee flat regardless of the total.

If you are weighing up what you actually need for your event, my charity auctioneer services page runs through the full list, or you can get in touch directly and we will talk through your specific evening before you commit to anything.

Search “charity auctioneer tips” and you will find a lot of generic advice: pick good lots, print clear bid sheets, thank your sponsors. All fine, all true, and none of it explains why two charities with near-identical lots can walk away with wildly different totals from the same size room.

The difference is not the lots. It is what happens on the microphone between the moment the room goes quiet and the moment the final gavel falls. These are the auctioneer tips I actually use, built from twenty years on stage and a career total of £10 million raised for charities across the UK, Europe and the US.

Why do most charity auctions underperform?

Most charity auctions underperform not because the lots are wrong, but because nobody is actively managing the room’s energy. Bidding momentum is a skill, not a lucky side effect of having a generous crowd.

A volunteer host or well-meaning committee member can read out a lot description perfectly well. What they usually cannot do is spot the moment a room’s attention drifts, or the moment two bidders are competing for reasons that have nothing to do with the object on the screen, and use either one to lift the total. That reading of the room, and the confidence to act on it in real time, is the actual job.

The auctioneer tips I learned from a room I lost

I do not tell this story often, because it is not a flattering one. At one event, the evening was running late. There had been no speech or video to build up to the auction, nothing to signal that the room should stop and pay attention. I walked into the middle of a room that was still mid-conversation and announced the live auction anyway. I did not stop to get people quiet first.

Only a fraction of the room actually heard the lots. One man bid on an item he could not have clearly heard described. It worked out fine for him, but it should never have happened, and the total that night suffered because of it.

The lesson I have never repeated since: command the room first. Stand on a chair if you have to. Get the shush before you get the bid, because the shush is a powerful tool in its own right. Whoever holds the room holds the total, and you cannot hold a room that is still talking over you.

How do you command a room before the bidding starts?

You command a room by getting silence before you get bids, not during them. That means a clear, confident signal that the auction is starting, delivered from a position where every table can see and hear you, and held until the room actually stops.

In practice this looks like: standing, not sitting, to open. Using a genuine pause rather than talking over residual noise. And treating the first thirty seconds as the moment that sets the tone for the entire segment. If the room is not with you by the time you call the first lot, you are already fighting an uphill battle for the rest of the auction.

What auctioneer tips actually build bidding momentum?

A charity auction bidding war

The auctioneer tips that build bidding momentum are about naming what is happening in the room out loud, in real time, so the competition becomes visible to everyone, not just the two people bidding. A professional auctioneer narrates the contest: who is in, who has just been outbid, who looks like they are thinking about coming back in.

That narration does two things. It gives the crowd permission to enjoy the competition rather than feel awkward about it, and it makes bidding a shared moment rather than a private transaction between two people. Rooms that are laughing and watching bid far more than rooms that are quietly waiting for a number to appear on a screen.

Should you run a live pledge as well as a live auction?

Yes. A live pledge drive, run well and placed at the right point in the evening, consistently outperforms a lot-based auction at most charity galas. Most event planners do not know this going in, because the pledge is less visible in event planning conversations than the auction is.

Where the live auction sells objects, the pledge sells the cause directly, in tiered giving rounds that let a much wider slice of the room take part, including people who never bid on a single lot. It is not a replacement for the auction. It is the segment that usually raises the most on the night, and it deserves the same level of preparation as the auction itself.

Do lot order and pacing really change the total raised?

Yes, significantly. The sequence you sell lots in, and the pace you move between them, shapes how much energy is left in the room by the final lot. Front-load too many high-value items and you can exhaust the room’s appetite before the pledge even starts. Space the big lots out, and use quicker, lower-value lots to keep pace up between them, and the room stays engaged for longer.

This is also where pre-event planning earns its keep. Deciding the running order in advance, based on which lots will generate the most competition and where the natural highs and lows of the evening should fall, is part of the fundraising strategy work that happens before anyone sets foot in the room. As a rule, I open with something accessible enough that several tables want it, use one or two showpiece lots to anchor the middle of the auction, and hold something with genuine emotional pull back for last, right before the room moves into the pledge.

What should you do in the week before a charity auction?

In the week before, confirm every lot description matches what will actually be handed over or experienced, brief anyone holding a paddle number or running the room microphone on the running order, and do a sound check in the actual room, not a similar one down the corridor. These sound like small administrative tips, but they are the difference between an auctioneer who can focus entirely on the room and one who is troubleshooting kit or chasing missing lot details mid-event.

It is also worth deciding in advance who in the room can say yes to a spontaneous decision, such as extending a bidding war with an added extra, because those moments come up more often than people expect and hesitation kills them.

According to the UK Giving Report, the British public gave over £14 billion to charity in 2025, at a time when the sector has also been losing donors year on year. That combination makes the execution of every single fundraising event more important, not less. A gala with a professionally paced auction is one of the few nights of the year where a charity has a room’s full, willing attention. Wasting that on poor pacing is an expensive mistake.

Getting the right auctioneer tips in place before the night

Every one of these auctioneer tips shares one thing in common: they are decisions made before the room goes quiet, not during it. Commanding the room, reading momentum, pairing the auction with a pledge, and sequencing lots properly are all things a professional plans for in advance and then executes on the night, not tricks pulled out mid-auction.

If your event has plateaued at the same total for a few years running, or your volunteer host is a wonderful person who simply is not built for holding a room of 200 people mid-bid, that is usually the gap. Read more on successful charity auctions from the ground up, browse my full auctioneer tips page, or get in touch about your event through my auctioneer services page. A free fundraising consultation is always available before any commitment.

If you are planning a celebrity auction charity event, you already know the appeal. A well-known guest fills seats, gets the local paper interested, and gives your programme a story to lead with. What most organisers get wrong is assuming the celebrity does the fundraising for them. They do not. They open the door. Someone still has to walk the room through it.

What is a celebrity auction charity event?

A celebrity auction charity event is a fundraising auction where a well-known guest attends, donates a lot, or lends their name to the appeal, on top of the standard live auction or pledge drive format.

That can mean several different things in practice: a signed item donated by someone famous, a experience-based lot like meeting a well-known name, or simply a recognisable guest attending and being seen to support the cause. Each version changes the room slightly differently, but none of them replace the actual mechanics of running an auction.

Does a celebrity name actually increase the bids?

An Arsenal legend on working with Kevin

Yes, a genuine celebrity connection increases bids, but only when the story behind the item is real and specific, not just a name attached for marketing.

Eric Clapton’s 1999 guitar auction at Christie’s is the clearest example of this at scale. He sold over 100 guitars and other items to fund his own treatment centre, Crossroads, and the sale raised over $5 million. Buyers were not paying guitar-shop prices. They were paying for the specific instrument, played by that specific person, tied to a cause he had founded himself. That is provenance doing the work, not fame alone.

The same principle applies at a much smaller scale in a hotel ballroom. A signed shirt from a player the room actually cares about will always outsell a generic signed item from someone with no connection to the guests. Relevance beats fame every time.

Do celebrities donate their own items for charity auctions?

Yes, celebrities regularly donate signed items, experiences, or their own time to charity auctions, and these lots can perform well when they are sourced and described properly.

This is where I bring in my fundraising strategy consultation before an event. A celebrity-donated lot needs the same groundwork as any other: a realistic reserve, a clear description of what the winner actually gets, and a plan for how it gets sequenced in the running order. A brilliant lot introduced badly, or dropped in at the wrong moment, still underperforms.

Why star power alone will not close a lot

I have stood in rooms with a genuinely famous name at the top table and watched the bidding go quiet anyway, because nobody was managing the moment. A name in the room is an asset. It is not a strategy.

Bidding momentum is a skill, not a lucky side effect of who happens to be attending. I have to read who is bidding, who has gone quiet, and when to name the room out loud to get one more hand up, whether or not there is a celebrity two tables over. The recognisable face gets people through the door and gets the local write-up. What happens after that is still down to pacing, timing, and holding the room’s attention on the cause, not the guest list.

I have also seen the opposite mistake: an event that assumes the celebrity guest is a distraction from the fundraising and tries to keep them out of the auction segment entirely. That is just as costly. The trick is not choosing between the guest and the mechanics of the auction, it is weaving the two together deliberately, so the room’s attention on the guest becomes attention on the cause instead.

What actually happens in the room during a celebrity auction charity gala?

In practice, a celebrity guest raises the energy in the room for a short window, and a good auctioneer uses that window rather than letting it pass.

There is usually a natural spike in attention right when a well-known guest arrives, is introduced, or presents a lot themselves. If the live auction is timed to run through that window, bidding tends to run hotter than it would an hour later once the novelty has settled and the room has moved on to dessert. Miss that window and you are back to selling on the merits of the lot alone.

How my TV background changes the dynamic

Twenty years ago, my first ever charity event put me on stage alongside Annie Lennox. That is not a boast, it set the baseline for how I think a room with a recognisable name in it should feel: professional, warm, and never starstruck to the point that the cause gets forgotten.

Later, presenting for Fox, Warner and Universal put me in rooms with people like Will Ferrell, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon and Robin Williams. What that taught me has nothing to do with name-dropping and everything to do with pacing: how to keep an audience’s attention on the moment that matters, rather than letting it drift toward whoever is famous in the room. That is the actual skill a celebrity-attended charity gala needs on the mic.

Should you rely on celebrity guests instead of a professional auctioneer?

No. A celebrity guest adds attention and a story, but they are not a substitute for someone who knows how to sequence lots, read bidders, and run a pledge drive.

Plenty of well-meaning events lean entirely on a big name to carry the evening, then wonder why the total fell short despite a full room and local press coverage. The name got people there. Nobody converted that goodwill into pounds raised, because there was no plan for it beyond the guest appearance itself.

How to make the most of a celebrity-attended charity auction

• Brief your auctioneer on who is attending and why, so the running order can be built around the room’s natural attention spikes rather than working against them.
• Keep the cause visibly at the centre, not the celebrity. A gala that feels like a fan event rather than a fundraiser tends to undersell on the night.
• Source celebrity lots properly, with a clear description, realistic reserve, and a genuine story, the same charity auction ideas discipline you would apply to any other lot.
• Time the live auction or pledge drive around the celebrity moment, not after it has passed.
• Do not oversell the guest appearance in your marketing. Set expectations honestly and let the actual evening do the rest.
• Agree the celebrity’s role in advance, whether that is presenting a lot, saying a few words, or simply attending, so nobody is improvising in front of a live room.
• Have a backup plan for the auction itself regardless of who is attending. Guests can be delayed, pull out, or run to a tighter schedule than planned, and your fundraising total should never depend entirely on one person turning up.

A well-known name in the room is a genuine advantage. What decides whether that advantage turns into pounds raised is still the same thing it always is: someone on the mic who knows how to use the moment. Find out more about my background if you are weighing up whether a celebrity-attended event needs that extra layer of experience.

Ask a fundraising manager whether they need a charity event host or an auctioneer, and most will pause. Reasonably so: on paper, both people spend the evening holding a microphone in front of the same room. In practice, a charity event host and a charity auctioneer are doing two different jobs, and knowing which one your event needs, or whether it needs both, changes how much you raise.

What does a charity event host actually do?

A charity event host runs the programme: welcoming guests, introducing speakers and sponsors, keeping the evening on schedule, and filling the gaps between courses, awards and entertainment segments without losing the room’s attention. It is, in the broadest sense, the job a master of ceremonies has done at formal events for as long as formal events have existed: introducing what comes next, and making sure it lands.

At a charity gala specifically, that means far more than reading names off a card. A good host reads the room’s energy through a three-course dinner, knows when a speech is running long and needs a graceful close, and can recover smoothly when the microphone cuts out or a speaker is late to the stage. None of that requires selling anything. It requires pacing, timing and the confidence to hold a room of several hundred people without a script for every second of it.

What does a charity auctioneer do differently?

A charity auctioneer’s job is to drive competitive bidding on the live lots and lead the pledge, converting the room’s goodwill into money on the night. It is a commercial skill layered on top of a performance one: reading which bidder still has room to go one more, naming momentum out loud so the room feels it, and knowing exactly when to close a lot rather than let energy drain out of it.

The pledge, often called fund-a-need, asks something different again. It is not comic timing, it is the opposite: building genuine emotional weight around the cause, then giving donors a structured way to give at a level that suits them. Getting both segments right in one evening is the actual work of a professional charity auctioneer, distinct from simply being confident on a microphone.

Charity event host vs auctioneer: where the lines blur

The overlap is real, which is exactly why the confusion exists. A host typically introduces the auction segment, sometimes runs a raffle draw, and hands over to whoever is calling the lots. That handover is where events lose momentum, because a host who has never called a bid cannot read a bidding room the way an auctioneer can, and an auctioneer who has not been in the room all evening has to rebuild rapport from a standing start.

I learned how much that handover matters the hard way. Early in my career I walked into the middle of a room to start the live auction while people were still talking, and I did not stop to get them quiet first. Only a fraction of the guests actually heard the lots. One man bid on an item he could barely make out. I have never repeated that mistake since: whoever holds the room before the first lot is called holds the total by the end of the night. That is true whether the person holding the room is a host, an auctioneer, or, as I would argue, one person doing both.

Do you need both an event host and an auctioneer?

Plenty of charities book a separate host and auctioneer, and it works fine, provided the two have actually spoken beforehand about pacing, cues and who is handling what. Where it goes wrong is when they meet for the first time in the green room an hour before doors open, because the room they are both about to manage does not care whose job the gap between them was.

My own event hosting service covers the full programme deliberately: arrivals, speeches, dinner transitions, the live auction, the pledge and the close. Booking one person for the whole evening removes the handover altogether. There is no moment where energy has to be rebuilt from zero, because it never dropped in the first place.

There is a cost angle worth weighing too. Two separate bookings mean two separate fees, and neither person has full visibility of what the other is planning to say or do until the rehearsal, if there is one. One booking for the full evening means one point of contact for your event committee, one rehearsal conversation, and one person accountable for how the whole programme flows, not just their own segment of it.

Why does running both roles raise more money?

Money follows momentum, and momentum is easiest to protect when nobody has to hand it to someone else mid-evening. A host who has spent three hours reading a room’s mood walks into the auction already knowing which tables are warm and which need a nudge. An auctioneer who has been present since the welcome speech does not need to introduce themselves to the room before asking it to bid.

I ran a single-evening fundraising gala in Monaco on exactly this basis: pre-event planning on lot sequencing, one person carrying pacing and energy from the welcome through to a structured pledge, across a high-net-worth, multilingual audience. Continuity was the point, not a side benefit. It is far harder to build that same energy in a room where the person on the microphone changes at the exact moment the stakes go up.

★★★★★

“He's really professional, engaged the room and took control where we needed it. Highly recommend him if you need him to host any event.”

Event MC review, sportsman dinner

How I run both roles in one evening

I did not start as an auctioneer. I started in television, presenting and interviewing for Fox, Warner and Universal, then moved through comedy film work before my first ever charity event in 2005, sharing a stage with Annie Lennox. That is the background most auctioneers on the circuit do not have, and it is why I work the floor with a wireless microphone rather than stand behind a podium reading a script.

Practically, that means one person handles your welcome, your speeches, your dinner pacing, your live auction and your pledge, without a gap where the room has to reset. I am not the one who raised the total, though. A powerful result is always a powerful team behind a powerful charity: my job is to give that team’s evening the pacing and the platform it deserves, from the first welcome to the final ask.

If your event has a live auction or a pledge drive on the programme, it is worth checking with your host candidate whether they have run one before, not just hosted one. Ask what happens at the handover between the welcome speeches and the auction, and who is actually responsible for keeping that transition tight. It is a fair question to put to any agency or freelance host, and a professional one should have a straight answer.

Call 07596 851647 or email hello@thecharityauctioneer.uk to check availability for your date.