Rental venues

Another day, another auction. Today we had our test run of a new rental facility (hence the update title). We have plans to make use of the American Legion post in Overland, MO for a regular monthly auction, and today we held our first sale* there *(first indoor sale, immediately following the Good Friday tornadoes, we relocated items from a house that were were scheduled to sell the contents of to the Legion post's outdoor pavilion in order to hold the sale, as we couldn't hold one in the tornado damaged neighborhood).

The sale went well, but not without some of the normal lurches & bumps that holding an auction in a new location can bring. For example, we could have used one more staffer to help conduct the sale, it would have made the load-in of the items we auctioned MUCH easier considering the triple digit heat index. Additionally, some revamps of our storage of auction items (particularly our webcams, which we use to display the current lot being sold on a projector) couldn't hurt. All that being said, the sale went fine, although there was some tension amongst the crew due to the heat and the missing webcam (which we found, with plenty of time to spare).

Back to the original point. Rental venues. For a small family owned auction firm (which many auction companies are) it can be very problematic to hold offsite auctions. If you don't have the capitol to invest in a full fledged auction house/hall, you can find yourself on the short end of the stick when it comes to several key aspects of the auction industry - warehousing of items & space to actually hold an auction. As a company, we've found several ways of managing these difficulties, while retaining a low overhead & still pulling off massively successful auctions.

Finding a good space to rent to hold an occasional multi-consignor sale is paramount. My recommendation is to go outside of the typical venues. While a hotel or conference center ballroom will most definitely provide a lush spot for your bidders, it can put quite a pinch on your company's pocketbook. Other options may be available, ranging from veteran's association halls, social club/organization buildings, churches, schools (private or parochial, typically), or, for those who are truly thinking outside the box, an open field and a fireworks tent of decent size. For a fraction of the outlay of buying or leasing a building, you can outright purchase a sizable tent, which can be erected with a minimum of effort in most homeowner's lawns to add space to on-location auctions, or can be used for multi-consignor sales with a little planning. Adding sides to a tent, as well as heaters or fans, can increase the amount of time during the year you can see reasonable usage. We have held auctions in the past during snowstorms with 10 degree (Fahrenheit) temps while inside the tent its a balmy 40 and virtually no wind.