Opening night auction packages

Opening night gives a theater everything an auction normally has to manufacture: a full house, a good mood, the cast's families in the audience, a printed programme in every hand and an interval when everybody is standing up with a drink.

Timeline

• Minus 7 days — bidding opens online to subscribers and ticket holders for the run
• Minus 2 weeks — QR code into the programme at the printer
• Opening night, pre-curtain — lobby display, one volunteer helping people bid
• Interval — the main bidding window
• Post-show reception — close, announced once from the stage or by the house manager

Close at the reception rather than at the end of the run. An auction that closes three weeks later loses the room that was actually going to bid.

What to sell as an opening night package

• Two seats to every production of next season, in the same seats each time
• The best seats in the house for closing night, with a reception invitation
• A private box or the front row for a family
• Dinner with the director and the leads after a performance
• Programme cover sponsorship for a production
• A named seat plate installed before opening night of the next show

The lobby

• One table, visible from the bar queue and not blocking the house doors
• Display sheets with a large QR code — a theater audience reads
• Physical items where you have them; sheets for everything else
• One volunteer whose only job is helping people bid, not selling raffle tickets too
• A running total on a board, updated at the interval

Printable material comes from the items already entered: display sheets and catalogs.

Do not step on the show

One announcement, short, made by the house manager before curtain or at the top of the interval — not by an actor, not in character, and never after the curtain call. The curtain call belongs to the company and an appeal immediately after it reads as using the performance.

If your company has an existing pre-show announcement, add one sentence to it rather than creating a second moment.

Afterwards

Announce the total on the closing night of the run, thank the donating businesses by name in the next programme, and tell the company what it funded. A cast that sees the lighting desk their opening night bought is a cast that promotes the next one without being asked.