Episode 41: Going Beyond the Formal Gala

Jeff: Welcome back to the Elevate Your Event Podcast, where we talk about all the various ways you can make your next fundraising event better. We are here to talk about fundraising events, believe it or not. Let's introduce the folks that we have in the studio today. We've got an all-star cast of Handbid talent. They also have some extreme event experience, and this came up recently, so we've invited them to chat about it. So welcome, Inga.

Inga: Thank you. Thank you. I'm Inga.

Jeff: And welcome, Lori.

Lori: Thank you, thank you, everybody.

Jeff: Two of our client services specialists here, and I'm Jeff Porter, CEO of Handbid. And we are here to talk about whether you call it a gala or a "gah-la" — it's going to be almost like a three-minute podcast. I say gala, you say gala — this might be the tomato-tomato thing. It might be what coast you're on or an accent thing. Inga, you've got quite the accent. What do you think — in Eastern Europe, is it gala over there?

Inga: Well, there is no gala in Eastern Europe. It's called sit-down dinner and alcohol.

Jeff: That might be a new option for our event podcast. Gala is English for sit-down dinner and alcohol. So this actually came up recently. I was on a different group, and the question was posed: what are the trends you're seeing in events, and if they're not trends that are really prominent, what are we forecasting? And one of them was what's going to happen to the traditional gala. What is the traditional gala? Well, besides being a sit-down dinner with alcohol — we got that part down.

Inga: That's right. Open bar is mandatory.

Jeff: The way I look at it, it's very classic, it's classy. It is a sit-down dinner with white tablecloths. You sit there, somebody else brings you wine, somebody else brings you food, and whoever is on stage — the auctioneer, MC, a speaker — gets your full attention. Ballroom style. Very traditional, fancy, possibly at a hotel. Doesn't have to be, but suit and tie.

Lori: What kind of attire do you tend to see at the traditional gala? I would say suit and tie, cocktail dresses, semi-formal to formal.

Jeff: And we're talking about buying a table, sponsorships — selling tables for a couple thousand dollars or more, in some cases significantly more. Or maybe you're the title sponsor and your $20,000 sponsorship gets you three or four tables. We've seen that. And then you have an auction of some sort. What kind of fundraising elements do you tend to see at the traditional gala?

Lori: A presentation about the organization and what they're doing. Maybe a board member or somebody who's involved gets up front and talks about it. And there's potentially some sort of video production — a five-minute, hopefully professionally produced video.

Jeff: And then on the fundraising side, we see silent auction for sure, wine walls, other types of raffle or drawing types of things — whiskey pulls, heads and tails, games for the auctioneer. So this is the traditional gala: black tie, VIP parking, maybe coat check, formal check-in. Maybe kind of pricey too.

Inga: I would say a gala is usually a pretty pricey ticket. What we think of — a $200, $300 ticket at the low end?

Jeff: Yeah, that makes sense. It's a nighttime event, seated and plated. There might be some slight variations — maybe food stations. We're starting to see more casual galas, or what some people like to call the "un-gala gala." Like a buffet style. But either way, the traditional gala is: we're going to bring you in the door, feed you, serve you alcohol in some cases, present what we've been up to for the last year, give you opportunities to donate — through the auction, a paddle raise, live auction, or games — thank you at the end of the night, send you home, and then talk to you again a year from now. Very popular with certain demographics. This has been the go-to model for fundraising events for the silent generation, the boomers. I think Gen Xers are okay with them, but some of us — not aging us, by the way, but we are Gen Xers on this call.

Inga: I'm so Gen X.

Jeff: My kids think I'm something like Gen U or Gen T. They have no idea. But maybe some people are more interested in the boots and bling or the denim and diamonds, dressing down the gala a little bit. Still a classic fundraiser. But what's going to happen with the millennials and Gen Z? Is that what we're here to talk about?

Lori: Yeah, for sure. And how do we get 22, 25, 27-year-olds to show up and have fun but still participate? They're not going to buy $2,500 tables.

Jeff: But why not? Well, that's my point — that traditional model. But how do we make them spend $2,500 in other ways? What have we seen? Think of some events where there's a younger demographic — or not just the younger demographic. I think COVID kind of casualized a lot of things.

Inga: So the events that I've seen recently where there's a younger, more ready-to-mingle crowd — those more hip events like the one we had at the airplane hangar. Tons of food, tons of drinks, phenomenal live entertainment, and a wonderful venue with all sorts of cool things. There was a lot of young people there, and they spent.

Jeff: I would say that's the key element. For the younger generations, it's not the traditional sit-down plated dinner. We're going to wait for the plates to get picked up, time the speech with the dessert dropping — the rubber chicken, the mashed potatoes, the green beans, the hotel-style broccoli. We've all had it. I'm not downplaying that — there is a demographic that loves that. But these younger generations are looking for something that's going to be more alive and more interactive.

Lori: Like an experience. Absolutely.

Jeff: Think about how it typically works. You browse the auction area, then the glasses ding, everybody goes into the ballroom, everybody sits down. Now I'm stuck with the people at my table — lord, I hope I like them. That's why I always buy the whole table, so I know exactly who's going to sit at it. Then you're sitting there passing the little plate with the balls of butter you can't get on your bread. Then the salad with the — why do they always serve raspberry vinaigrette? Every single one. And then the meat or chicken. If you filled out your form on time, you're going to get what you want. Then we sit through the presentation, and "sit through" is a nice way to put it for some of the ones we've seen. Then the video, then a live auction that takes 45 minutes or an hour.

How about this instead — what if you walk in and it's an entire experience? You've got live entertainment going on. I went to one event where they had these circus acts — it was unbelievable.

Lori: Oh, I've been to that. That's fantastic — the rapping-type circus acts, guys doing backflips, the silks coming from the ceiling. That's so cool.

Jeff: You've got all that going on, and what if we change it into a series of experiences? We're going to walk you through a series of experiences. Maybe we do four seasons. So winter — you walk into the first room and it's all winter, and we auction off a ski trip. Then you float into spring, the food changes, cool atmosphere, and now we auction off a spring golf trip. Think about going through all the different seasons and allowing people to experience it at their own pace. Not making it the mundane regular thing.

Now, everybody listening to this podcast is probably thinking, "We cannot pull that off." I get it. But there are things you can do to make it more fun and interactive.

Lori: Yes.

Jeff: We were at one event — I'm not turning this into a frat party, but bear with me. It wasn't a wine wall or a spirit wall. It was beer pong, and you bounced the ping pong ball into the cup and the cup had a number on it — that's the bottle you won.

Lori: That's fun! That's awesome. Isn't that more fun? They did a beer pong concept, but this was spirits.

Inga: Oh, spirits. Even better. I want to win more than a bottle of beer. That's creative.

Jeff: I had an event — a fundraiser for animals and dogs. They had a French bulldog puppy petting room where you just pay money to get into it. There were 15 French bulldog puppies in there. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen.

Lori: That's the way to go. How many of them ended up missing?

Jeff: I took one.

Inga: Hopefully no one was allergic to dogs.

Lori: I agree, people are looking for an experience that they can post on Instagram. They want something that they can show their friends — that they're somewhere cool. Nobody's posting, "Check me out, I'm at the table with my raspberry vinaigrette and my little butterball I can't spread on my bread." No, you want to be doing something unique and fun.

Jeff: Or you're at a concert, or like the one event that we worked where they auctioned off a trip and you got on a plane and took off right there.

Lori: Better bring your suitcase. That was pretty neat. I also like those events that are themed — people dressing in all white or something similar. Like that white event we did at the hangar. That was really cool.

Jeff: Consider your event. Is there opportunity to promote it because it's cool? And do you have a photo booth? We rent a photo booth, and I think it's underutilized. People love it. We did this event recently — they asked us an hour before the event starts if they could borrow our photo booth. I had to drive to the office and get it. If I didn't love them as a charity, I wouldn't have done it. But we set it up, and it was so popular. People absolutely loved it. If you get the right background, spend a little time in Canva creating great borders — these things are a social media bonanza.

Lori: Oh, my favorite right now is the photo booth with the camera that goes around — the whole 360 thing. People love that, and everybody puts it on social.

Jeff: All the interactive things we're talking about — these are the things people want. Think about this idea too: we recently added polling into our application. Why did we add polling? One reason is so you can interact with your audience. Imagine you have a live band, and you throw up five songs — which of these five songs do you want us to play next? And they vote live. That's kind of fun. Or you could even do this in advance — pick your theme for an upcoming event and throw it out there. Those kinds of things will get the audience going.

Inga: I went to an event a couple months ago — huge event, about 700 people, definitely a young crowd, more like a clubby experience. It was a live band on stage, but what they did was set up different food stations around the room and they had famous Denver chefs come donate their time and food for sampling stations. Then everybody got to vote on the best chef and the best dessert. It was so much fun. You literally just walked around the room the whole time and sampled and voted.

Jeff: What's nice about that is you can use your mobile bidding software to facilitate that. Unless it's really restrictive where you only want people to vote once or twice, turn the vote into a donation item for each chef. We do this all the time. You change the label on the app to say "vote" versus "buy." It's a five-dollar donation to vote for this chef — all the money goes to the organization. It's just another way to raise money. We've seen people raise thousands even with a dollar vote. People will vote multiple times.

Here's a fun one I've been thinking about — combining the concept of polling and live auction. Imagine you auction off a mystery vacation. Three days, two nights, luxury, five-star resort, airfare included — mystery. Once the person wins it, you have the crowd vote on where they go.

Lori: Oh, that's fun! You put up five destinations.

Jeff: And you have one not-so-great option in there — like Pueblo. Everybody in Pueblo, we apologize. But if you're going to vote for me to go to Pueblo, you'd better pay $20 a vote.

Lori: I think that sounds awesome. One of the events I went to — they did a local Dancing with the Stars concept. They had local celebrities paired with local dancers, and you voted for who you thought was the best. They won a disco ball, just like the show. It was the cutest event. They didn't have a big sit-down dinner or anything like that. The event was about the voting and the fun. And it was a community builder because people came from all over to see their person.

Jeff: That's cool. You could totally do polling with that. But on the flip side — I'm going to flip this coin — from a professional auctioneer's perspective, they probably aren't fans of all these ideas.

Inga: I am not speaking for all professional auctioneers, but I've noticed it. It can be painful for an auctioneer if they show up and try to sell seven, eight, nine, ten items on stage, and the venue is set up as a cocktail venue and people are having a good time. That's why they probably shouldn't be selling ten items on stage — nobody is paying attention. You can be the best auctioneer in the world and you cannot get anyone to pay attention. Same with the paddle raise — it is painful.

Jeff: From the auctioneer's perspective, on the flip side, when you have everybody sitting at a nice white-tablecloth table paying undivided attention, it's every auctioneer's dream. I've never met an auctioneer that doesn't want everybody paying attention to them. It's not an ego thing, I promise.

Inga: It's 100% an ego thing.

Jeff: I'm being sarcastic. You would never be an auctioneer if you don't have that. But all joking aside, it is hard to auction things off. Let's be honest — on a particular item, there might be three or four people max interested. But it's hard for them to interact when there are 300 other people in the room all making noise. I totally get that. And I've seen some of the best shushing tactics out there.

Inga: And cowbells. At an event — shushing and cowbells. It breaks my heart.

Jeff: It's hard. But think about strategies where you don't auction off seven items at once. Auction off one, get everybody into that, and then say, "In 25 minutes, we're auctioning off another item." Keep the suspense going. Let them take their breaks, go to the bar. And if there's a way to draw attention back to center stage — I've seen it done in amazing ways where the room just goes black and there's a spotlight on the auctioneer. When you do sudden things like that — not cowbells, because when you want to get rid of noise, more noise does not get rid of noise. Any of us who have raised kids understand that concept.

Think about what happens at concerts. The opening band leaves, the lights come on, everybody runs around doing their thing. Then it goes dark again — boom — everybody's like, "Oh, they're on." That's all you've got to do. Come up with tactics and strategies that get everybody's attention back, but break up the monotony. Because here's the problem: if I'm not interested in a single live auction item and I see eight in the program, and 45 minutes later...

Inga: And they're shutting the bar. Most good auctioneers shut the bar down. I understand why, but it's got to go.

Jeff: Why? Because the bar's loud. You don't want people leaving the room to go back to the bar.

Inga: The bar is a social gathering place. Everybody's drawn to the bar. So why would anybody listen to the auctioneer when they can go to the bar?

Jeff: Or why doesn't the auctioneer go to the bar and auction off an item at the bar? Stand on top of the bar. It's like Vegas.

Lori: I hate to say it, but it has been done.

Jeff: No doubt. I've seen a lot of things done. I think if you're going to break the mold of the classic gala, you really need to take that moment to just say, "We're going to redo this. How are we going to make it more creative?"

Lori: The food — I agree. I don't love that plated meal because most of the time it's not that good. But give me some food trucks and I'm like a kid in a candy store.

Inga: Oh, food trucks are tacky.

Lori: They are not! I actually have them at my own event.

Inga: I'm just picking on you.

Lori: Or stations. I love stations or just passed hors d'oeuvres. You don't have to serve an entire meal.

Inga: I don't love a buffet. I like it to still be served. When you have food stations where somebody's preparing right there, doing small plates — that's so much fun. That's why food trucks work.

Jeff: Exactly. Food trucks are just another version of stations. Here's what tends to work well with food trucks at a big event: work on the menu with them in advance and that's all they make. People don't get to go up and order 15 things off the burrito truck's menu. You get one burrito, or they just make tacos — they're cranking out three types of tacos and putting them out. Then you don't have the waiting-around problem you see with food trucks.

A lot of food trucks are happy to do a smaller portion size anyway, because people want to eat a bunch of different stuff. So every food truck picks two or three items, that's what they serve, have a dessert food truck, and then limit it. We actually had them put a table in front and they were just putting food on the tables. That's how food stations work — you don't walk up and custom-order.

Lori: It's still so much better than a buffet that's been sitting there forever.

Inga: The lines — buffets are the worst.

Lori: We just went to a buffet. How was it? PTSD.

Jeff: The caterer showed up an hour late. We had some very hangry people. And it wasn't us — we're the mobile bidding company. They asked us to help fix the problem, and as we do, problem solvers, we were busing trays and helping the caterer get food rolling once they showed up.

If the caterer is going to be late, the buffet is the worst format. Everybody has to line up and there are 200 people that need to eat with only one row. This was a VIP portion of the event. Because the buffet was late, the poor people came in and sat at boring tables with nothing going on while waiting for the buffet to be set up. With food stations, they could have been engaged from the moment they walked in.

Of course, if your caterer is late, your caterer is late regardless of format. But as we think about changing things up, the direction tends to be food stations, food trucks, or something interactive.

Lori: Even interactive stuff — the kiddos love it if you have a kid-friendly event. Mac and cheese bars where they hand you mac and cheese in a cup and then you have the whole topping bar. And we had a build-your-own barbecue cup in mason jars. Any of those things where you get to create your own — baked potato bar, that kind of stuff. That makes it more active and more fun.

I also think themed events are super fun and popular. People love a Gatsby party, or dressing in all white. Let your people have some fun.

Jeff: I agree. When this came up the other day — what do the Gen Zs and millennials want? Why don't you go see what they do? Look at every college football game and every high school basketball game. What's the theme tonight? It's camo night, white-out night, neon, 80s. These are the kids doing this. If you want to know what the younger generations want, they want themes.

Lori: Especially if you stump them on a theme like 80s night and they're calling their parents asking what they wore in the 80s.

Jeff: My parachute pants don't fit me anymore. But I love a theme. We've seen collectively some amazing themes and costumes. You don't need to have a masquerade ball. But that white event we did down in Orlando was so cool — everything in the venue was white. And people are going to take pictures at your event because it's cool.

The other thing I'd add beyond themes: younger crowds tend to be competitive. So do something competitive. My derby event — now that we're bringing it back — you don't win real money. You win fake money that can be used at the event to buy stuff. The fake money is worthless when you walk out the door. It just gives people another competitive element. They want to know how much they won, who they beat.

You could do a trivia night — those are a blast. I walk into bars and see those going on, and it's all the younger crowds. Heads or tails is a competitive game, though there isn't any skill in it — and it's getting a little overused, I'd say.

Lori: You could do poker night. We just went to one of those recently. That was fun. You can have your serious poker table and your fun poker table. At the fun table, the dealer helps people a little more so they don't feel overwhelmed.

Jeff: It's no fun if you have no idea how to play poker and you're up against some expert who just wants to crush you.

Inga: This is why you set up a whiskey tasting bar right next to it.

Jeff: My wife went to one of those, and she generally knows how to play poker, but she went to the fun table. It's like, "Here's the fun table — we're learning, we're having a good time. I splashed the pot and I didn't mean to, and I don't get yelled at for it."

Now, I love all those kinds of ideas. That's where things are headed. Let's wrap up talking about the technology side. As you're thinking about making the traditional gala more interactive and creating a more immersive experience — technology can help with that.

If you're the type that's stuck with check-in, check-out, paper bid sheets, people sitting at a table in the ballroom — it's going to be really hard to make it more interactive without embracing technology. The younger generation guests are going to be more interested in and more comfortable with technology.

This actually came up this morning in a call. You're going to start seeing self-check-in.

Lori: Please. Please, Jeff.

Jeff: The belief in the past was, "I need to greet these people at the door, thank them for coming. I don't want to inconvenience them asking for their address, email, phone number, and credit card." The younger generation is used to providing all of those things. They're totally fine with it. They don't find it impersonal if you just let them do it on their own.

You can still welcome them when they show up. You can still hand them a drink. But you could also let them check themselves in. You see it at the airports, the hotel, the hospital. I'm driving to the hotel and Marriott's like, "Check in." I check in from my phone. I don't even have to go to the front desk. Your phone works as your key. That is my favorite. I do it every time. People, this is coming. It's here for certain things.

So you can still do silent auctions — they're competitive, people like them. You're going to want mobile bidding for that. You can still have a live auction — just make it more interactive. Break it up, mix and mingle, make it in different rooms, make it themed. I'm waiting for one of our clients to do the Four Seasons event. If you do the Four Seasons event, reach out to us. Maybe we'll come.

Here's another cool technology concept. We're talking location-based events — think about beacons. This became popular maybe ten years ago and people got a little creeped out. But if you remember, The Gap had these — you'd walk in and they'd say, "Now you're in the men's clothing section, here are our specials."

Lori: That totally creeps me out.

Jeff: Think about that at an event. You could have a beacon in every room. When you walk into that room, your mobile bidding app — because it has to be a native app, not the web — would say, "You're in the spring room. Here's your cocktail special. Here's the item we'll be auctioning off live later this evening." Isn't that cool?

Lori: And please take your coat off — you're no longer in the winter room. "I see you're wearing a red dress." That's creepy.

Jeff: I don't think it's that smart. But the beacons give you location-based knowledge inside of a room. GPS doesn't really work indoors, but beacons are accurate because you say, "I want the beacon to cover this radius." The apps know when they cross these boundaries. This is pie in the sky right now, but this kind of stuff is going to become more accessible for all of our clients — to create an immersive experience from beginning to end based on where guests are walking. Especially for events at a zoo, museum, or any venue with different rooms and spaces.

Inga: I love events with different rooms and spaces. No offense if this is what you do, but it's not my favorite — I don't love the giant ballroom events. I like something more intimate.

Lori: I'm with you. I like going into an event like the one we're going to work this week. They come in off golf carts, get their drink, go down this really cool tunnel, they have guitars and purses they're raffling off, then they go into the silent auction room — its own experience with a bar and cool snacks. It's just this whole moment. It's really neat.

Jeff: Get away from the ballrooms. So that's it — we talked about making it more immersive and interactive, splitting certain things up, themes, putting some competition in there, and we wrapped up with technology and how you're going to use it to make all this happen.

If you're one of our clients, we're here to help you think through those ideas and figure out what's going to work best for you. But this is what's coming. The rubber chicken — there's a date in the future where you will not be trying to chop that up with a bread knife.

Lori: And the butterballs. Those are going away too.

Jeff: We're excited. No more raspberry vinaigrette. This has been a great chat. If you're a raspberry vinaigrette fan, we apologize. And if you live in Pueblo, we apologize as well. We're sorry for offending you today.

Lori: Give us another undesirable vacation location — we'll use it in a future podcast.

Inga: Flint, Michigan.

Jeff: You're just here to offend people.

Inga: I'm from Michigan. I can say that.

Jeff: All right. Well, let's wrap up. Great conversation. Thank you for listening in on the trends and the possible future ways you can change your gala into something more interactive for the younger generations. We're excited to share more ideas. If you have any comments or ideas, please send them to us and we'll put them in the show notes. Until then, leave us a five-star review if you're finding this podcast helpful. If you have ideas for shows you want us to cover, let us know. And you can find us on Spotify, Apple, Google, YouTube, or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. Until we meet again, happy fundraising.

Lori: Bye!

Inga: Thank you very much.