Here’s how the lovely Hayley Simmons raised an astonishing amount of money for her chosen charity in only one night here at the Capri Theatre.
“We had 5 short weeks to organise our event, a challenging task given it was to be held on the weekend of Clipsal 500 and the lead-in to “Mad March”. However, perhaps the shorter timeframe gave us impetus to push the event hard and fast. Approximately 450 movie tickets were purchased, and overall $20,000 was raised through ticket sales and a silent auction.
Picking a movie that was sure to have a wide appeal was key. We set the ticket price at $20 – just $1 more than what it cost to go to a ‘normal’ movie at a ‘regular’ cinema, which we used as a selling point. This was also important seeing as we were going to be asking people to bring extra cash to spend on a silent auction and photo booth. If this wasn’t the case, we would have set a ticket price of $25 or so.
We used social media to promote the movie night and silent auction by creating a Facebook ‘event’ and sharing information on this and through our (fundraising team of 5) personal Facebook pages. We provided the YouTube link to the movie’s trailer to gain interest in the movie itself and posted the movie night flyer repeatedly. The flyer contained all the information on why funds were being raised and how to purchase tickets. We encouraged everyone to share the flyer on their personal Facebook pages, exponentially multiplying the number of ‘friends of friends’ who would hear about the event.
We sold tickets by email order and bank transfer so that tickets were pre-purchased electronically and printed by the purchaser. This cut the workload of the fundraising team in half – minimal cash to handle or tickets to post.
We also used Facebook to respond to FAQs and provide hints and tips around parking, planning, ticket printing and food availability to make it seem like it would be easy to attend our event after a long week at work.
24 hours prior to the event we advised that tickets could be purchased at the door, to squeeze out any last opportunities to sell tickets (approx 10 were sold at the door).
The silent auction was a big money maker. We had 100 quality, new items for auction, doubling our target of 50 items. We initially approached friends and associates whom we knew ran a business. Soon, people were approaching us to offer items, having heard about the cause. Items ranged from home and garden, food and wine, pets and children, health, fitness, sport and beauty, to art work, photography sessions and memorabilia. As items were received we also promoted these on Facebook as a show of appreciation -this meant businesses got exposure on Facebook, increasing their potential network of customers, and people got to see what items would be available (and plan to bring an appropriate amount of cash!) on the night. We created a bidding sheet for each item, containing item information, business logo, and approximate value to guide bidders.
Most items were sold at below value, which was a ‘win-win’ – the buyers got a bargain, and all of the money from the auction went directly to the cause.
Other additional things we did to maximise success and access to the event was email the flyer around to friends, family and work colleagues and print copies for those not technologically inclined so they could share it with others. We also encouraged people to get a group of friends together, which meant many people bought 10 tickets instead of 1 or 2.
The Capri Theatre made doing all of this very easy, and as a result we will be holding similar events there in the future.”