Print Auction Evaluation

Overall I think that the actual print action didn't go to badly there were a few flaws but overall it went fairly smoothly.

However the run up to it was not so. Communication between the second and third years wasn't the best, I. feel this might have gone better if we had got to know them before this project started as we would have known who they were. It is a general consensus that the second years feel they pulled more weight than the third years as they kept saying they were to busy to get stuff done which we felt was a little unfair as we had our own deadlines to meet. This might have something to do with the fact that a fair few of them weren't happy about being told to work with us at the beginning of the project, but with a lot of hard work we got around it. There was many times that people said they would do something then not following through, meaning others were having to pick up the slack, giving themselves even more work to complete which just wasn't fair.

A few days after the auction we got into small groups and discussed what we thought went well and what we thought we could have done better:

Positives

• We made money

• The bar sold a lot of drinks

• We sold the majority of the prints

• Jamie did a good job of standing in as the auctioneer

• Table layout worked well

• Selling student work was a good idea

• Postcard prints sold well

• Snacks went down well

Negatives

• Needed to start bidding lower to entice people to bid

• Make proper signs for the snacks table and postcard prints to make them more noticeable and professional

• Should have written information on the backs of postcard prints as people kept turning them over to see what was on the back (maybe write students name and location of where it was taken/name of print)

• Needed more people to attend. We started advertising really, really early but then it got forgotten about until really close to the time

• Needed to look for an auctioneer earlier, Jamie did a really good job for his first time but a professional might have been able to generate a little more money

• There was problems with people using the card machine who had never used them before so a payment was missed. Next time we need to make sure that the people taking the money know what they are doing

• Better communication

• Huge prints didn't sell as well as we believe bidders don't know where they'd put them

• Play more appropriate music when people are arriving

• Try and start at a later time so more people will likely turn up, due to work arrangements

This was the first print auction any of had done so it was never going to be perfect, as a year we have learnt a lot and will be able to put all our knew knowledge into next years auction meaning we should be able to make a lot more money. I think the main thing we need to do is try and get more people interested who have a decent knowledge of the photographic industry, meaning they will more likely know who some of the photographers are. As I feel a lot of people didn't who were there so didn't know the value of the work, therefore they didn't want to bid very high. We could also put more information into the catalogs so if people aren't aware of the photographers they can get to know them.