Are Themed Bid Cards a Good Idea?

I know you have an unbelievable “Asia Fest” theme going on complete with a Taiko drummer accompanied by a shakuhachi player and waitresses dressed in kimonos.  Wouldn’t bid cards shaped like asian fans look so cool and just complement the theme so well. 

Don’t I am begging you please don’t. 

Seriously on this one thing I am going to have to put my foot down.  If the design, shape or color of your bid cards distract from, confuse or slow down the bidding process in any way all your hard work to produce your auction is slowly, but surely crumbling like the Great Wall of China.  Bid cards should be solely and surely a utilitarian item meant to complete their job quickly and efficiently.  Get out of their way.  Let them do their job.  You can thank me later.

• Create bid numbers on 8 1/2 x 11 white cardstock
• One-sided bid cards are fine, but two-sided are better
• Print the numbers big, black and bold

One additional thing that I always do that is not completely necessary, but I find to be highly useful to you and to your guests is to either hand write or label each bid card with the name of the person it belongs to and their assigned table.  If the bid cards are labeled attendees are less likely to get their bid cards mixed up and start bidding on each others numbers.  (That happened to me at an auction one time and believe me it is not a fun time trying to figure out who really bid on what.)  This also helps you and your volunteers to return lost or misplaced bid cards to the correct owner quickly and easily.

Finally, if you absolutely must it is ok to place your organizations or events logo on the bottom corner of the bid card.  You can also include a statement like “Thank you for supporting the American Asian Heritage Foundation” but no more. 

Absolutely positively no more.