Conducting a Dessert Dash Using Handbid

A popular game that some charities run at galas is a Dessert Dash. Basically, in a dessert dash, each person at a table (individual or couple) bids an amount for "dessert".

These bids are then accumulated and totaled for the entire table. Then an auction MC or announcer will announce the winning table (based on the highest combined total bids for the table). Then that table will select a dessert from the table and partake!

So how would you do this in Handbid?

First, you will need a system to collect bids for the dessert. While you could do this in Handbid, it's not designed to allow you to easily tabulate total bids based on a user's table. For now, you should create bid cards for their dessert that include their Paddle Number and their Table Number.

Have one of your staff members collect the cards and total them by table to determine the winners and the order in which they should select their desserts.

Assuming now you need to enter the individual bids in Handbid. Here is how we suggest you do that:

Create a Dessert Dash Item as a For Sale Item with a price of $1 (or $5 if you intend to force people to bid in $5 increments)
Either Hide the Item or DO NOT put it in a category. Either way, the item will not show up on the mobile devices.
On the back end, record a purchase of this item for every bidder. In the purchase window, use the quantity button to indicate the total for each bidder.
This will then show up on their invoice.

Could I do this in the apps?

You could expose this Dessert Dash item and have people purchase it at any amount they want to represent their bid. If you go this route, you will need to export the purchases list and determine on your own (usually in a spreadsheet) what the winning totals were per table. If you have hundreds of guests, this could save you a bit of time to do it this way, provided you know which table each bidder was sitting at (not everyone enters that information in Handbid, so it may not be available there).