It’s a little game called “Heads or Tails.” Have you played this before at an auction? Wait, let me back up. I’m on the committee for a women’s retreat called CampExperience. It’s two and a half days of connection, education and inspiration that you’ll never forget (and the 10th anniversary is coming up in September – join us!). Anywho…one of the things I love most about CampExperience is that the money made that weekend all goes to charity, and last year Southwest Airlines donated two airline tickets for us to auction off. I suggested we use those tickets to play Heads or Tails.

Here’s how it works. You take a captive audience (those attending an event, or in this case, a retreat) and give them all a chance to win a fabulous prize anyone would want (like two airline tickets) if they donate $20 (or whatever amount you choose). We had several volunteers selling the chance to win. Anyone who donates gets to play the game. We identified those who were paying to play by giving them a string of mardi gras beads.

Once you have had a chance to sell to everyone in the room, you’re ready to start the game. Gather everyone together and make sure everyone has a place to sit. BTW – this is an excellent way to start a live auction. You can talk up the game all during the silent auction portion of the evening and kick off the live with Heads or Tails! Now you have someone energetic and fabulous (in this case it was Yours Truly but usually it’s an auctioneer) ask everyone who’s in the game to stand up. Pull out your lucky coin and get ready to flip it. But first, everyone standing up has to guess if you’re going to flip “heads” by putting their hands on their head, or “tails” by putting their hands on their…tails! Flip the coin on stage and everyone who guessed wrong has to sit down! Now everyone still standing gets to publically guess again – heads or tails? Again, everyone who guessed right stays standing and those who guessed wrong sit down. You keep this up until you’re down to just 2 or 3 people left in the game.

Here’s the fun part. Bring those final few up on stage to guess in front of the room. Let them guess again and flip the coin one more time. The winner just got two round trip airline tickets for $20…and the nonprofit got $3,000 cash for their cause!

I gotta say, it’s one of my favorite things at a big event. If you’re still not sure how it would all work, check out this video of what I just described or give me a call and we’ll grab coffee.