Charity Auction

For this year’s charity auction, we are very happy to collaborate with
Make-A-Wish Germany!

For those of you not familiar, Make-A-Wish is a worldwide charity organization that aims to raise funds to fulfill the wishes of children with critical illnesses; be it travelling, meeting a beloved musician, becoming a firefighter and so on. The organization has successfully helped grant over 300,000 wishes since its formation in 1980. All of these children are experiencing incredible hardships, fighting tough battles and possibly feeling alone in the world.

While we might not be able to take their pain away, we do have the power to make a change. Research shows a wish can give children the strength to fight against and even overcome a critical illness. It is, of course, the power of a community that can make a change happen. And so, our goal in this is to collect enough money to make it possible for these wishes to come true.

We sincerely hope all of you will be willing to join us and help a child’s dream come true, whoever they are, wherever they come from.

Wanted: In-Kind Donations for the Auctions

This auction can only succeed if you donate your items. Together, we can inspire bidders from Europe and all around the world and reach new levels of generosity!

Click the link below to fill in the form:

To donate in kind to the auction, please fill in the donation form for every item.

For more information about Make-A-Wish and stories of wishes that came true, visit www.makeawish.de!

If you have any questions, please check the drop down menu below for the FAQ first. If you can’t find an answer to your question, reach out via our email address charity@pony-events.eu or via our Contact Form.

First of all, we appreciate your interest and (hopefully) willingness to donate an item to our charity partner, Make-A-Wish, so that we can help raise money for children in tough times.

Secondly, every decision we make in regards to your donations is there to make sure we raise the maximum amount of funds for these children, or at least do our best to do so.

If you decide to donate, please fill out the form above this FAQ and describe your item and add an image of it that is easily visible (no other items on the picture, good lighting, etc.). We use this form and the images for every single item, so this step is indeed mandatory and allows us to keep track of things.

GalaCon staff then decides based on item size, available time and space, or other factors, in which of the two auctions it goes.

All donated items will be given to the volunteers at the infodesk, who will then prepare them for display at the auctions and coordinate everything else.

After you filled out the form, our volunteers will accept your item at the infodesk and update the status in our system to “received”. We will then store the item until the auction starts and move them to the stage.

During the auction, items will be called up in random order. The image you provided in the form will be displayed above the stage. Bidders can raise their hand and call out the bids they are willing to pay for each item. For the back row seats, there will be volunteers around to take your bid and forward them. As usual, the highest bid wins.

Attention: bids are binding and can’t be called back.

Payment happens directly after the bidding phase ends and the winner (or group of winners) is called to the stage to pay. You can pay for your item in cash or using credit or debit cards, EC cards or PayPal. The payment must be made immediately after the purchase. Make-A-Wish® Germany can/will issue a receipt.

Note: Due to time constraints, payment in cash for smaller sums is preferred. In all cases, the bidder carries any transfer/conversion costs.

Over the years, we were forced to deny too many great donations due to a lack of space, time, or other reasons, so we decided to also do a silent auction in the chillout room.

If your donation has been chosen to be displayed in the silent auction, this does absolutely not mean that we deem it less valuable than other items. But in some cases, the size may make it better suited to be on a display, where people can see and inspect it closely, instead of just seeing a colorful dot in the distance—just to name one possible reason.

We promise that we take this decision seriously and try our best to find the right place for your donation, so it receives the attention it deserves.

After you filled out the form, items for the silent auction are given to the volunteers at the infodesk. Our volunteers then update the status of your item to “received”, store it, and later place those donations on a table in the panel room 1 (Welfensaal) where they watch over them while on display.

To bid you will first sign up with a volunteer, who will provide you with a number, your bidder ID. That ID you can then use on the bidding forms next to or below the items, together with your bid amounts.

After the silent auction concludes, we will announce the winners and their bidding IDs for each item on Sunday. The winner can pay for the item at the infodesk and will receive it upon payment. In case the highest bidder cannot do so, the 2nd highest bidder is given the chance to receive the item for the price they entered, so check back for updates on Sunday.

The silent auction takes place in panel room 1 (Welfensaal) on Saturday from 19:00 to 24:00

Note: ONLY the bidder ID and bid amount is to be written on the item form, for information security reasons.