2012 Broadway Flea Market Thread — Page 8

to make it a little clearer, I believe Tom Viola himself (director of BC/EFA) said that they could offer it to both people, HOWEVER there was a stipulation. Apparently, Ms. Lansbury was willing to extend the offer to 2 pairs of people, but the stipulation was that there would be only ONE lunch date. Tom went out of his way to say that they would make sure it was a mutually agreed upon date for Angela and her +1 and both winners and their +1s. But, this was very clearly Angela's rule. Yes, they kind of had to convince the original top bidder to agree ("Is this ok with you?" [original winner makes a slight 'eh' face and the 'so-so' hand gesture, but consents). However, they agreed knowing that they were sacrificing a little in order to both partake and for a greater donation to BC/EFA.

Not even close to the same level of money, but this happened with the "Andrea McArdle sings Tomorrow Live On Stage" auction, with a twist. At one point they paused the bidding and asked the bidders if they would share at that price, one of the bidders (pretty sure it was the eventual winner) said "No" so they reopened the bidding.

The Memphis mystery bags had a bunch of junk in them -- keychains and stuff like that, some stuff that I guess was hanging backstage. There was a lot of stuff, but not really worth $10 or very interesting stuff. But the worker at the table was really good about it, and threw in a free T-shirt with every bag (I don't think that was in the original plan but I think she could tell people were disappointed), so people left satisfied.

I was standing really close to the Streisand winner, and you're right that it seemed they never really asked her if it was okay to share, but she seemed fine with it.

I agree that the Lansbury lunch was different, because the actual winner clearly didn't like it and couldn't really get out of it. I wonder if they'll call him up later and make it up to him in some way. I hope they don't sour their relationship with a contributor.

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I think the Streisand experience is an acceptable example of 'sharing'. The Lansbury lunch is not. Now, I am a huge supporter of BC/EFA, and am delighted they were able to get more money for their cause. However, why couldn't they have worked it out with Ms. Lansbury to have two separate lunches? If I paid that kind of money, I'd hardly want to share the experience with two strangers. (And I suspect the person who was the runner up as well as the original bidder, felt that way, too.)

I hope they work something out. (Also-try coordinating all those people's schedules.)

I'm all for allowing the underbidder to match the winning bid and get the same "unique" experience, but in the Lansbury lunch case that would be two separate lunches, not sharing the same lunch. Lunch with four people is a different experience than lunch with six. Giving two bidders the chance for walk-ons at two different performances if the show was willing wouldn't bother me as that's twice the money for BCEFA and each bidder gets a unique experience.

In the case of the Lansbury lunch, if the original description had been for two seats at a group lunch and then two bidders each won, that wouldn't bother me. The bidders would have known what they were bidding on and there wouldn't have been any public guilting the winning bidder into accepting the different experience.