Peter Gabriel’s Fairlight Keyboard

Peter Gabriel’s organization, Witness, had a dilemma. They had traditionally conducted live auctions during their annual galas, but with the donation of a super rare piece of music memorabilia – a Fairlight model keyboard – played at 1985 MTV awards, they wanted to open up the bidding to the world. Auction Cause came up with the concept of a simultaneous auction – it would end the night of the gala with the Christie’s live auction and end on eBay at the same exact second.

Auction Cause coordinated with the live auctioneer on the ending time, showed up at the event and coordinated the eBay bidding from the room and on the eBay website, pitting the 2 groups against each other. When it was all over, a bidder from Japan had won the keyboard with his $100,000 bid.

Leveraged excitement and passion in room with eBay mass audience.