“What you’re looking for as an auctioneer is someone who’s truly fearless onstage,” says auctioneer Lydia Fenet. Except when they’re onstage next to Elton John, who hosts his eponymous AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party and fundraiser annually, for which Fenet has been the auctioneer for the last four years.
The former Christie’s auctioneer, author, podcaster and motivational speaker is normally unflappable on the podium.
“It feels very natural and comfortable to me, and I make a lot of money. When I get up there, it’s me at my peak. When someone’s having that much fun, it’s hard not to have fun with them,” Fenet tells The Envelope of her atypical style on the auction block.
Fenet has become something of a celebrity in her own right in the auction world. “I have been on every stage in every city for every large organization,” she says matter-of-factly. “Anyone [who knows] anything about charity auctions will know my name.”
It’s fitting, then, that she had to audition to get into the field in which she’s become so renowned. After four years at Christie’s, she attended an open call for employees and was the only woman to pass.
“That whole audition process is to find out whether that person has the ability to stand onstage and, despite everything that’s happening, stay in control of the room and the narrative [within it],” she says.
Counter to the stereotype of the auctioneer as dry, monotone and more often than not male, Fenet learned about 10 years into her two-decade-plus career that harnessing her affable personality and sense of humor would encourage donors to open their wallets wider.
“I had been sick all day, so I got onstage that night and was just myself,” she says. “I started joking with the crowd. It was probably the first time in about 800 auctions when people stopped talking [and started paying attention to me]. So the next time, I just went for broke, and there was a man who turned his chair around to watch me, which was the first time that had ever happened.”
Since then, Fenet has helped charities such as the Robin Hood Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and, of course, the Elton John AIDS Foundation raise more than $1 billion.
The first year Fenet came on board with John, in 2022, she almost tripled the amount of donations from the year prior and has kept growing the haul with each subsequent auction. But, in Fenet’s mind, nothing compares to the 2024 party, when she sold a Yamaha piano bedazzled with John’s face for $360,000. While Fenet was selling, John regaled the audience with the strains of “Tiny Dancer” and “Your Song.”
“I remember thinking, ‘Don’t black out,’” she exclaims. “And also, ‘Call your mom and dad because they’re not going to believe it!’ That might have been the highlight [of my life].”
Though Fenet is personally looking forward to seeing Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan, and Leonardo DiCaprio — whom she’s auctioneered in front of at myriad celebrity fundraisers — duke it out in the lead actor category, she says the Academy Awards are “just a fabulous L.A. backdrop” and that John is the real star of the night.
“It’s more about [the fact that] this is his foundation, people absolutely love him and respect what he’s done,” Fenet says. “There are electric and magic things that can happen in that room, so we want to be intentional about the items.”
This time around, the lots will include Chopard jewelry, which last year went for $250,000; a customized pinball machine by Jersey Jack; and a private dinner with John and his husband (and foundation board member) David Furnish.
Despite her lively auction style, Fenet isn’t above shedding a tear when the auction — and the amount of money — moves her. “There are a lot of moments when I’m backstage being like, ‘Pull it together!’ But we’re all human,” she concedes. “I’m a conduit. If I do my job well, people who were planning to give just give more.”
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