About an hour, for most stores most of the time. But the length is an output rather than a decision: it is however long your lineup takes at a pace the room stays awake for.
Why an hour
It is long enough to sell twenty-five to forty items properly, and short enough that you are still energetic at the end — which matters, because the last ten minutes are where you announce the next show to the people who stayed.
A tired seller in minute 140 undoes the good work of minute 20.
The mistake in both directions
Too short usually means too little stock, and the fix is not a longer show — it is more items. A twenty-minute show is fine if that is genuinely all you have; it is a problem if you had forty things and sold eight.
Too long is the commoner error. Three hours feels productive and is usually three hours of declining prices, because the people still watching at the end are fewer and less competitive than the room you had at the start.
Let the stock decide
Count your items, allow 60 to 120 seconds each, and that is your show. Forty items is an hour. Twenty is half an hour. Eighty is two shows.
How many items should a show have?
End when the room is still warm
Two signs it is time to stop, regardless of the clock:
- Bidding is thinning. The same three people are buying everything. Fresh items will not fix that; a different evening will.
- You are flagging. Your energy is the show's energy.
Start another show exists for the opposite case: the lineup is done and the room is still busy. A second short show the same evening with the leftovers can work.
The one length that is always wrong
However long it takes to trail off. A show that has nothing left but continues for ten minutes of goodbyes teaches people to leave before the end — which is where you ask them to come back.
End on an item, say when the next one is, and stop. How to end a show properly.
For a first show
Half an hour, fifteen items. Finish while you are still enjoying it.
More: your first live show, how a live show works, selling is a performance.