In support of their Summer Sale in Las Vegas June 26-27, Julien’s Auctions has today announced their “Julien’s Live” online bidding service. Julien’s Auctions has historically used the excellent Auction Network in support of their live auction events, so this marks a change of bringing online bidding in-house, as we have seen with other auction houses such as Heritage Auction Galleries and Christie’s.
The last auction that Auction Network would have supported would have been the Michael Jackson Estate sale, which Auction Network pulled out of prior to being canceled as part of a settlement between MJJ Productions and Julien’s Auction. Online bidding service Live Auctioneers was put in place as a last minute substitute for the auction which ultimately never materialized.
The online “Julien’s Live” site has a very clean and contemporary design and interface.
In this ‘pre-event’ stage, it is impossible to know what kinds of options and “bells and whistles” will be part of the service. However, per JuliensAuctions.com, a live video stream of the action will be part of the service:
Julien’s Auctions will broadcast live streaming video of the auction and provide viewers with real-time, interactive bidding during the auction. Online viewers can watch the auction in real-time and bid live against the bidders in the room, phone bidders, proxy bidders and other collectors from around the world. You may also place bids online weeks leading up to the auction.
This will potentially put the service on par with Auction Network, and provide more capability than LiveAuctioneers, which has not provided streaming video capability with recent auction events supporting Profiles in History; competitor iCollector does offering streaming video, as seen with a recent Premiere Props event, but it was not reviewed favorably by this website (see “Underworld” Live Auction: Impressions of The Event, Premiere Props, & The iCollector Service).
It would also appear that this change to an in-house solution by Julien’s Auctions leaves Auction Network with only one original entertainment memorabilia client, PropWorx, who used Auction Network for the two Battlestar Galactica live auction events in Pasadena, CA (see
I will attempt to view the service and video feed on the day of the event to provide some analysis and compare with other online bidding services in the marketplace. These services are important to review, in that most live auction bidders participate remotely, so the quality and capability of the services offered are critical to those hobbyists and collectors.
Jason DeBord