Let's Start a Revolution, together...

StockShowAuctions.com partnered with a great organization from the Houston area called Cowboys4Heros (C4H). Cowboys4Heros was the perfect partner, as their entire existence was centered around buying animals at junior livestock sales, processing them and donating the meat to U.S. military veterans and their families. The partnership was simple. StockShowAuctions.com would service the platform and the exhibitors, C4H would process the payments and remit the payment to the exhibitor less a small commission to cover overhead. C4H used the small profit they made from the partnership to put more money towards buying animals. Unfortunate for StockShowAuctions.com there was not a profit after programming costs and payroll that was required to build and service those first sales. Revolutions cost money after all.

Word quickly spread across Texas and the other states of what StockShowAuctions.com had created. County and regional shows needed a venue to sell animals for the exhibitors, some with a makeshift show, some without. Every auction was online only due to COVID-19 crowd restrictions. By June SSA along with AgFest in California hit a mutual milestone with the first one million dollar online only junior livestock sale. In July as restrictions were slowly lifting, SSA managed our first simulcast junior livestock auction. It was simple, we shipped a single camera to El Paso County, CO, they plugged in and with an open phone line we clerked the auction from our office in Stephenville, TX. As basic as it was, we had done it successfully, without technical difficulty and several sale records were broken that day. By August, with the Anne Arundel County sale in Maryland we had achieved the "Coast to Coast" milestone in basically four months.

June of 2021 brought a unique challenge for SSA. AgFest in California was going back live. Not a problem, by this point we had successfully completed several simulcast auctions while ourselves being remote. The challenge was that AgFest runs two live rings at the same time. By this time in our history, we had figured out it was best to ship a computer with the camera. The computer and camera were already matched and just required internet service once it was on location. The AgFest committee had tested the network weeks and days before to assure there was enough bandwidth to handle two video loads simultaneously. Everything checked out and we were ready. One ring was not providing constant video, the committee on the ground immediately took action and we all learned a trick that day. When 1000 phones are in the room, they do affect the wi-fi service even though they are not logged in. The team on the ground made the adjustment and we were off to the races in California. Between the great and dedicated committee in California and SSA team back in Texas, we pulled it off and the sale broke $1,500,000 and shattered the previous record!!

We were learning. We knew we could do more and knew we could do it better.

As July 2021 rolled around we decided to take the show on the road. SSA determined that the single camera angle that was standard in simulcast auctions was boring and less than entertaining to the online bidders. We wanted multiple camera angles. With a sizeable capital investment in equipment and some trial and error testing we were on the road to El Paso County, Colorado. We set up three stationary camera angles and hardwired them to a switch box. The online bidders now had the opportunity to see the animal and exhibitor, the crowd action and the auctioneer from different angles. Looking back, it too was a bit basic, but it worked. The SSA team would spend the next several months researching, testing and learning the best methods to produce stream video. Our team had made the commitment to hit the road for 2022.

The 2022 season brought on screen graphics, more cameras, mobile cameras in the ring. Streamers, auction companies and vendors all agreed that a 2-3 second latency (the time between when something really happens and the time when the online viewer sees it) was stellar performance. SSA had 2-3 second latency....sometimes. Latency speed was a constant battle. Some sales would be 2-3 seconds, others 5-7, some even 8-10 which was absolutely not acceptable. The search was on. Did we need faster computers, different camera settings, different hardware, different software? We tried it all. Nothing seemed to give us a consistent 2-3 second latency for the simulcast. Livestream service providers were not interested in decreasing lag-time. A sporting event, pod cast, an interview even a stock show didn't need reduced latency, but an auction did. Through many discussions we were introduced to one of Hollywood's oldest and most prominent digital audio/video designers. They assured us they had the solution to our problem and allowed us to test their service for free for one auction. BOOM! We had just broken the speed barrier! A professional, business relationship was formed. This new union would allow bidders at home to see and hear the auctioneer change quicker than the human clerk at the auction could change it in the portal. Industry standards had accepted a 2-3 second latency as the fastest stream speed possible. In August of 2022, SSA broke the barrier with consistent speeds of high-quality digital stream of less than one-half of one second! To add stress to the test we did an entire auction using SpaceX's Starlink system. We believe that StockShowAuctions.com was the first to broadcast an entire simulcast auction using the new satelite internet service. Let's add a bit more stress to the test and tell you we did it during a storm that resulted in the sale arena being evacuated for a tornado warning. How's that for a system stress test?

The Revolution was beginning!

Prospect Auctions

Junior Livestock Auctions typically have over 100 individual consignors, the exhibitors themselves. The buyers are not typically your professional auction buyer, many attend one auction each year and this is it. SSA recognized that if we can perfect the junior auction, we can begin to offer our service to the more commercially minded prospect sales with very little effort. The plan was to begin managing prospect auctions in 2023, of course we started in the summer of 2022.

SSA spent two years researching and analyzing the prospect auction provider marketplace. We analyzed their latency, their video and audio quality, their customer service, their buyer communications and their commitment to the single niche market of competitive livestock. This process led us to understand where the void was in the market. A breeder or prospect auction promoter had to call the Auctioneer, the preview company, the simulcast provider, the graphic designers, the printer, the auction day office staff, the caterer and so on. There was not a single company that provided traditional and professional auction management services with one single call.

Enter StockShowAuctions.com. With more than 20 years of professional auction experience coupled with the fastest and friendliest online and simulcast platform in the industry SSA was ready to enter the prospect auction arena. The multi-camera production quality allowed for a change in the way animals were offered in a video preview and in the auction ring. Rule #1 - camera operators must understand livestock and what buyers need to see to make a buying decision. Getting low and mobile was imperative. Rule #2 - buyers shouldn't have unanswered questions. Therefore, adding graphics on the preview that immediately informed potential buyers of the lot number, age, breeder and pedigree was a relatively easy task. Transferring that same graphic from the preview to the actual auction, well that was revolutionary.