“We are the music to the sale.” That’s how full-time auctioneer — and the 2014 World Livestock Auctioneer champion — Baine Lotz explains his job. This year, the annual event, hosted by the Livestock Marketing Association since 1963, drew 31 semi-finalists who competed by selling cattle at the Bloomington Livestock Exchange in Wisconsin. The competition attracts cattle buyers and sellers as well as fans who come strictly to take in the spectacle. But the cowboy hat–festooned contestants take their fast-talking pretty seriously.