Phantom fundraisers

I went to my Sandpipers meeting the other day and we had a roundtable discussion. One of the things that was brought up was the idea of having phantom fundraisers. What is a phantom fundraiser, you ask? Well, I'm glad that you did! I was wondering the same thing!
Basically, you hold a phantom event. That's right, an event that doesn't exist. For example, we could hold a phantom wine tasting event where tickets are $100/person. This way, people get to donate money to an organization they support without the stress of attending the event and our non-profit organization would get the money to support our causes without any overhead costs.
Now, is it just me or is this totally a silly idea? Why not just ask people for monetary donations without going into this whole creative theme of having a phantom wine tasting? I guess if there was no phantom event, the creative people in the organization, who have too much time on their hands, would have nothing to do. This way, they get to create a whole committee and brainstorm fun ideas for phantom events:

1) Phantom Benefit Concert - Tickets for this event will be $400/person with Ticketmaster charges of $1000/person.
2) Phantom Beer & Wine Tasting - You still wake up with a hangover the next morning.
3) Phantom Golf Tournament - Everyone will get a fancy certificate indicating their score of 69.
4) Phantom Texas Hold 'Em Tournament - Who needs poker night or Vegas when you can "play" in a phantom tournament?
5) Phantom Masquerade Ball - All dressed up with no place to go has never held more true.
6) Phantom Art Gallery Exhibit - You can tell all your friends about the up-and-coming new artist whose work is only being shown to a select few...like the people that reside in your head.
7) Phantom Run for Charity - You get to tell your doctor that you ran in a 10K so your heart is obviously feeling better.
8) Phantom Garage Sale - All that junk that you had in your garage that you wanted to get rid of is still sitting in your garage.
9) Phantom Fashion Show - Includes the newest fashion trend, a la Tara Reid at P-Diddy's Party.
10) Phantom Benefit Dinner - You didn't really need all those calories anyway...

Hey, come to think of it...let's just all have phantom lives. Maybe we can have phantom jobs where we make phantom income and buy phantom clothes with phantom money. I wonder how that would all work???