We suspect Cindy and Howard Rachofsky don’t sleep a wink on a certain Friday night each year: the evening before Two x Two for AIDS and Art, the annual auction gala at their white box of a house on Preston Road. The theory? Performance anxiety. Topping its own sales record yearly has become “a thing” for Two x Two — a couple hundred thousand dollars more, each time, consistently. The nervous crackle in the room during the bidding is always palpable. You can cut it with a proverbial knife — and the proverbial bar just keeps going higher.

This year?

Two million dollars higher. (Suddenly, that couple hundred thousand seems like chump change.) More than $7 million was raised in all, topping 2013’s total of more than $5 million. What a thrill, then, for the Rachofskys, who founded the event in 1999, and for the charity’s two beneficiaries, the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), which uses its share to help fund breakthrough research for HIV/AIDS study and treatment, and the Dallas Museum of Art, which uses its allocation to buy contemporary works.

Part of Two x Two’s success is its gold-plated recipe, and 2014’s was especially tasty: Mix one hotly collected, featured artist (the Indiana-born Wade Guyton); add influential chairmen (dynamic Dallas art-world couple Lisa and John Runyon); stir in tony top sponsors (Audi of America, Kiehl’s Since 1851, Dallas philanthropists Nancy and Richard Rogers, Sotheby’s, Dom Pérignon, NorthPark Center, U.S. Risk, many more); turn everyone loose in that jaw-dropping house and a marvelously decorated dinner tent — and punch the blender button marked frappé. In a whirlwind week that had bidders elbow-to-elbow with a Cher impersonator at Thursday’s First Look preview, and black-tie guests on their feet on Saturday, swaying to singer-rapper CeeLo Green inside a gold-themed geodesic tent, Two x Two — and everyone connected — stayed focused on the goal.

And then promptly smashed it to bits.

Seven million bits. Good luck, Cindy and Howard, getting some sleep on that Friday night next year. Maybe we’ll send some NyQuil.

NOTES FROM A BLOWOUT:

Seen and heard at the $7 million spectacular called First Look and Two x Two

“I’m going to have the best posture all night!” —Cindy Rachofsky at First Look, in a pink-feather showgirl headdress.

A Cher impersonator — by day, a gentleman named Chad Michaels — was a surprise performance. “Cher” first appeared on a pedestal that rose from behind the First Look food stations outside, lip-syncing “Believe.” Michaels later came back (in a different ensemble) for an encore: “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

“…this ass-kicking, homegrown event!” —Two x Two emcee John Benjamin Hickey

Two x Two’s 7,000-square-foot geodesic tent was a study in sophisticated gold, all conjured by Todd Events: a mammoth gold entry arch, gold balls dangling overhead, glittery gold carpet underfoot.

“We look like an ABBA tribute group, don’t we?” —Hickey, onstage with the Rachofskys and Two x Two director Melissa Meeks Ireland, all in gleaming outfits (The evening’s dress code was “All that glitters.”)

Cindy Rachofsky herself sold the featured Wade Guyton work, an inkjet-on-linen print estimated at $350,000, to an anonymous phone bidder. “I have $2.5 million!” said auctioneer Jamie Niven, of Sotheby’s in New York. “Do I have $2.6?” With a cell phone pressed to her ear, Rachofsky got an OK from the person on the other end. She signaled Niven. “$2.6 million!” he said as the crowd gasped. “Going once…going twice…Sold! For $2.6 million!!!” The crowd erupted into cheers. Rachofksy held the phone high, so the secret bidder could hear the roar.

“I’ve never seen that. Not in a charity auction. I’ve never seen that.” —Niven, later

By the numbers: Two x Two is the largest fundraiser in the United States for amfAR and the DMA. (The DMA has been able to add more than 170 works because of Two x Two.) Total raised since the first auction, in 1999: More than $52 million.

“God, I miss money.” —William Rudolph, former curator with the DMA, now with the San Antonio Museum of Art, on Dallas’ charitable set

[A version of this story appears in the December 2014/January 2015 print edition of FD. Additionally, the print version incorrectly states amfAR’s full name as the American Foundation for AIDS Research. It is the Foundation for AIDS Research. The online story has been edited to reflect this.]