Half Year check in

[Ed_J_Szalajeski]

I kind of feel the same way about BIG Truck Too events, but sometimes i am surprised.

I have cut back on some events, and pushed up un-tapped markets.

My June/Early july was steady for my weeklies but events I did zero.

Practiced the do not push money after some I did last year at a loss.

THe only winner up here, is the state that gets it's sales tax check.

I guess I am more motivated toward the events that are 90% likely to have a return, IE Not get rained out.

I have 2 horse shows, and those have been hit or miss, mostly hit, but multi day events are scarey in this market.

To regresss, I have not done any of the youth events I did last year, but T&I are strong.

Ed

[DougAxford]

Our T&I is still very strong but I see it seriously eroding in the next year or two. We've had lots of cheap competition that we've been able to keep from taking our best leagues, but as league execs. change, I see the writing on the wall.

Lots of part timers in our area bidding $3. per Memory Mate or lower. That's maybe possible for a big league you shoot on a weekend and can get fast throughput but not things like hockey where you shoot 2 teams, come back an hour later, shoot 2 more, etc. The event market has gone the same way. Used to be $25. for an 8x10, now it's 2 for 25.

We're also seeing a lot more people not buying team shots. Don't know why, just seems when we ask that the parents don't care because they have so many prints from so many events. Overkill.

DougA

[ChrisPerry]

A month after midyear here now and things have been rockin'! I finally have seniors - in numbers and types that make it profitable, and fun! I did a poster to put up in the local pizza shop and made a few extra to try and spread around - cheapest advertising i've done and it works.

Booked 3 seniors this week, shot 2, got 2 wedding consults coming up and a baby tomorrow, shot a corp headshot yesterday (my first of that type of work).

And except for the posters I've not advertised since march -no emails or nuttin, just the posters and my website.
I'm tempted to advertise more but getting reliable help is hard to find. No one wants to work anymore, they'd rather go play golf or sleep in.

[Terry Zorich]

Times change. For us - as event photographers - our product is no longer a novelty. We are no longer cutting-edge. There is new competition every month, or every week even. If we fail to EITHER deliver 'the otherwise unattainable', or reduce our prices to be comparable to the new competition, we will perish.

Originally Posted by DougAxford

...The event market has gone the same way. Used to be $25. for an 8x10, now it's 2 for 25....

But this isn't all that bad. It's far better to offer two for $25 than to drop the per-print price to $12.50, or even $15...or $20. The extra $1.50 or so in materials has a signficiant perceived value - and you can literally sell it as "getting twice the product for the same money".

[Ed_J_Szalajeski]

Terry, Wasnt it you who downsized, to request only?

Were you able to get more custom items?

I have a love hate with custom items. I love to hate them, but they pull in a good price at the cost of time.

Ed

[Terry Zorich]

Originally Posted by Ed_J_Szalajeski

Terry, Wasnt it you who downsized, to request only?

Were you able to get more custom items?...

Yes, I made some changes last year that worked well (in some respects), and I've carried them into this year.

I'll give a specific example:
I shoot a lot of motocross racing. There are often (usually?) at least 400-500 riders in attendance at these one-day race events. What I USED to do is shoot everyone, on spec, and hope that it would be worth it at the end of the day. But after a while, it wasn't "worth it" anymore. But now I'm very well-established; people know that I will produce quality work.

So now what I do (at most events) is take signups (and deposits) before the racing gets started. (There's time during morning registration and always at least an hour of practice sessions before the racing begins.) What I do is take $40 or $50 in advance - before I ever take a shot - and I concentrate ONLY on the people who sign up. I put a limit on the number of riders in any one moto (a moto is a 3-6 lap race, and there are usually 18-26 motos in a day, depending on the organization); by limiting how many riders can sign up in any one moto, I create a little urgency via a 'supply constraint', and this ensures that I'll be able to get a sufficient number of images of each person who signed up.

Overall, sales are still way down. But I've tried switching it up; some days I still shoot everyone, on spec, just to see if I'm missing out on something. And I'm not; I do just about the same sales figures whether I take reservations or shoot on spec. But when I do the sign-ups, I end up doing a whole lot less work!

Work smarter, not harder, as they say!

I have found some more custom items, and we sell one or two per event. It's not our bread and butter, by any means, but it adds variety and premium items, which get me additional business from people who already bought lots of 8x10's and CD's from us.