Multiple viewing station Exhibition trailer – what sort of sales???

[FootyPhotos]

I have seen an advert for a pretty impressive looking multiple viewing station exhibition trailer on The Event Photographer’s website for sale.

http://www.theeventphotographer.co.uk/Trailer_Advert/Advert.htm

Can any one give me a realistic idea of what sort of sales a trailer with this many viewing stations can achieve on a good day? Also what sort of vehicle would be best suited to towing such a vehicle bearing in mind it weighs just under 3.5 tons? Is Digital Darkroom Professional as a point of sales software up to the job? Any other advice regards operating a trailer like this would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

[Claude_Ferron]

Originally Posted by FootyPhotos

I have seen an advert for a pretty impressive looking multiple viewing station exhibition trailer on The Event Photographer’s website for sale.

I agree it is an impressive setup, but the wheels on the trailer are REALLY small compared to the size of it. I use to have a trailer (sold it 3 years ago) and it was kind of painful and expensive to run for the types of event I had around here (to small to justify a trailer)

Originally Posted by FootyPhotos

Can any one give me a realistic idea of what sort of sales a trailer with this many viewing stations can achieve on a good day? Also what sort of vehicle would be best suited to towing such a vehicle bearing in mind it weighs just under 3.5 tons?

Sales... really hard to predict, give us numbers and details (type of event, age, # of participant, etc, etc...). I've been doing a swimming event in Montréal total revenues 3000$ (6 stations). About same amount of swimmers but for an event in California 10 000$ (10 stations). There is so much variables that you have to take care of in the equation. So I'm not really answering the question here because it is impossible to answer

Originally Posted by FootyPhotos

Is Digital Darkroom Professional as a point of sales software up to the job? Any other advice regards operating a trailer like this would be appreciated.

With the amount of space you have in this unit.
1- It is going to be hot!
2- You will need someone to control the traffic
3- I personally don't think Express Digital would do the job for that. You need something that will display you pictures FAST to your customers. You don't want them constantly asking how is this thing work... The faster they can view your pictures, the better flow you will have at your kiosk. This is REALLY important especially in a trailer. For a kiosk software I will suggest you my software and hardware for the server. Have a look at: VSS (Viewing Station Server) - Proofing System Solution for Event Photography . It is not the fist time that a viewing solution is discussed in this forum, but it is always good to refresh peoples mind.

One quick advise. With the height of your trailer make sure you double check with the organizer about field access. Location is a part of the equation for a successful event.

All the best!

Claude Ferron, Owner / Photographer
www.subitophototo.net
Viewing System Solution - A proofing solution for event photography
Informations about the solution here (VSS)

[FootyPhotos]

Cheers for the reply Claude. Apparently the photos are imported into Digital Darkroom on the server so Digital Darkroom is just used for cataloguing the photos in the first instance and then they use a basic utility that renders thumbs (18 up on a page) and full screen larger proofs for viewing as a very simple webpage using Internet Explorer. Only the main server runs Digital Darkroom. The viewing stations run Internet Explorer only.

As far as I understand it you only need one license for the copy of Digital Darkroom Pro running on the main cataloguing server and one copy of Digital Darkroom Core on the second printing station which can double as the ninth viewing station if needs be. Sounds to me like a very trick alternative solution to VSS which I have seen in action and didn’t particularly impress. The photographer I saw using VSS wasn’t desperately happy with it and seemed to be having all sorts of problems having to reboot the server on a regular basis.

I cover mainly outdoor events like football, rugby, and a few equestrian events so I’m not really concerned about access problems. I understand what you’re saying about position but surely the whole point is if you’ve got a trailer you can just move it if you find yourself in a less than ideal position? Well a lot quicker than a marquee anyways.

I’m thinking this looks like an exciting bit of kit. I reckon it’s worth a closer look.

[Claude_Ferron]

Originally Posted by FootyPhotos

The photographer I saw using VSS wasn’t desperately happy with it and seemed to be having all sorts of problems having to reboot the server on a regular basis.

Who told you that? Are you sure it was one of our solutions? Never had any complaints from my customers that things were going that way!?! I need more infos from you....

Update: Just called my customer in Manchester, I wanted to be sure that he was not having issue with his system. Apparently he does not have any! He even told me that the VSS has changed the way he his doing business in a positive way! I would like to ask you to remove your bad comment about what you think was a VSS... Thanks for your understanding.

Claude

[DougAxford]

I think your info on ED might be wrong regarding how many copies you need. I would call ED head office and check.

I have owned ED for 7+ years (3 copies) and it's not the software I would want to use at an event like that. Lots of others that I would go with first.

Claude has one, Photo Prada is another - both are members here and are well respected. Last number of events I did with Breeze and was happy with the price/performance but I would not use it for as many stations as you are looking at.

I've only glanced at these posts, but I get the feeling that you need to do more research. It's a huge investment to make it work correctly - and you don't want to be there when things don't work correctly - gets very hot very fast in that trailer.

[FootyPhotos]

Hi Claude. I didn’t pick up on the fact that VSS was actually a product you developed, promte and sell yourself – I got the impression that it was simply a product you had bought from VSS and use yourself.

The last thing I want to do is run down someone else’s / your product and interfere with your business. Let me just clarify. I am based in Manchester, England. I didn’t say that I saw your system in action in Manchester. Neither did I verify it as being used by a Manchester based photographer. So I think you may have made some assumptions about your system being run by a photographer in Manchester. I’d hate to think some poor chap in Manchester is getting a grilling from your good self on the basis of a remark I made on a forum.

Can I also draw your attention to the fact that I said …

“The photographer I saw using VSS wasn’t desperately happy with it and seemed to be having all sorts of problems having to reboot the server on a regular basis.”

I did not state that this was my own experience of using your product as I don’t use it. The above comment was merely my observation of this photographer’s use of your product. This particular photographer may or may not have been having a bad day at the time. My timing on the scene might have been unfortunate. My remarks were not presented as an in depth scientific product review merely as I think it is fair to say a fairly casual observation which I guess is a review of sorts. I think that other users of this forum understand how forums work and can deduce this for themselves.

However, I believe that I am entitled to describe my observation. I was only describing what I saw in terms of this photographer’s interaction with your product. I’m sure that there are just as many good reports of your product and I sure that they will have a place on this forum. If you are going to use these discussion / help forums as a platform for advertising and promoting your product then you must be prepared to accept the possibility that there will be some free-thinking discussion / feedback and take the chance that some of it may not be what you want to hear. In some quarters this is known as freedom of speech which is a good thing to a point. I think it would be creating a misleading impression of your product if all less than glowing reports of it were censored off the forum. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to mislead your potential customers. If you don’t want to invite feedback may I suggest that perhaps you should just place a read only advert somewhere suitable.

Well I’m glad I got that of my chest! I mean Gosh, I only wanted a bit of advise from the big boys. I’ll be very careful with my casual observations in future!

Anyway I must say thanks for your feedback and help Claude and also that of Doug Axford – very much appreciated. For what it is worth I have been to see the said trailer and it is pretty amazing if I am permitted to speak in a glowing manner. The chap selling it demonstrated it to me and the viewing system is simplicity itself and very fast. He uses Breeze to scoop the photos out of the ED categories and render them into webpages. The clients read a file based website rather than the server needing to run Apache or IIS as a full-on web server. 500 photos in a category takes about 2 minutes to render. The viewing stations are a mirror of the ED catalogue just that the pictures are optimized for web. The vendor has invited me to go and see an identical system not assembled in a trailer running at a busy event this weekend so I can see how it performs under load. If it can’t cope with a queue of customers browsing their photos without slowing down then it won’t be do-able anyway. Fingers crossed.

PS r.e. other issues you raised … The wheels - they look small in proportion because it is such a huge trailer. The size appears to be the only down side at the moment. Also I don’t know what climate you work in over in your neck of the woods Claude, but over in Manchester we don’t suffer from overheating at any time of the year unfortunately! If the trailer gets overheated my sales / printing assistants who normally dress up as cheerleaders will be positively jumping for joy! If they are happy so am I.

I’m off to see my bank manager for a provisional chat.

Thanks again for all you help.

[Paul_Smith]

I've been running a trailer set up in the UK with multiple view stations, and the problem i see with that setup is the size. most of the venues I attend I can get my 4m trailer in, but I wouldn't get that in - it's just too long.

I'd also ask the vendor about MPG and staffing, I run mine with just 1 sales/download/print person, but the reality is if the event is big enough to justify that setup then i need 2

also, why is the vendor selling the trailer and keeping the gazebo setup - my take would be that the gazebo setup scales to fit the event, whereas the trailer only suits mega events of which don't happen week in week out.

What really gets me thinking is the fact that he is the HOYS company this year, yet is selling the setup before HOYS, and equestrian events don't get much bigger than HOYS so you would think that the trailer would be ideal