instant gratification

[sumo67]

i am living in texas and i see how football and other sports are a major part of life..here is my idea of a way to make money. i was wondering if anyone else has done this or any pros and cons that you think may crop up..

i will buy old delivery truck. build up inside with tables, computer, printer and whatever else i may need.

take photos at the game..walk to my assistant in van. let them fix photos, crop and such. print 3x5 and put on a board on side of van. dont print all just a bunch so people can see.

the customer could look at photos and buy some or tell assistant the number of their child, call me so i could get some of their child.

i believe this could also lead to other photo work.

[Krusty79]

There are a lot of photographers who are taking pictures of high school events, posting the images online and allowing parents/students to place orders on the website. I know because I used to work for one of the companies that hosts the websites and has the orders printed and shipped. Your business model is a little different, but similar. I don't know how you plan to handle payment, as I don't think most of your customers will be paying in cash. That's part of the appeal of using a website to handle the payment aspect.

I think it can pay off for you if you have exclusive access to the games. Of course, you will need a very fast lens to shoot night football games, because you won't be able to use your flash and you will need fast shutter speeds.

There was a similar thread posted in August. Jim's response is not too encouraging - Possible business & seeking advice

[OsmosisStudios]

That's a helluva lot of overhead for high-school level sports. Likely take forever to get a return on investment, if you actually get your money back.

[inlina]

I shoot a lot of BMX events and for the major events where there is a lot of people (800+ rider) we have sold out of a trade site on the day. I know of other BMX photographers that do too.

The good thing about having a trade site is the instant gratification aspect...having people in the moment buying up because their rider did well or it is their first major championships. If people have had a good day and want good pics they are happy to pay almost anything. I had one customer comment last year that I was cheap compared to the gymnastics photographers where she would pay $80 for an 8x10 and I was charging $25....but I was not printing on-site (not sure if the gymnastics photogs were).

So here's how I was doing it, and I am chaging this model for my next big event as it was a bit of a pain. It is usually a 3 day event and I have a trade site (two 3m x 3m marquee tents that I borrowed from a friend) in amongst the people selling BMX gear. At the end of each of the first two days and part way into the third day we took all of the files to get printed at a lab close by that we did a deal with (and I'm talking around 2000-3000 a day). We had them all printed 4x6.

We then put them in albums that people could rifle through at our trade site. They could buy the 4x6 to take away on the day, or they could order an elargement or digital file and take the 4x6 for free on the day.

One event we made reasonable money over the 3 days but I am not sure how on-line sales went (the other photographer was handling that and he took a long time to put the pics up). The other event we covered our expenses (trade site, printing and some pocket money for one of the assistants I had) but made an OK profit with the on-line sales after (I try to get pics up within a day of the end of the event). We took a mainly cash, but also had a mobile card machine.

The painful bit was the printing. Having enough bodies to man the stand, take shots and get out to the printer was hard, hence I am changing strategy this year given printing was my main expense @ $800 and I still have all of the prints sitting here and I struggled to get fresh prints on the final day. I plan on printing 9-up contact/proof sheets to plain A4. I will offer a slight discount on my normal print price plus give them a gaurenteed delivery by a particular date. I am also considering CD burns at the event, but I won't give them that cheap! (I do sell digitals normally, but I reckon I might be under priced for them.)

When I shoot smaller events and just do online sales, I make very modest sales, if any at all. But I do them for fun and practice since I am usually at the event anyway (my daughter races).

So my question back at you and anyone else who prints at an event...what equipment are you printing with if you are offering high quality prints? Are we talking high end Canon inkjets or something else? Does anyone know what options there are for onsite printing as I would like to offer it if it is viable?

CG

[WVCoalMiner]

When I was in High School waaayyyy back in the late 80's I would wrestle in a tournament in a town called Spencer, WV. The local Photog there would snap prints of wrestlers and take the film off to his lab and develop the photo's as a 5X7 and bring them back to the tournament for sale in a nice little cardboard frame. My parents bought them every time we went to that tournament and I have the photo's here with me now and only wish they had taken more and I could have had them.

[Xposurepro]

I don't think I would invest in a vehicle specifically to be used for HS sporting events. If you have an assistant for processing a wireless transmitter would be a good idea though.

[toasted75]

Instead of printing out 6x4's of everything to mostly just throw away, why not use a laptop (or larger monitor if you have enough available power) to show the proofs. You could have pics up shortly after each race for people to flick through and order.

If you wanted to sell digital copies (how much interest is there for reprints after the event or multiple copies at the event anyway? if not much you may as well bump the prices up a little and sell digital, saving you all printing hassles and making more per photo), you could have a stack of cheap, branded USB sticks handy (I wouldn't think you'd need more than 512mb so could be cost effective), that you can quickly save the photos onto (or burn to cd if you want to keep costs cheaper).

Not sure if anyone does it that way, or if there are practicality issues (keep a few spare batteries for your laptop handy I would think), but it gives you another option to think about.

[klausson]

There is actually a model for this: In a lot of local ski resorts around here, they have photographers stationed at the lift exit who offer to take shots of the people coming off the lift. They store the images on a computer in the lodge and show them there on a big screen. No prints are made until someone requests them.

The photographers usually also work races with the same model. I don't think it's with the thought of creating additional business, but on a typical weekend with good snow they get decent business out of just the regular crowds.

[AnneWynne]

I like the concept of the branded flash drive. But I think there would need to be someone who could review and quickly correct the photos and edit out the ones that are blurred.

I love taking my netbook on shoots with me. I give the client a quick look at the session (with some caveats that they have not been edited at all and many are going to be deleted before we get to the proofing process). Gets a lot of excitement going.

As for a branded jump drive, I got one for a product catalogue. Once the catalogue was out of date, I deleted the files and have been using it ever since for taking files places, keeping it on my key ring. I am constantly reminded of the photo supplier's name every time I use it, and yes, it has gotten me to go to their web site.

Great concept.

[lonni]

This might sound dumb, but printers do not like to be jostled about, as is bound to happen in the back of a truck. You would end up with sub par images that no one would buy and waste your money.