I have been thinking about an event I did last year. it was a non profit company doing a conference out of town.

I'm considering if I do it again how I can make it more worth my while (in a marketing sense). I think one of the major problems was getting the word out. I was too dependent on the organizers to promote my business and I don't think that happened.

I also don't think it's right to request their email list to directly contact participants.

They offer vendor tables. Prior to the event, I would create a category on Smug so I could have a direct link to the conference, and advertise and promote that for easy navigation directly (i can include a flyer in their grab bag). On the table I could have some promotional items about my photography, pamphlets, cards, an email sign up sheet (I think I could manage that with the event feature in Smug?) I would also like to have a computer playing a slide show from Smug with the pictures from THAT conference, as I'm uploading them.

I think it would be a real hook for them to see a picture they like! I would use minimal PP, and probably set a print delay (does this work for downloads too?)

My main question is regarding the slideshow. How is it best to accomplish this? Ideally I want to have a Smug slideshow playing that will update as I add pictures to the gallery. Will this work?

One other thought, I would want to break up the event into smaller galleries. could I use a smart gallery to collect all the photos from the different sub galleries to display all of them in a slideshow?

OK, here is my 2 cents worth.

If this is a non profit organization that is involved with a cause near and dear to your heart, certainly peruse it, but if it's just a job why in the world would you do it for free? This is a business forum.

The non profit pays for the rooms, food, entertainment, employees, etc, etc. As many many others have said just because it's a non profit doesn't mean they have no profit or money.

Also as you found out, typically you won't have much time to play when your working out of town.

What did you give to the organization last year? If you gave them all the images last year you shouldn't expect any sales. These images have value your time has value. Now I'm not saying you have to charge list + 20% but you should get something for your time and expertise. Also don't forget the cost of equipment. For a multi day event I would have somewhere between 10K and 15K in equipment. I can not afford to use this equipment for free.

Now as to the slide show and the flyer in the swag bag, this sounds like a plan. However if your giving the images to the non profit they are probably giving the images away to their attendees for free.
If your going to shoot on spec I would look at an agreement that at lease provides for a chance at making some sales. IE: They get X number of images for their website at no additional charge, all other images can be purchased online, by both the attendees and the non profit. Or another thought is to charge a fee to show up and ether keep the image prices down or charge a fee that makes you happy and provide all the images to the non profit.

If you going to run a slide show and your photographing all day I would absolutely want an assistant to upload images, do minor editing and provide sales and customer support during the vent.

Sam

Sam, I hear ya on all the non-profit points. This association's arrangement is a little complicated with other vendors, speakers, and instructors. I didn't really want to get too into it here. I've been on non-profit boards before so I know how they work.

Bottom line is, I get time to practice and shoot however i want and experiment. Not so much on spec. They're happy with whatever i get them. Agreement last year was to give association images for their internal use, and sell and market to the attendee's. My marketing really sucked.

And by "more worth it", I don't necessarily mean $$$. I need to build my confidence interacting with "strangers" in a dynamic situation and be able to slow down and get good images. Not spray and pray (which I'm not really bad at anyway, but I'm still taking a lot of frames). My pricing was very reasonable last year, so the satisfaction of someone "purchasing" was more of an ego boost than a revenue stream.

As far as the assistant, ideally that would be nice. It may happen, but last year I had some time throughout the weekend to upload. That's what i was hoping the slideshow could be kind of automatic, upload back at my room and the screen on the vendor table would update and attendees would see it as they moved between classes.

(edit: i'm still a little foggy where these business, but also smugmug operation type questions should go)

IF your SERIOUS about making some money out of this, Read on. If Not skip to the next post/ thread now.

Firstly forget about smutmug being your main source of sales. Online is a poor substitute for onsite.

Set up a background of some type and photograph the participants as they enter the conference/ meeting/ activities. Choose one where they are all in attendance. This might be their end dance or main event etc.

The background can be anything but ideally a signage or some props related to the event. See if you can borrow some of the signage or decorations from the event. Generally this is a further promotion for the organisers and they will be glad to help.
Don't give the participants a choice of being photographed, shoot them all in groups and individually.

Next print a copy of all the shots preferably in 5x7 rather than 6x4 ( buy an inkjet printer when you arrive if need be) and then lay all the shots you have taken out on tables when the participants come out after diner or at the end of the night. For groups obviously you print multiple prints. I also offer a multi print discount which works well if people are in more than one pic.

You can do real well just out of that and I have covered events very profitably just doing this.
If the event has different activities etc, you could shoot the participants and then have the pics available at dinner or breakfast the next day or at gatherings thereafter. You could also put a Border on the prints with the name of the event and date. This helps make the pics a personal souvenir and you can promote them as such. it's also something the participants won't do themselves or have on their own happy snaps.

Yes, this does require more initiative and effort than just posting shots on the net but do you want to sit on your butt or do you want to make money out of the gig and leverage the opportunity?

The best bit is the images you take of the participants can be very different to those you do for the organization and you don't even have to give them all to them or you can hold off for a few weeks till your main sales are done.
You will get people asking if the shots will be online, I'd say no. If you say yes that will just be an excuse for them not only to put off buying them today but they will never get round to purchasing any. You may decide to change your mind and put them online later ( :0) ) but I'd certainly not be rushing into giving the people that opportunity to get out of buying a print.

As for the slide show, you really won't need it if you have the shots pre-printed for the guests but it also wouldn't hurt. Forget about snubmug again and go with Proshow. You can create a show in minutes by just putting the pics you want to use in a folder, having some music in another folder and telling it to put the show together automatically. If you set up some titles in advance, you can easy drop those in and make the show look real good.
Take some small but decent computer speakers with you and set the show to some upbeat music. You could also burn a DVD and have the hotel? venue run it on their AV system or borrow a big plasma to run it on.
This will sell the pics and create more interest than anything else. Put a slide on the end of the presentation that says these and other exciting pics are available to take home.
Turn the bass up when you are showing the pics which can be done without too loud an overall volume and you'll have people 10 deep wanting to watch.
More importantly, you'll also have people wanting your card and talking to you about covering other work for them.

If you do the slide show properly with the right music and have the instant prints on display, you'll create the wow factor and make the impression that gets you a LOT more work.

Don't settle for easy and ordinary, grab the bull by the horns, take charge and make some money out of this gig and get some more as well.
THAT is how you make money out of this event and get yourself more work at the same time.

Originally Posted by Glort IF your SERIOUS about making some money out of this, Read on......

Awesome reply! I was actually looking into one of those smart phone credit card things yesterday for this very idea! I'm all ears!

Set up a background of some type....

This is probably something like your talking about.

Don't give the participants a choice of being photographed, shoot them all in groups and individually.

This was the hard part tho, I only got a few to do it. I'm talking to the organizer soon and will have this on my list to bring up.

Next print a copy of all the shots preferably in 5x...

I haven't actually printed anything in a long time. I remember it being quite a pain to get the pictures lined up sometimes. I have win7 with LR3 (use mostly) and CS4 (i don't know it well at all), any recommendations on making prints quickly?

You could also put a Border on the prints with the name of the event and date.

I think I can do this in lightroom really easily.

do you want to sit on your butt

Honestly, I didn't have much butt sitting time last year.

Forget about snubmug again and go with Proshow.

Do you know if proshow will automatically update as I add to it? I was really hoping smug mug would work out so I could do it "remotely". I could see a lot of benefits to this in general, in this situation I won't have to be on the floor monkeying with uploads.

The background is great, i'd just make it a little less wide so the people were more prominent but otherwise, that's the idea exactly.

Yes, people will alwys be reluctant to have a pic taken. I think there is a thing that if you do want to have your pic taken you could be seen as vain so people put a a false modesty to prevent looking self centered. I found it helps to have an assistant doing the herding while you stand at the ready with support encouragement.
In my repeat experience, the people that were so reluctant to have the pics taken are never so modest at buying them.

I have set up so people have to be photographed as soon as they come through or want to go through a door so the amount of escapees is limited.
Having them walk down a red carpet which nearly every venue has is a good way to channel them to you as well.

Rattling prints off quick in these situations when you can control things easily is not hard.
I think LR would do it although I usually use Photoshop/ You can set up actions that do the levels, sharpening and other adjustments and then if need be, stop while you reposition the pic withing the layer if you are doing borders. You hit another button and the pic shoots out the printer.
You can also use hot folder software that automatically prints whatever goes in there so you copy the images you want to print to that folder and they are processed and spat out the printer.

I use canon printers and their software is also simple and fast for volume printing.

No reason you can't divert more time to making yourself a buck and less time on the freebies for the organizers. You'll only need to do what I'm suggesting once or twice anyway so not like it will take you away from the whole event. An assistant would make life much easier and if your making money from the gig much easier to justify them.

Don't worry about updating. At worst make a new or addiditional show at night for the next day. it doesn't have to have the pics you took 10 min ago on it.