Isn't it a bummer when you think you have all the bases covered then on the day there are a whole load of things that come up that you never thought of in the first place. Still, you can always learn.
I know what you went through with the uploading of pics. It was ALWAYS a drama for me and usually took several attempts as well.

Obviously next time hammer the organisers that you want to be at the first exit at very least and positioned so they at least have to walk past you to get to the others.
I'd also get a bike rack from somewhere so they do have somewhere to park their bikes while they look. If you have as big an area as it appears in the pic, put it at the front of the tent so they keep an eye on the bike while they look at the pics.

There is a very significant thing you raise though in the participants being tired. That to me is a real Consideration. It potentially puts so much of what you do in the bin straight off. Maybe it's not worth doing the onsite for this type of event? I don't know what your sales rate or closing ratio was but even if you only worked on getting 25% of the onsite sales if you did online only, I'd be weighing that with your staffing and materials cost.

Is it at all possible for you to work with the organisers and try and sell pre paid packages or prints?
Have the organisers send out or with an email info on your services and an offer for prebooking and postage. Sell the pics before they are tired and post them out afterwards. I know there is a lot more involved in that but I'm just trying to think of ways round that too buggered to care about pics problem.

One other thing that stands out to me like the proverbial from the single pic you have is your setup.
And please don't take this the wrong way, it is meant to help.

Basicly that wooden folding table etc their look so amateur and unprofessional it makes me cringe.
It's not what you have there, it's how it presents. It looks like a guy that bought his home computer and printer and is banging them out. It's hard to explain but it looks uninviting and " hopeful" rather than appearing you are a serious business and looking like you are there to sell.
I read what I'm trying to say years ago and it hit me like a DAF truck but it's not easy to explain.

To me this looks like there is no expectation of selling, you are trying to make some pocket money rather than being a professional business. Most of us are trying to make pocket money but it's not the way we want to appear.

If you separate the big Dollars from the actual presentation in the pics below, you will see what I mean. Their signage is great, their presentation looks expert and they basically draw people in whom know they are going to spend money. You don't need the semi trailer to create the impression, it's the little things that do it not the big ones.





My suggstions for you -IF- you feel it is worthwhile doing onsite with this.....

Signage.
Can't see from the pic but did you have a banner of any sort outside the tent?
I mean something 6Ft long x 3ft High MINIMUM. That stood out like dogs balz.
This company above have been smart in their choice of colours. Black on yellow is the 2nd highest visibility colour combination and I'd suggest outdoors in the settings they are working in, it would be THE most visable colour combo.
GET A BIG BANNER. Even if it just says " See your Photo Here".

I would also invest in some A frame's with posters. I think the std size is about 600x900mm. You can built the frames yourself out of some cheap timber with a couple of hinges. That's what I started with then I made some of my own and got a few more that I found broken behind a bottle shot and simply repaired the broken welds and replaced broken rivets, gave them a coat of spray paint and they are and look good as new.

The signs can be printed cheap at office places. Here they cost me $30 Printed and laminated.

Table/ Counter.

Your present setup is a shocker and now that you have done your first event like this you are ready to start turning the tuning dials and improving right?

For this sort of thing I have several of the plastic topped folding leg tables. Some are rigid 6Ft long, others fold in half which are great for putting in your car.
For this I would not do a table but a counter. I made up inserts for the legs which slip in to raise the table to a counter height. I got a length of rod for each leg and welded it on a bit of flat bar so the legs don't wobble and it gives the table more stability. Works great, cost nothing.

If you don't have the crap and rubbish around your place ( be thankful!) where you can just grab stuff like this, go to an engineering shop. They will have loads of suitable offcuts lying around and probably knock it up for you on the spot.

Once you have the table, ( I would do 2) get some fabric ( I like Black) and put that round the front and sides of the table. If you want to have the table in the door with nothing behind you, put it round the back as well.

All I would put on the table/ counter top is your monitor kb and mouse. Put the printer underneath out of sight. Anything else on the table should be promo items etc. Keep the top of the counter clear and free of clutter. You want to look slick and pro and keeping the table clear is a no cost way of doing that.

All the rest of the clutter that you have to have ( and I have more than most!) goes under the table out of sight. You could also have 2 tables in an L shape near the door, one with more samples on it.

Get some poster/ A frame signs made up and put them on the front of the table. Either screw them into the plastic table through the fabric our get some velcro and put one side on the fabric and the other on the sign. You can sew the velcro onto the fabric or glue it. Prep everything up at home so it's ready to throw together in 2 min when you get there. Set up your printer and computer so you know what you are going to sit them on and that all the cords reach etc.

Maybe for your 3rd event, spend some more on signs for inside the tent and maybe sample posters with your prices and maybe packages laid out in actual size on them.
If you could find anything suitable, I'd also have some carpet for the front of the counter. Probably old offcuts with a hose and a scrub that you get out of the carpet store dumpster would be OK.
People aren't going to look that close but it will make an impression of professionalism and that you are serious vendors that are there to sell not hope someone buys.

I'd certainly be putting more effort into the presentation just on those things than worrying about your packages IF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP DOING ONSITE.
And the quicker you do it, the more money you will make and the faster it will become worthwhile for you.

Presentation is everything and if you use your head, it doesn't have to be expensive. I have made counters at trade shows out of stacked up milk crates. I put a couple of screws in to hold them together and a bit of thick cardboard doubled up I found in the dumpster for the counter top.
I put $10 worth of fabric around it with a $2 piece of a different colour on the top to set it off and it looked a lot better than the counters everyone was hiring for the event for $200.

If you are going to use those tables, Cover them with material as well. If you go to fabric shops you can get what is known as " Bolt ends" Which they will generally put in a pile and is the last few meters of material on the roll they generally sell at very reduced prices.
I use Unbleached Calico which is a light straw colour or I'd advise using black or red. Other colours may be good to tie in with your company colours or logo.


Anyway, I hope you get what I mean about creating the buying environment and the presentation.
I'm still concerned about them being tired and wanting to get home but I think this will go a long way in helping your sales and profitability.

Glort is on the right track with the "pre-paid" concept. I know for several of the events I've attended, you can, up front when you register, purchase various photo packages. The digital images are associated to the race number tied to the athlete and sent to their email account after they've been indexed and uploaded.

Looking at the gallery of images, I saw there would have been some difficulty in indexing those race numbers for a variety of reasons. This would probably necessitate some discussions with the race organizer for them to list a specific rule that race numbers be visible on the front during the entire run. This is a partnership with you and the race promoter, so you want good opportunities to deliver the goods and they want good images of their participants. And I hadn't considered the much cooler temperatures at your events where athletes would cover up in longsleeves or running tights, thus possibly covering up body marking. There was body marking, right?

I'm sorry to hear it didn't go as planned, but I think you've learned a tremendous amount with one event under your belt. I surmise it can only get better from this point forward.

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Thanks for your feedback and thoughts. You are absolutely right about the presentation Glort. Every point I agree with. But to be honest, this hasn't registered with me as a problem or a cause for the lower sales with this event. Simple truth is, for this type of event, online only must be the way to go. The 3 exit points, bikes, being tired etc. all contributed to it making sense to go see the pics online. Plus, as we were printing out, we printed only the finish line and they wanted to see the other 4 or 5 shots. So I too would prefer to go online. Just that of course we wanted to capture as much cash on the day to recoup costs as possible rather than the good faith 'I will check later'. But to be honest, we did manage to sell onsite and our setup was flawless (almost). Well, afterall, Ironman is online only so I guess that says something!!!

Presentation wise, although I fully agree and would expect something like Glort described, it is cost verses benefit. With this job, the costs were all ready escalating, and every cost had to be balanced with the expected sales and kept a lid on. This is why the final sales were disappointing, due to the costs. We probably did about USD1500 on this job, but costs were about USD1000. I was hoping for around USD8000 in sales. I know some of the presentation ideas could be very cheap, but in Norway everything is hard to get a hold off and expensive. We live in little villages between mountains and fjords. Also, doing these events is not my day job. If it was, of course I would invest in many of the things mentioned. The set up in the attached picture is truely impressive, and yes I would expect a high average spend as a result. But my day operation is making passenger photos of a boat trip. This operation is absolutely flawless. On a good day I can sell nearly every picture. For example, today I sold about 80% of images. This is a permanent set-up so is easy to fine tune. And fine tune it I have. But the events as designed to be a cash boost for the one-off days we get them rather than the company in this picture which does it day in day out. There is a difference here. I was planning on getting a couple of beach flags that said 'event photos' or something but the were too pricey. We did however have some signs and displays outside the tent. The sample products were hanging on a couple of sales stands etc. I can show pics if you want???

But I truly believe online only is the way. Next week I am shooting Norseman Extreme Triathlon www.nxtri.com . This is supposed to be the world's most extreme Tri. 3.8km swim, 190km bike, then a marathon. The last 17km is up a mountain to 1800m above see level. Quickest time 11 hours. Slowest time 20 hours. There is an opportunity to do onsite the day after as there is a ceremony in the hotel. But imagine when the ceremony wraps, 250 participants all coming to see their images at once. No thanks. Hello online. It is actually being run twice, 250 participants on each day. We will shoot swim exit and bike at T1, then drive 190km through the field to the front to catch them mid way through the run. Then we head back to the start for day two. That is a job and a half. Alarm bells are ringing for this one so I have slashed the budget to essential costs only. USD100 accommodation and USD250 gasoline. Two man crew only. We will each get two shots of all participants, so there will be 4 shots for them. The photographer I am using is my trainee assistant who insists on not getting paid. She just appreciates that I train her and give her the experience. A nice fit for this risky job. Well, 500 participants should be an interesting gig anyway I think. But with the costs so low, I think we can make a nice profit. I am hoping for at least USD1500 in sales very modestly, based on that being the last Tri's sales. But if we actually get it right, I mean, upload to the web within 24hours, or even before they finish the race, then I think we can do more than that. I am offering some higher value products too to increase sales. There is a new panoramic print with three images in it, race time, split times, name and event logo. This will be offered in 2 sizes as print only, canvas and framed. I think that is the ultimate triathlon product. Swim, Bike, Run.

The good thing about online is the after sale. I just got in another order online from the first Tri for nearly 10% of my total sales so far. A month after the event, that is a nice sale. We just dont know when they are going to order and so long after, that is a sweet bonus. Plus soon, I intend to run a discount on digital products.

Pre-paid packages sound interesting and is something I have never considered. I will bear it in mind in the future though.

18th August I have my third Tri and I will be able to see how the online only works for me. Again that is a 5 hour race. No hope of onsite viewing.

Another thing that is coming to light, is the opportunity to offer the web gallery to other photographers hoping to sell images at other events. There is no reason why I have to shoot the event. I can offer photographers commission on their sales from using my gallery. This might be a very clever niche here in Norway, as many events are small, far away and expensive to do. Yet the world is full of photographers. Let them log in and upload their shots, and they take a cut. Any thought on this guys??? That might be the better opportunity in this game so far I think and a real marketable product.

The other thing that is bugging me is Zenfolio's inability to customise the search tool. It is so necessary to tag the image with the race number for quick searching. But Zen searches the entire website so any file with that number would appear and it is not possible to add a little search box within a gallery. This would be so useful. I have noticed on the bigger companies sites that you just enter your number and all your images pop up. Of course the race number needs to be visible for this to work. But I can not currently offer that. What I did for the first Tri, was categorise the galleries into small sections. Men, women. All participants, red shirt, blue shirt etc. Without actually entering search criteria, the participant is able to find a small selection of images. Of course they have to do this for each shot, swim exit, bike, run etc. I guess that loses us sales. But one feedback come in that they found the shots within 3 minutes so I guess we are at least half way there. But it is a lot of work for me to set it up that way, at a time when time is absolutely in the essence as 24 hours seems to be the bulk cut off point for interested viewers.

While online is far from my preferred method of selling, It seems to be the marketing initiative of choice here.
That said, If there are people out there doing onsite, I'd try to see how they are doing it and what you could learn from them.
I had a quick look and I couldn't find anyone specifically saying they did triathlon pics onsite so that may mean I wasn't looking in the right spot or it's not done.

If you are going to do online, drive it and drive it hard. I'd be trying to get links on the organisers websites, organise flyers to give out at the events, wall paper the car windows and also print up some posters. You have to make them see the site name so many times they know it off by heart.

I absoloutley, positively, would not miss the opportunity at the hotel. PRE-PRINT the main shots at least and have them laid out on tables. Don't worry if you can't do them all or have them all available, do the ones you have learned are most requested and have them ready to go. Sell those, maybe even put an offer on them of a bonus print if they buy x online or a discount off their online purchases and sell at the function. You'll have a captive audience that will still be hyped but rested enough to walk and stand. Don't let it go.

I would line it up with the organisers that you will do some promotional pics for them of officials, speakers, special guests whatever in exchange for them promoting you and letting the people know that " feature" Photos of the event will be available at the presentation and then again have it announced during the presentation.

As for 250 Guests.... so what? I Shoot, print and sell to an average of 600 guests a night as a regular thing with my corporate/ charity/ dinner dance work. You'll get quite a few buying before the event when they come in, a few might wander out during proceedings depending on how it's set up and yes, You'll get a rush at the end but not as bad as you think. A lot of people will hang around talking and whatever and spread the initial hit out. 250 is not that many to begin with really.

Now just to clarify, I am NOT saying do a show and print at the presentation. What I am saying is have SOME (if you can't do all) of the prints at the event ready to go. Not sure how many you are taking of each person but you mentioned they wanted a particular ( forget which) shot earlier so print that one for them to buy to take home to that far away Village to show family, friends and workmates and then have your logo and web addy Printed right on the bag/ envelope you put the print in.... Preferably with an offer or incentive to view and buy the rest of the pics online.

This is essentially what you did at the last event. You were trying to cash in on the immediate onsite sales and the online. It was a good strategy and easier to repeat here.

I don't know if you preprint with your everyday work you mentioned but if you don't, the concern you have about cost of leftovers will not be an issue. You also have the upside to this that any you don't sell on the night you might get rid of through online orders so your wastage will be minimal.
I Pre print all my indoor function work and the amount we get left over is chicken feed.
Hell, for my school work, I preprint 3 8x12 for every kid. We get quite a few leftover but what we make on the immediate take home buys makes the cost of leftovers a complete non concern.

The other thing with doing the pre printed sales is you could also slip in some info about pre- orders for the next races you are attending. I'd push it as something like "Guaranteed priority coverage" for those that pre-order.
I have heard of a great business model where photographers were only photographing X number of competitors at an event. They had to sign up with a deposit in order to be photographed at all.

I managed to get a few at one event I did where I offered basically as many shots as I could get on disk for $100. It was a good move because even though we shot everyone, we would have lost our shirts on that event had it not been for the pre signups.

I'd definitely consider pre-printing and selling at the presentation though. I think it will be profitable at the event and go a long way to boost online and future event sales if you work it right and think smart.

So we have just finished our second triathlon. This time we made big improvements. First of all, we got rid of the on-site sales. It just doesn't make any sense for this type of event. Second, I got mobile Wifi so that we could upload throughout the day. Also, I have made a gallery for every participant and put all their pictures in. This makes it very quick and easy for them to see their pictures. We have added a few higher priced products, of which we have all ready sold one. After 24 hours of the gallery being finished, we have had 11 orders. It expect to get a steady flow of orders coming in for the next 30 days or so judging by the last tri we did. As soon as I had finished categorising the pictures into participant's galleries, I requested the event organiser make some contact with the participants with the web link. I am not sure what has been done, but there is a Twitter link on the event homepage. There will be a newsletter later this week and I will make some posts on the event Facebook page to get us noticed. I have also set up the gallery with a email registration requirement to see the images. This way I can contact the viewers later with any offers etc. The gallery can be viewed here: flamphotogallery.zenfolio.com/norseman

As this was a long event (10 hours first place, 20 hours last place), I set up our on-site uploading in a bus shelter. We were positioned on the roadside near the finish for the running shots, so the bus stop was ideal. I had a generator to power the laptop and charge the camera batteries, and we just uploaded as we went. It did take a couple more days to categorise the pictures though which is something we will look to improving in the future. Our next tri is in 10 days, so I think we will keep this operation set up. Lets see how the sales go in the next days.

Well done!
Sounds like you are quickly Fine tuning your setup.

If you are not going to always be able to get a place to set up, I'd suggest you look at getting one of those pop up gazebo's from ebay.
I got a 6x3M one and it's far exceeded my expectations. It was cheap as and the thing has done a load of outdoor events in blazing sun, pouring rain and gale force winds. The Winds it didn't like but the thing hasn't leaked a drop in the 2.5 years I have had the thing.

You can get them in 2.5x2.5M versions now which would be great for what you need. I'd just be real hesitant about not having my own shelter. If you do an event and it rains and there is nothing handy around, it could make things difficult.
Plus with your own gazebo, you can get some signage made to fit and use the thing as an advertising medium.

Another thing I have is the 1.8M folding plastic tables. I have the 1.8M long ones and the 1.8's that fold in half. They are great for putting in and out of a vehicle. With the gazebo, the table and a couple of cheap folding chairs, You can work in comfort and get stuff done.
For the times you are onsite, that sounds real important to me.

I have also spent quite a few nights sleeping with the family in my gazebo. They make awesome tents. If I continued on doing the distant events I was going to buy another gazebo the same and have one for the vstations and one for accommodation.

With your generator, an alternative is an inverter and a car battery.
A generator is complete overkill for what you are powering.
I made a " Box of volts" as I called it to run my computers and printers for T&I work. I got a plastic esky ( Ice box/ drinks cooler/ insulated box, whatever you might know them as) and put a good size car battery in it with the inverter and a powerboard. When I get onsite I take the inverter out and sit it on top of the box with the lid sideways so the battery can breathe and any gasses can escape. I pick the batteries up from wreckers ( when I don't have any on hand ) cheap and they last years even though they are used. Here a decent new battery is $150+. I get good used ones for 40-$50. I dont even buy new batteries for my car, haven't for years because the worst I got out of a used one was a year and I only paid $20 for that one anyway.

Inverters are cheap as. You would have heaps of reserve power with a 500W unit for what you are doing and have reserve to run lights, a full size computer, TV screen, printers etc. People will tell you that you have to have a pure sine way model or you'll ruin your equipment. That's absoloute poppycock. Almost anything with a power transformer conditions it's own supply and I have run Computers, laptops, chargers, Radios, routers and TV's for years on the cheaper Modified sine wave Inverters without a problem.

That said, the pure sine wave units are coming down a lot in price so if you can get one at a reasonable cost, they may be a bit more efficient but they are not an nessicity no matter what the well meaning but inexperienced with the things may say.
For running a laptop and chargers ( and even a printer and energy saving light) a decent 80-100Ah battery would last you all day and night.

The benifit of an inverter over a generator is generally they are lighter and more compact, you don't have the smell or worry of fuel when you carry them in the car, they make no noise or fumes, there is nothing to get hot and burn anything, including inquisitive kids and they are loads cheaper to buy.
I have several generators from a little camping one to a large and heavy diesel that will power a fairground but I prefer the batteries and inverters wherever I can use them.

Good luck with tri 3!

Such an improvement in the pictures of athletes over the first event.

This race seems to have a few things going for it to include the wrist marking of athlete numbers, athletes wearing their bib in the front on the run, and proper helmet stickers/bike stickers with their numbers for better indexing capabilities.

If you can just swing a camera at the Finish Line, that would really compliment the great work you've been able to achieve.

Can't wait to see your next events results....


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Yeah this race was impressive with it's numbering. I could hardly believe my eyes when the bikes started rolling past with about 5 visible numbers. It was because of this that we are now offering individual participant galleries. It is a lot of work to identify and categories the images, but when it is all done, with a quick email out to the participants, it is super efficient and the sales have so far been very positive. Going into this tri this weekend, I have all ready made all the 200 galleries, and will be uploading and categorising throughout the day. As they are uploaded, I will be able to sort them. Of course, when not shooting. But this job has about a 3 hour gap for us as they cycle over a mountain and them come back.

You are right about the pictures being better. We shot with some new gear. I have made a concious decision now to only shoot with the very best equipment. Quality pays. After all, these events are full of photographers and they have the best of evrything. The facebook pages for these events are loaded with great photography that is what the participants expect.

For the next one, we will shoot the finish line as well. The reason for not doing it on the last one, was that it was up a mountain at 1700 meters above sea level, and it would have affected the whole operation going up there. I was hoping to get a photographer to sell on commission who was up there, but so far no takers.

Actually on the next job, I will be shooting with two cameras simultaneously. One rigged on a tripod and cable release for a beautiful wide shot with a view, the other hand held shooting 85mm prime lens head on into the cyclists. I think I will be able to trigger with the left hand at the same time, but lets see

The more shots the better and now with online only, we can shoot a lot of coverage.

Latest event pictures: http://flamphotogallery.zenfolio.com/axtri

Posting this strictly as a reply to your thread title...

"..why yes, just this past Sunday to be exact". (I didn't shoot it but I'm the subject of the shot)

So is this the Tri you and your crew shot? What an amazing race...

http://youtu.be/L5N7R9Wbe_E


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We did AXTRI.no

Ok so an update on how we did...

This third tri was a lot smaller than the others, only 180 participants. Sales have been slow. The event had the feeling of being quite a small training event for the pro athletes so not the best for sales. But more importantly, the business model we are using now seems to be a lot better. With each participant having their own gallery they can find their images easily. We shoot as much as possible on prime lenses now because the quality is phenomenal. As we are putting online only, we are able to shoot many more images per participant. I found at the finish line I was shooting the entire sequence of 7 - 9 shots. I even had a second camera on a tripod which I also triggered to get the wide shots. Having so many shots means too things: 1) We can offer an enticing package of 'All Your Photos' for a nice price as they get so many; and 2) It is easier to identify the participant as we have a series of images to read the number off of them.

I also used two cameras on the bike shots. The remote trigger was working so I had to push the shutter manually with one hand on a tripod, and shoot the other camera hand held. This was great to get both front and back shots of the bikers.

Most of the larger races (WTC branded stuff) sell pre-paid photo packages as part of the race registration. Either Brightroom or FinisherPix does the shooting and for a set amount, usually about $90USD, registrants just add the line item to their on-line registration fees. This makes is a 'one-stop' shopping experience for the athlete to pay for a package they know will arrive and be of a quality they expect.

Couple of things come to mind with this approach.
1. The photographic organizations have built a good reputation, so the athletes won't be disappointed in the end product.

2. The on-line registration process with their checkbox to add the race images is soooo easy for the athlete to sign up (AND PAY!!!!) for images on the spot. They are already excited about the race (ie: getting ready to put money down) so why not grab part of that enthusiasm? This of course would require a good relationship between you and the race promoter/director to get that function added to registration. This approach also gives you a good listing of email addresses for follow-on emails on upcoming events, AND gives you an idea of what the workload will be like on race day. You won't focus your efforts on these individuals, rather, you'll have a good idea of what your revenues will be going into the event.

3. You are already lumping the athletes into individual folders, so from a technical perspective, all you need to do is write a small script that searches each athletes event folder number, zip the images into one file and email them to the athlete with a nice "Thank-you" note. For example, I received a couple emails on IRONMAN Mont-Tremblant that my images were shot, they were on their way and then they just showed up as a link to download the zip file that had them all in it. A nice thank-you was part of the email, in addition to a link to the "Lost and Found" section so I could look at the images which were not indexed and hopefully get some more added to the series.

Sounds like you're on your way to pinning this down.


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So great ideas there Scott. Thanks. I will give some though to that for next season. Now we are winding down for this summer, but hope to have some fresh new ideas for spring when we open again.

Originally Posted by Duderino So great ideas there Scott. Thanks. I will give some though to that for next season. Now we are winding down for this summer, but hope to have some fresh new ideas for spring when we open again.

The truly amazing part of the on-line registration/sign-up approach is, when ever do you have the opportunity to put your services in front of 100% of those in attendance? Talk about 'targeted marketing'. Wow.


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