New Event Setup

Glort

1

Rocketman766

I am interested in seeing the final intended setup. I don't do outdoor events (yet) so I don't currently have to deal with the weather. Are the printers and monitors in the trailer anchored down? Or do you store them for traveling? I am in the process of looking for a trailer right now, but only for transport. For power, are you just running a small generator?

I am still working on my own "portable" setup that will make the setup and takedown process much quicker and easier. My biggest obstacle is my wife. She doesn't see why I want to put more money into this when she THINKS people are happy with our set up.... I am still working on her to change her mind. In the meantime, I am just working on my images and trying to make them better to go along with my new setup.....

Snowgirl

Brilliant set-up. If I were doing outdoor events I'd be yanging for a trailer too - and my other half (hubby) would be the one gagging

Luckily, the one good thing about the venue I normally shoot at is that I have an 8 x 8 stall with a lockable door and access to power. The downside is that I'm usually alone which makes the selling side tough. I'm still not sure how I'm going to change that - but I have 4 weeks to the next major event (several smaller ones in between) so we'll see what I come up with.

I'm almost considering setting up right inside the arena itself - in the middle of the stadium seating. But, I'd have no way to secure my stuff. Hmmm.

Njordan

Glort,

What is your workflow? What software do you use to display the images? Are they put into specific galleries then the customer writes the image numbers down and hands you a slip? Do you fulfill everything on-site?

Sam

You could patent this. The Glortmobile!

Sam

Njordan

Glort wrote: »

Cards are downloaded through winXP explorer to a folder.
Image galleries are made through Jalbum which creates indexes and thumbnail pages in HTML Files.
Vstations run XP and IE explorer in Kiosk mode and are pointed to the Jalbum gallery.

For editing we use the Canon software that came with the printers (MP-630 with Ciss) for crop, sharpening and brightness-contrast which is all 95% of our images need and for mag covers and graphics editing we use CS4

The shooters (2-3) have small white boards and write the info on that ( ring, class, age, division etc) and shoot a few frames at the beginning of each comp. If there are only a few riders, 10 or less, we probably shoot more than one comp on a card. If there are over 20 riders in a comp, we may break the comp up over 2 cards or more especially early in the day.

Getting the indexing as specific as possible is the key to good customer throughput and sales. If they can't find their pics, they won't order them.

Orders are written on pads ( you can see in the first pic) with customer details and handed to my wife who checks them and gives them to my 14 yo son who does all the printing and burning of disks. We do 99.9 % of orders on site with rare exceptions being poster prints and slide shows.

Our products are all A4 prints in various layouts ( straight print, mag cover, titled) and Cd's. Only print size variation we offer ( occasionally to those who ask) is to put 2 5x7 on the one A4 sheet.
We don't stuff around with different print sizes and after 12 months doing this, can see more than ever that it is completely unnecessary.

I tried using shopping cart software when we began last year and it was a failure. The kids were fine with it, the parents were totally and utterly confused. The bottom line was it slowed Vstation turnover and made the clients feel awkward which is not conducive to sales.

My wife was only commenting yesterday how we have spaces on out forms for the orders but nearly everyone writes a list of numbers on the back either of the ones they want or the ones they like and then cross them off to narrow the selection down. I don't think they would find that as easy to do with software.


We don't put the images online. Tried it several times and am yet to get a single order from it. To me I think it just provides an excuse not to buy on the day and why go to the trouble of having a trailer setup if you can just pass out flyers and stick the pics online.
The reason for me is because every other event shooter out there is doing just that. I have had organisers I know of so far cancel other shooters for events and book us instead after seeing us at other events.

We get asked about putting pics online all the time and we tell the clients that if they want to write down the numbers of the prints and email us, we can email them proofs to look at when they get home. Said it 1000 times, been asked to do it twice so far. Then they couldn't decide so bought a CD anyway.

A woman on the weekend asked about online and when we said no, she said she had to travel a long way and didn't have time to look at the numbers . I said if she saw at us at another event we would have all the pics and I could put them up on a station for her to look at early in the day when she did have time. We discused events I'd be covering and she gave us a heads up on other events and said her club was organising a big one in August and if we would be prepared to travel the 90 min to cover it.
Said yes and she said book us in, here's my details, I'll email you closer to confirm details.

About 30 min later I saw her at the trailer giving my wife an order for 3 prints. She was talking to other parents about the pics not being online . The others said they thought this was much better because firstly they lost the web addys or forgot to go online later, when they did go online they could never see the pics properly being too small or watermarked and then they had to send cc details or a cheque and wait for the prints to arrive a week to a month later.

A number of people joined in the conversation and were very complimentary on being able to get the pics straight away which confirmed for the events -I- do, onsite is by far and away the most appealing system for -my- clients.
That's fine for me too because I much prefer to be all settled up at the end of the day than have to muck around finding images and deciphering what people have written down wrong when they aren't there to ask and then packaging prints up and posting them.

If I were doing 100 orders a day things would be different but for the market we are in atm, I'm happy with the overall approach and strategy and will just keep fine tuning it from here.




There is a scary thought!
Even for me!!!

Wow! Thanks for the very detailed explanation!

fredjclaus

Thanks so much for this information. I'm looking to put together a set up just like yours, but I have to be carefull on what I set up. Being that I drive a minivan, we can't pull too large of a trailer. I like the way yours is laid out. My wife even suggested we buy a new minivan with stow and go seating. That way at the event, we could put the main computer in the van itself and just work from there. Liminating the trailer. Has anyone tried that before? It doesn't look like you need a whole lot of room, but it does look like your trailer is a bit larger than my minivan.

Snowgirl

Glort wrote: »

How do you go about doing your selling Snow? Do you just wait till the riding is over and then man ( woman) your stall?

While we do 99% of our business after the events have finished, a lot of the time the people come and write out their orders between rides and then they just look at the last one before getting their prints or disk.

Only thing I could suggest is if you could find a 15 yo kid that you could pay minimum wages for minding the shot for a couple of hours or so before thing wrap up.

Your certainly doing it a lot harder than I am with your venue and not having family slave labour.

That is for sure. I need some slave labour to make it work. Relying on post orders does not work well and at the end of the show people are keen to get out and hit the OAS.

jbakerphoto

Glort wrote: »

If OAS is a Canadian term for " road", I agree entirely!

This is a problem I'm trying to address myself.
Last event I did I was stressing because hardly anyone came near the trailer all day then whoosh, EVERYONE was there all at once!
I realize while some people may not do their tests till late in the day and want to see all the images taken of them, others can have done all their rides before lunch so could have come hours before to see their pics.
But they don't.
My question is why and how can I encourage them to do so?

{\QUOTE]

I shot a cowboy mounted shooter competition this past weekend. I just started doing on site printing this year and I hired a more seasoned pro assistant to do the printing for me. (She is sorta a mentor and likes the more laid backness of printing for now!) Anyway, At the competition I looked over for about an hour and half to two hours and no one was over there. So finally some young girls came by and they liked some of the pictures so Marie was like if I give you each a print will you go show them off to everybody you see and not tell them that I gave them to you for free. Sure thing. 5 minutes later she had a crowd and it pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the day. Guess you just have to get them into the right hands. (They also came back and helped people find there pictures while marie was printing. )

Snowgirl

Glort wrote: »

Hi Jon,

I'm reluctant to give anything away or lower prices but I would like to think of a way to create an incentive for people to order earlier.
So far about Ll I can think of is some signs saying " Beat the Rush" but that doesn't seem to be a real strong motivator to anyone to break old habits.

What if you offered an incentive to order early such as - every order of $x or more (you do need a limit) placed before Y o'clock will receive a free..... (extra print, mag cover, bookmark - whatever)????

Snowgirl

Glort wrote: »

If OAS is a Canadian term for " road", I agree entirely!

Not exactly - still learning to type on a iPad!


All the dressage is coming up here now and while I find it as exciting as paint drying to shoot, it does also have the advantage of the riders having to wait to get their positions which is good for us.

PLUS their rides are scheduled (which is the reason I was pushing the pre-booking thing) - so it's easy for them to come and view in your situation. Maybe do some additional signage?

I think Snow your going to have to get your other half to come to the shows at least for a couple of hours before the end to show and sell the pics or teach him how to shoot!

Unfortunately, my other half works rotating shifts and most of the time isn't available to me - which means I'd have to hire someone.

I'm trying ANOTHER plan for next week's dressage show. I'll let you know if it works.