My First Event ...I NEED HELP
marcoloffreda
Registered Users Posts: 5 Beginner grinner
In a couple weeks I will have my first large scale event. It is an all day cheer competition, roughly 1500-2000 participants. Ive been doing research for a couple weeks now and would love additional feedback. I haven't decided what lens to use on the D3X lighting is terrible, however Ill be about 15-25 feet away.
gear:
Nikon D3X - main camera
Nikon D7000 - group Stills
DNP Dye Sub SD40 - 5x7
DNP Dye Sub SD80 - 8x10
vstations:
I plan on setting up as many stations as possible (borrowing pcs/macs from friends)
My Plan:
I will be taking the action shots, another photographer will be doing the stills. After "X" amount of teams preform their routine we will have a runner take our memory cards. Each viewing station will display, store certain schools (a-f). Main computer, where printers are attached will store all photos. Before the event folders will be created of each school and team to make the transfer faster and easier.
we have 2 Nikon D7000 as back ups however no back up if printer failure.
For prints we decided on 5x7 - $12 8x10 - $15 (too much, too little)
In your opinion how many vstations should I set up, again roughly 1500 participants so 4000 parents/family members
Since this is being held at a large complex the seating will be all blacked out and spotlights on the performers, therefore I will be the only one able to take quality action shots
if there is any advice you can give me, things to plan for, or things I haven't considered it would be greatly appreciated
...I havent purchased the printers yet, but have been told DNP are the top
gear:
Nikon D3X - main camera
Nikon D7000 - group Stills
DNP Dye Sub SD40 - 5x7
DNP Dye Sub SD80 - 8x10
vstations:
I plan on setting up as many stations as possible (borrowing pcs/macs from friends)
My Plan:
I will be taking the action shots, another photographer will be doing the stills. After "X" amount of teams preform their routine we will have a runner take our memory cards. Each viewing station will display, store certain schools (a-f). Main computer, where printers are attached will store all photos. Before the event folders will be created of each school and team to make the transfer faster and easier.
we have 2 Nikon D7000 as back ups however no back up if printer failure.
For prints we decided on 5x7 - $12 8x10 - $15 (too much, too little)
In your opinion how many vstations should I set up, again roughly 1500 participants so 4000 parents/family members
Since this is being held at a large complex the seating will be all blacked out and spotlights on the performers, therefore I will be the only one able to take quality action shots
if there is any advice you can give me, things to plan for, or things I haven't considered it would be greatly appreciated
...I havent purchased the printers yet, but have been told DNP are the top
0
Comments
Where to start.....
First, you need more than one shooter on the floor especialy if they are going to use two mats and go from one to the other.
If they are pushing through that many competitors in one day they will be pumping them through and there is no way you are going to cover it with one shooter for that long.
Trust me, been there, done that.
Use a wider zoom on one cam and use something like a 70-200 on the other so you can pick off the individual pics and the flyers etc.
I'm a bog proponent of onsite printing but for an event like that and with your apparent lack of experience with events of this size, i would forget about it.
Use the people you were going to have printing on shooting. It's far more important to capture and sell the image than to deliver it which is all the printing is.
For an event that size, you NEED a minimum of 30 V stations and a proper server and switches to run them all. If you think your going to cobble up a dozen machines or so from friends and have them handle the load, forget that too and just do online. I have never run macs but running them with PC's sounds a bad idea to me.
You are going to have what is it ?, up to 20-25 kids coming off the floor every 2.5 -3 minutes. They will bring friends, parents, and other hangers on with them, many of whom will want to look at a station themselves and they won't be moving off in 3 min when the next group from a couple of routines back arrive to see their pics. even with 30 stations you are still not going to have any free and there will be some wait most likley. make sure whoever is watching the stations and helping people moves on the inevitable little pains of kids who want to take up a station merely for their entertainment. there will be plenty of them.
You do -NOT- want cues forming to see the pics because probably 50% of people will walk off and never order at all. If the numbers are going to be closer to 2000 than 1500, Myself i'd be looking to put on more than 30 stations, probably aim for 50.
Yeah, I know, you're reading this now saying to yourself " what?? 50 Vstations? guy is talking overkill BS". that's what I would have said before my first one as well but fortunately someone pointed things out to me and I listened and took 30 Vstations for a 1500 competitor, one day event. Now I take more and if you think the numbers I'm telling you are too much, come back and tell me AFTER the event what you think.
To get hold of that many machines, find somone that deals in used machines from offices and govt. departments. They will have pallett loads of them you can either rent as the prefered option or buy for next to nothing.
What comes to mind is, do you have a gallery/ ordering system you ( or your computer jockey ) is EXPERIENCED in?
If not, forget onsite now and do online. You CANNOT do an event of this size unless you know exactly what you are going to do and know the system inside out . One muckup and you are going to be stuffed for the entire event and there is NO catchup. EVER.
The pics need to be on the stations fast, you cannot muck up the name of the school or troupe, and the workflow from start to finish needs to be seemless.
Where is your server going to be where you store the pics and create the gallerys? If it's up the back behind the seating, I would run a network cable back there and download as you go with a couple of card readers with an automatic transfer/ hot folder setup on a computer on the edge of the dance floor near the judges and forget the runner. The shooters can download their own cards alternately between routines and put the runner on something more productive and profitable. I ran a cable over 100 meters at one event I did and had no problems at all. If you have to go further, just buy a cheap switch and use that to connect 2 cables and boost the signal as well.
I'd also like to know how many staff you are planing on unleashing on this event and what their roles will be. you will want at least 1 person assisting people with the vstations and ordering, someone to take the money, someone doing the galleries and running the server and 2 people shooting. then you'll need at least 1 person just to relieve the others while someone takes a bathroom/ drinks/ lunch break.
With the v stations, you will need tables Should be able to get them from the venue) power leads ( may need to be tagged) power boards, network cables, switches, Kb's and Mice, table cloths, anti trip mats for the cables and powerleads and a backup for the server/ workstation.
DO NOT try and run everything off an XP/win7 machine, it will end in grief.
You will also need a Credit card terminal if you don't have one already.
That's about the tip of the ice berg, fill us in on some more details so we can rattle you with the logistics of this some more!
If you don't agree with me then your wrong.
I can't be held accountable for what I say, I'm bipolar.
Printers... yes, I hear those are fantastic. If I go with more dye subs, those will be the ones I will go with, or some ink jets with a CIS- a whole different topic there. It would be smart to have 2 people working on the prints. Do you have event software you will be running to show the images? An event this size and this fast paced, you either need to have some event software running to handle the little things, or have 1 person to load and make sure everything goes just fine. Speaking of people, now you need another 2 people behind the desk to assist these parents with orders. They like their purchases to be as fast as the action on the floor. Now your up to a staff of at least 6-7 people.
Viewing stations.... oh the viewing stations. Yes, you CAN NOT have enough! 25-30 at a minimum, period. I don't think it would be a good idea to load teams A-F on some stations, G-?? on others and so on... Parents need and should be able to walk up to any station and see their team. Doing it the way you mentioned could lead to a huge backup if there are a ton of teams in the same area of the alphabet. Depending on how you have everything linked and what software you are running, mixing Macs and PCs might work. Be ready for the parents out there who don't realize that Macs are pretty easy to use and would rather wait for a PC to open up, causing more of backup. Do not give them keyboards, unless it is absolutely necessary to fill orders. Just one more thing for the large lemonades and slushies to destroy when they get dumped.
Test, test, test and do more testing... and then be ready for everything to fail.
Now I have only scraped the other half of that ice burg tip that Glort touched on. If you like shooting cheer, this can be fun (once you have gotten past the hours of testing, setup, dealing with the parents, chasing down the bugs in the system and being the last vendor out of the building while the arena staff wait for you to clean up....). Good Luck with this, make sure you post some of your images or a link to your site, love to see some good cheer shots! There are others on this forum who might chime in that we can all learn from too....
Good Luck
Lance.
photogs: so the stage is where the university of Pittsburgh basketball team plays, and they split the court in half, 1 side is the actual competition and the other is just a practice area. We were going to set up someone up in the practice area to take team shots and any still shots individuals would like (pics with friends etc)
crew: I will have 3 photogs, 1 running the printer, 2 runners, 5-7 helpers, 2 cashier, and 1 guy overseeing everything.
software: I’m still researching....The guy who’s selling me the printers is telling me "express digital darkroom" and "5 min photo". I’ve also been looking at adobe light room. At the end of the day I just the easiest any strong recs?
viewing stations: theres no way I can get 25-50 vstations, its just not possible , i mean I would love to i just cant considering I will already be investing 6-7k and just dont have room in the budget. I will likely have 10 viewing stations all connected together. I know it sucks I can’t have more but there’s nothing I can do
we have also decided that we are only going to be printing 8x10 just to make it easier on us.
I know its best to accept credit cards but since there are atms everywhere in the arena could I get away with only cash?
The reason I think no one eles will be getting the shots I will is because security does not allow anyone on the floor, so I will be 10-15 ft away while parents would be around 30-50 ft away.
www.jonbakerphotography.com
To put this as plainly as I can, If you stick with your current plan, you are going to crash and burn BADLY and Loose a lot of money in addition to upsetting a lot of people and ruining your reputation with this organisation.
What the Heck are 5-7 helpers and 2 cashiers going to be doing when you only have "likley"10 Vstations??? When you say " Likley" I also get the feeling that this translates to "Hopefully " and there is a reasonable chance you will have less.
You are saying that out of the 1500- 4000 people there, 10% have to order 1 print. This means either 150 to 400 people are going to have view the images and select what they want to ORDER a print. At 10 Vstations, lets say you have to have 2500 people view the pics which is 250 people per station. I'm guessing the event would have to go 12 hours or so to pump that amount of people through but we'll call it 12 for best case scenario.
That's 20 people per station per hour or 3 min per person to look through all the pics and make their order. Even if you go best case again and call it 10 people per station per hour, that's still 6 min each.
NOT going to happen in a million years in my experience!
Maybe other people have better and more efficent systems than I do and I'd like to hear other peoples estimations but in mine, there is no way in hell you will pump them through that quick.
Of course of Murphys comes into it which is highly likley given the machines you will be using, say you get down to 8 machines, I don't even need to calculate the numbers to know how hopeless that is.
Your PRIORITY right now should be getting Vstations above and beyond all else.
If you can't get 30 stations on the floor, then make things easy and profitable for yourself and do online sales only and spare yourself the grief you are headiong for with your current strategy.
I run 12 Vstations on events of 100 people and have i printer and one helper/ runner/ cashier and that is adequate. Doing events of 1500 with 30 stations I still only had 1 cashier and one helper. You are creating a ridicilous bottle neck with only 10 stations and if you think you are going to pump enough people through 10 stations to need 2 cashiers, you are sadly mistaken. Hammy runns 100+ Vstations and has 1 cashier, his 12 yo Daughter!
FORGET the printing and buying Printers.
You NEED absoloutley to put more vsations on and concerntrate on how you can get them. Like I said find someone that deals in used machines and rent them for the day.
If you are doing onsite only, EVERYTHING else is hinged on the clients seeing their images on those stations. If you are doing online as well, then you do not need to print onsite, and you sure as heck don't need 5 helpers and 2 cashiers and someone running it.
I can only assume a large amount of the $5K you are saying you have invested in this is staff which is a very poor investment IMHO.
Cut the staff and get those Vstations in there! This cannot be emphasised enough.
If you are planning on putting the images online and are convinced you cannot get any more Vstations, then just do teh online only and all you will need is the 3 shooters and you will make some money.
With your current plan, Like I said, You WILL make a significant loss and alienate yourself to this organisation and their participants.
You came here asking for advise, you have been told by those whom have done it what the deal is, From here it's up to you to either change your plan and make it work the way you want or stick to your current plan which i'm afraid to say is a perfect blueprint for a dissapointing failure.
I know where you can get 20 viewing stations.....just saying....
As a cheer parent, if I saw 8x10 as the only size available, I would just walk away. I still would not be surprised to see parents getting good shots. I have covered events in arenas where college teams play basketball, the only one with floor access and still seen other parents get some good shots. Heck, I am one of those parents! When my daughter competes and I am not the hired photog, I still get my shots. And yes, my wife will buy one or two if the hired photog gets one she likes....
You need, NEED to take credit cards. If you tell a customer to "walk over to that atm over there...", they might just spend that money they took out at the t-shirt booth, the cheer jewelry booth, the ???? booth... Never let a sale walk away! There are so many ways to take credit cards now.
I agree, drop the printing and just go for taking the orders onsite and online. If you aren't printing, you can get away with 2 people taking orders and 1 card runner and 1 loader behind the desk. That is how many we run with and when not printing onsite, that is plenty. If you ask them, they will say they need more help... but my wife loves to watch the bottom line and she says that works for her.
The booth with the monitor is a good idea and I would also be getting flyers printed with your web address and getting those out to everyone you can. See if they can be given out at the door or you can put them on the seats, leave them at the canteen or anywhere else you can to get them into as many peoples hands as possible.
I would have example prints at the booth from the smallest to the largest composite poster you are going to have and i'd also try to get creative with your marketing and offer packages or bonuses for early bird orders in the first 3 days after the event etc to give the people a reason to buy NOW.
I would also see if you can get the organisers to give your regular plugs on the PA and mention your earlybird offer/ savings whatever.
It does work and make a difference.