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Cheer event: What to offer?
Glort
Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
Looks like I have hooked my first cheerleading event which will be about 1000 kids. Now I understand most shooters in the US probably wouldn't be bothered with something that small but it is the biggest state championship in the country here and about 4 times bigger than anything else I have done so far.
The organisers are asking about the pricing I have initially given them and shown me the prices from the shooters that do their other events.
So far i have only offered A4 prints for the majority of work we have done which is equine and Motorsports.
The organisers are concerned that my entry level price of $30 for this size is too high and asking about smaller size/ cheaper prints.
What I'm wondering is, for those that have done Cheer, what is the best selling products and do people at cheer events tend to buy multiple (smaller) prints or prefer larger ones like A4's and collages/ posters?
I have not done cheer before so have yet to figure out how it even works as in do the competitors only do the one routine or several different ones and/ or wear multiple costumes?
If they are doing more than one routine, would it be safe to assume they are at least likley to buy multiple prints, one of each routine say or do they only tend to buy 1 they like best?
Also, does any one have an average hit rate of competitors to sales?
For equine for instance, I can pretty much work ( give or take) on making sales to 20% of the competitors.
The previous shooter has offered 6x8's @ $10 whereas I'm thinking of offering 6x8's or 5x7" ( depending on what paper I can source) at $15.
As I have yet to have a price complaint @ $30 with the equine for A4 ( I know, higher entry price to play the game) would it be reasonable to work on selling 50 or 100% of competitors (on average) a print at the lower price?
I will also be offering CD's at my normal rate which works out substantially cheaper than the other guy so they may be a hot property.
I am wondering about offering the Team shots on disk as I notice the other guys don't.
The organisers are asking about the pricing I have initially given them and shown me the prices from the shooters that do their other events.
So far i have only offered A4 prints for the majority of work we have done which is equine and Motorsports.
The organisers are concerned that my entry level price of $30 for this size is too high and asking about smaller size/ cheaper prints.
What I'm wondering is, for those that have done Cheer, what is the best selling products and do people at cheer events tend to buy multiple (smaller) prints or prefer larger ones like A4's and collages/ posters?
I have not done cheer before so have yet to figure out how it even works as in do the competitors only do the one routine or several different ones and/ or wear multiple costumes?
If they are doing more than one routine, would it be safe to assume they are at least likley to buy multiple prints, one of each routine say or do they only tend to buy 1 they like best?
Also, does any one have an average hit rate of competitors to sales?
For equine for instance, I can pretty much work ( give or take) on making sales to 20% of the competitors.
The previous shooter has offered 6x8's @ $10 whereas I'm thinking of offering 6x8's or 5x7" ( depending on what paper I can source) at $15.
As I have yet to have a price complaint @ $30 with the equine for A4 ( I know, higher entry price to play the game) would it be reasonable to work on selling 50 or 100% of competitors (on average) a print at the lower price?
I will also be offering CD's at my normal rate which works out substantially cheaper than the other guy so they may be a hot property.
I am wondering about offering the Team shots on disk as I notice the other guys don't.
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Comments
I would want to know why the last guy isn't dong the event this year.
Next it always good to offer what the clients want and the competition doesn't.
Good luck!
Sam
Thank you Sam.
The basic reason the other shooters are not covering it is location.
Unlike shooters in the US, it doesn't seem there are many/any people really committed to event work and prepared to travel.
People doing onsite printing or even onsite ordering are also pretty rare here and running 10-16 Vstations, I'm the biggest I know of anywhere here as insignificant in comparison to US shooters as I am.
I think that is also a lot of what I do the others don't, onsite. It's a big wow factor here as 99% of others doing this kind of work are all doing online.
There is an old couple that cover the Equine stuff taking their Caravan around with them between a couple of states complete with 1 ( yes, that many, ONE) vstation but I don't think that's going to cut a 1000 competitor event.
There is a guy in another state that says on his site ( that does not appear to have been updated for a significant time) he has a trailer with 30 Vstations but I have yet to see or hear of any event he has actually covered with the trailer and the few on his site all seem to be online selling.
I don't know what a good ratio of Vstations to competitors is but I think i may go to around 40 stations for this event. I know a guy that deals in used machines and I reckon I could hire a bunch for the weekend off him with no trouble. Might even see about laptops.
As I run Jalbum, I wouldn't need to have anything on them other than the basic XP.
There are a few more of these events interstate so if this one works out as I hope, I'll definitely be interested in covering these as well.
I'll happily be the guy that travels to cover them!
There appears to be several folks in this thread that shoot 'some' cheer.
Since Cheer is considered a sport, you might try the Sport forums?
And Glort, Seems to be a modicum of shooters spouting off about their techniques and sales, just google: "Shooting Cheer Events and Selling", sans quotes.
Good luck!
As far as prints, many of the parents will only buy the cheapest prints you offer or the cheapest package. For this reason, I am seriously considering dropping the 4x6 print and making my smallest print a 5x7. Pricing is always a tough subject as I have found it can vary alot by the location you are in. I have not sat down yet to figure out what percentage of particpants/parents actually buy prints, but for those that do, we average about 4-5 prints per order. The photo cd of a team's performance is great, I have no one but myself for not selling more of those (poor marketing.... kicking myself daily for that one!) As far as people just looking and "I will just order online".... only about 15% of those people really do. If I recall, you don't offer anything online after the event, which might work for you there...???? With 1000 competitors, not sure how profitable this will be for you, depending on how far you have to travel, how much staff you have, etc. Also, the parents may have very different spending habits for cheer there.
Good Luck, I hope I have answered some of your questions, I love shooting cheer (thanks to my daughter...lol) and could talk about it all day, but I won't ramble on. When is the event? Please be sure to post some of your shots here and also your opinions on the experience.
Lance.
The organiser and I spoke yesterday and I have been officially given the Gig.
Luckily, this weekend another state chamionships is being held so I'm Jumping in the car and going up to see that and meet with the organisers and hopefully have a chat with the photographers up there.
The association has different shooters in each state that have all been covering the respective events about 5 years each but none so far are doing on site Viewing.
The stages I'll be shooting on are right next to each other so It will be possible for the same shooters to cover both and just move across to each one alternatively. I should also be able to put a computer in frot of the stages to download the cards on and run a network cable back to the main computer which will be a big help in ensureing things move along quickly.
The venue is the major sports hall in the state and we will be located upstaris where the entry/ exit is so everyone will have to pass by us to get in and out. That ought to be good for marketing.
There is some question over the space available for viewstations so I hope to be able to organise with the venue caretaker to go and check the place out later today or tomorrow.
I Don't normally offer Online ordering and I'm in a real Quandry as to whether i should this time round?
I'm always torn between missing some people on the day ( particularly if the Vstations back up) and givng them the opportunity of not ordering at all with the old " We'll look on the web when we get home" excuse.
I might talk to the very co-operative and personable organiser about not offering online at the event but sending out an email to the clubs afterwards.
The organiser has also asked me to prep something like a flyer they can email to the registrants to let them know we will be there and our prices etc as well as flyers they will give out on the day. From this angle it seems the marketing will be well covered.
I'm a little concerned Rocket by your comment of "not knowing how profitable this will be for you". At 1000+ ( seems more like 1100 now according to the organiser) kids, I'm thinking I should be able to AVERAGE 1 print sale per kid and to me, that's very profitable.
The venue is about 10 min away and I really can't see expenses other than actual product and postage being more than about a grand.
Now if there is something I am missing in my uneducated ignorance, please don't hesitate to point it out!
I have got my printing costs down to an almost unbelievealy low cost and i'm talking about 10-15 cents for an A4 print thanks to a very opportune by on some bulk photo paper and the CIS ink I use so postage will be the biggest cost in actualy delivering the product.
I'm thinking of going prepared to print onsite but not promoteing it. If we can get some prints into the crowd at the beggining then I think that may help sales. I will have someone on that seperate to the uploading and managing the Vstations but the printing will be a bonus and the lowest priority on the day.
It will be interesting to talk to the people at the other event this weekend and see if they are prepared to share what sort of sales they get. I think the onsite ordering will be a huge advantage over online and should add a significant boost to sales. I'm also thinking that because cheer is pretty limited here and this is a state event, i should be able to get orders out of the greater majority of competitors and experience in other ( non cheer) events has me thinking that they are most likely to be multiple orders or CD's.
Heres Hoping!
Here is what was going thru my mind when I wrote that.... So far I have only done local events where I only had to drive less than 2 hours to get to, 80% are within 20 minutes of my house. Therefore I didn't spend much in fuel or hotel costs. I don't have a large staff, usually just my family and a friend who is happy to help just so she can stay busy and only wants a few shots of her daughter for payment, and my second shooter...( the bulk of my staff pay goes to that person!). So it seems that you are in the same boat as far as travel expenses, low.
I had a really long response here, but after reading it a few times, realized I was way off from what I was picturing in my head. After reading this, I think I will go thru and see what percentage of participants bought prints at the events I covered, although it might be depressing for some. I guess what I was thinking about was some of the small shows I have done where I only pulled in about $400 in sales. Mostly my fault, but in the end, I still loved doing it. I have since had much better luck with sales and soon hope to be able to stop calling it good luck. Let's say you have your lowest price print at $15, with a 1:1, thats $15K, not a bad day of shooting... (is my math correct?) I have not printed onsite yet, and here I pay $1.58 for postage on a 5x7 photo and $2.34 on an 8x10 mailer. These are sturdy photo mailers with a protective sleeve over the photos. If you sold to half of the participants, if postage is the same as it is here, then I could see postage coming close to a grand, but I would think your costs would be lower.
If I knew more about the cheer world where you are, I likely wouldn't have made that comment. Things may be totally different there. Also, I have only been doing this for 2 yrs, at lower level events, I still have a lot to learn myself. I really look forward to seeing the outcome and how you view the experience of shooting cheer. I am also following this on the other site, listen to hammy! I hope I didn't steer this in a bad direction. Best of luck to you, I will be following this and hopefully can pick up some more knowledge as I press on!
Perhaps your comments were more on the money than what you realised.
I drove 1000Km on the weekend to an event the same association was putting on in another capital city to check it out. For a total of 30 hours Driving I spent 4 hours at the event but learned heaps and it was well worth going.
The event, despite being a state championship was not nearly as upmarket as i thought it would be and had a much lower " significance" to the competitors that what i imagined also.
I think my perception of one print per competitor on average was overly optimistic and maybe 25-50% will be closer to the mark.
That said, it's really hard to judge and I rather be conservative than disappointed.
I spoke to the shooter that was covering that event and the main thing I took from him was what not to do and a confidence that I'm on the right track.
IMHO his marketing was very lackluster and came across to me as he was there but not really doing a whole lot to encourage sales. I got a lot of ideas of how to push my pics better and also that I will have to work hard on this score as people won't be used to ordering off Vstations.
The guy there had 4 vstations that were really quite ineffective sales tools and i thought under utilised from his POV. He sells mainly online but thought that with 30 stations I would do well and not need to put the pics online.
I'm still in 2 minds about the onsite printing, i think i'll go set up to do it at least initially but if things get busy we'll put it on hold. I think it will be like most events, we'll be quiet 90% of the time and slammed at the end.
I might even use the onsite printing as a promo tool during the day, " go order now before XX o clock and you can take your prints home with you. "
I think My postage costs will be similar to yours but the thing I understand is that I will make money on creating and selling pics, not on the delivery.
As far as postage goes, thats a bit like my ambition to pay a million dollars are year tax. IF I get to that I'll be making so much damn money I won't give a fig. I actually hope my postage costs are a grand because if they are, I'll definitely be taking a very nice profit home with me.
Hammy has been a fantastic help to me since I got into this game over a year ago and everything he has said has been spot on. I wouldn't be in the game if it were not for his absoloutley invaluable help.
He's coming here for a few days in November and I can't wait to meet up with him and show him around the sights.
My biggest worry now is the lighting at the venue. Last weekend it was shocking and the other shooter did damn well to get anything I thought. I would have struggled greatly so I will be better prepared for that come my turn.
I have also put my hand up to cover another smaller event interstate for the same organisation which would have been great to cut my teeth on doing first but such is life.
That is 3 hours away but I think I should be able to cover costs easily enough and give the family a bit of a holiday even if we don't come home with bulging pockets.