One tough day
In bed around 1:00am. Couldn't sleep since I was thinking about the basketball tournament all night. So I tossed and turned quite a bit. Come 5:00am, I definitely didn't want to get up. But I did. After the morning rituals I finally made it to the high school a little after 6:00. Maybe closer to 6:30. The first game started around 7:30 and games were about an hour long with ROUGHLY 10-15 minutes in between. I think half times were about 6 minutes, or less. The last game was over around 9:00pm and after equipment breakdown and loading the vehicles, it was 9:30pm.
Between two primary photographers (every period of every game) a secondary photographer (less than half the games) and two third string photographers (onr or two periods as needed) we all shot a total of 2650 pictures in 14 hours. If you average it per hour, it's significantly less than I shoot at a typical football game. Which is about 200 images per hour for an average total per game of 600 images and as high as 1200. If I shoot all three youth teams that's normally about 1200 for a day. Soccer is about half of that if I am shooting a single game.
Neither of us has ever shot an EVENT like this. So it's a HUGE learning experience. When we asked each other around mid day, neither of us was willing to do this again. Mostly because the money just isn't there for us. Lots of people were looking, but no one was handing over cash for pictures. They all loved them, b ut they just didn't buy.
I know one reason is because we didn't have anyone PUSHING the sales side of things. The images are salable. Our "clerks" were more to keep things form walking off, answering questions, and getting the pictures copied from one machine to the others.
Sporting events are driven by impulse sales. You have to sell, sell, sell. There's no doubt that there will be orders. Here our the numbers as I saw them.
3 games on Thurs 2/21
11 games on Sat 2/23
Some repeat teams. IE, they payed on Thurs and Sat and a few played twice on Sat.
Let's assume there are 20 teams.
Average number of players per team is 9.
180 players
I saw on average, 4 viewers at the end of every game (out of a possible maximum 18 for the day). That means to me, that there was less than 50% of the people viewing the images.
Looking at the rule rather than the exception also means that only 1 of 10 will order pictures. It's actually less than that, but I don't want to do the math right now.
So, out of the 44 viewers ( 4 viewers per 11 games) only 4 will order. If you get an average of $50 per order, we will only get $200 for the day on Saturday. Divide that by 5, means $40 per person for the day for 15 hours of work. That is incredibly disappointing.
I know the weaknesses of the situation, but the guy I am helping out just isn't an "event" type of a photographer. I also know "about" photographers that will bring in 10, 20 or 50 thousand dollars in an event.
Between two primary photographers (every period of every game) a secondary photographer (less than half the games) and two third string photographers (onr or two periods as needed) we all shot a total of 2650 pictures in 14 hours. If you average it per hour, it's significantly less than I shoot at a typical football game. Which is about 200 images per hour for an average total per game of 600 images and as high as 1200. If I shoot all three youth teams that's normally about 1200 for a day. Soccer is about half of that if I am shooting a single game.
Neither of us has ever shot an EVENT like this. So it's a HUGE learning experience. When we asked each other around mid day, neither of us was willing to do this again. Mostly because the money just isn't there for us. Lots of people were looking, but no one was handing over cash for pictures. They all loved them, b ut they just didn't buy.
I know one reason is because we didn't have anyone PUSHING the sales side of things. The images are salable. Our "clerks" were more to keep things form walking off, answering questions, and getting the pictures copied from one machine to the others.
Sporting events are driven by impulse sales. You have to sell, sell, sell. There's no doubt that there will be orders. Here our the numbers as I saw them.
3 games on Thurs 2/21
11 games on Sat 2/23
Some repeat teams. IE, they payed on Thurs and Sat and a few played twice on Sat.
Let's assume there are 20 teams.
Average number of players per team is 9.
180 players
I saw on average, 4 viewers at the end of every game (out of a possible maximum 18 for the day). That means to me, that there was less than 50% of the people viewing the images.
Looking at the rule rather than the exception also means that only 1 of 10 will order pictures. It's actually less than that, but I don't want to do the math right now.
So, out of the 44 viewers ( 4 viewers per 11 games) only 4 will order. If you get an average of $50 per order, we will only get $200 for the day on Saturday. Divide that by 5, means $40 per person for the day for 15 hours of work. That is incredibly disappointing.
I know the weaknesses of the situation, but the guy I am helping out just isn't an "event" type of a photographer. I also know "about" photographers that will bring in 10, 20 or 50 thousand dollars in an event.
posted by Brent Rust at
11:34 PM
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