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Archive 2014 · On-site Printing at sporting events

  
 
ShotByTom
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I am going to be selling prints on-site at football and baseball tournaments. I'm curious about what size prints do people who do this sell the most of.


Aug 08, 2014 at 11:20 AM
P Alesse
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · On-site Printing at sporting events


5 x 7


Aug 08, 2014 at 06:55 PM
glort
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · On-site Printing at sporting events



I did equine and only offered 8x12 but would do 2 5x7 or 6x8 on the same sheet for the same price, $30.

How are you going to sell the images? Viewstations?



Aug 09, 2014 at 03:33 AM
Frank Lauri
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I've had the best success with 5x7's also. This wasn't with printing on-site...I was doing a tournament and printed them afterwards and brought them the next day. I'm not set up for viewing stations and printing on site but I can see where others are doing well with this set-up who do provide this service. But it all has to do with the area and the relevance of the event. In my area....tournaments would definitely trump regular season games for sales.

I was doing this tournament for years and always posted images on line for purchase. Last year I changed it up and still offered them on-line....but showed up with them as 4x6 and 5x7's and it was very successful. I wish I had an assistant to handle the sales because I had to do it all in the 15-20 minute intervals between games. I'm also readjusting my packages and pricing and eliminating 4x6's.

Good luck with your sales.

Frank



Aug 09, 2014 at 07:30 AM
ShotByTom
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I'll be using a MB Air to process orders and iPads for viewing.



Aug 09, 2014 at 01:37 PM
ShotByTom
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · On-site Printing at sporting events


What printers are everyone using?


Aug 09, 2014 at 04:27 PM
John Patrick
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · On-site Printing at sporting events


WHCC. Gotta love $0.42 5x7s!

John



Aug 09, 2014 at 05:45 PM
glort
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · On-site Printing at sporting events



Canon Inkjets with Bulk ink systems pooled 3 in a group.



Aug 10, 2014 at 02:43 AM
Frank Lauri
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I use a Canon Pro 9000 Mark II which is a few years old but still does a very nice job.....average approx. $0.38 per 5x7. I use Red River paper products and don't use it to print on site of the events.....all printing is done in the office.

This model has been discontinued and I believe it was replaced by the Canon PIXMA PRO-10 Wireless Professional Inkjet Photo Printer and according to the B&H website....they are offering a $300 rebate on it until 8/30/14.


Frank



Aug 10, 2014 at 08:05 AM
P Alesse
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · On-site Printing at sporting events


DNP DS-40. Beautiful prints. Be careful with ink jet printers, they can be considerably slower than dye sub and if you are printing on-site, you don't need your biggest bottleneck in the sales area. Dye-sub prints are more durable too.


Aug 10, 2014 at 09:25 AM
glort
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · On-site Printing at sporting events


P Alesse wrote:
Be careful with ink jet printers, they can be considerably slower than dye sub and if you are printing on-site, you don't need your biggest bottleneck in the sales area.


This can be a disadvantage of Inkers but it is easily and cheaply over come.
Use multiple printers.

Depending on the event I can use 3-6 machines in one or too pools. Pooling is built into windows and allows multipole printers of the same model to act like one or a single cue for multiple machines.

If say you have 3 machines and send 3 prints to be printed, each machine will take on a print so they all come out at the same time. In effect you get 3 prints in the same time it takes for one. In the case of my machines, about 25 Sec for 5x7. If I have A4's, it's 3 prints in 55 sec which is hard even for most dye subs to keep up with.

Here Dye subs are over $1000 ea. The Canon inkers I use are under $150 so you can have speed and backup redundancy and still at a lower cost.
The other things I considered was media cost and availability. Here Dye subs are way more expensive per print. I looked last year and one brand that was reccomended was nearly $2 per 5x7.
The other thing is availability of media. With Inkers you can get paper and ink from any office supply store and can shop for bargains and specials. With dye subs the availability of media is much more limited and a lot of places only get it in on order. If you find yourself running short at a gig on sunday lunchtime, good luck in getting another roll.

One thing I love about my inkers is the Bulk ink tanks I have set them up with. Takes the cost of ink for me from about a $1 to around 5 cents. I can do over 500 A4's before I have to refil ink. Yeah, lots of people that haven't used them crap on about the ink being no good and damaging the printers, I have not yet seen a single person who did use one give first hand evidence of that though.

It's a very old argument the Dye Vs. Inkers one but at the end of the day neither is perfect. Dust is a killer for dye subs where inkers just don't care. There is media cost and speed, cost of equipment, the cost of having backups with dye subs, power consumption and so it goes.
No one thing suits everyone so best you do your homework and see what best suits you.





Aug 11, 2014 at 01:49 AM
Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I'm gonna go against the grain here.... I used to offer 5x7's. I got complaints from some folks that they'd rather have a 4x6 (Smaller size fit better into albums, scrap bookers liked the smaller size too).... That being said, I used to print on spec, fill binders... I normally went to Costco if they were nearby. On site, I use Mitsubishi 9550 for 4x6's & 5x7's; a Kodak 9810 for 8x10's & "sheets"... & the Canon 9000 mk II for 13x19 "mini posters". Don't do too many of these types of events now... I make more $$ with less time & drama with T&I....


Aug 13, 2014 at 06:25 PM
glort
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · On-site Printing at sporting events


Ralph Thompson wrote:
I'm gonna go against the grain here.... I used to offer 5x7's. I got complaints from some folks that they'd rather have a 4x6 (Smaller size fit better into albums, scrap bookers liked the smaller size too).... That being said, I used to print on spec, fill binders... I normally went to Costco if they were nearby. On site, I use Mitsubishi 9550 for 4x6's & 5x7's; a Kodak 9810 for 8x10's & "sheets"... & the Canon 9000 mk II for 13x19 "mini posters". Don't do too many of these types of events now... I make more $$ with
...Show more

The trouble with 6/4's ( AKA, Postage stamps) to me is 2 fold.

Firstly, nothing makes you images look more amateur like than a 6/4 print. You can have the best images in the world and as soon as you print them that small they loose so much detail and appeal.
They also equate exactly to what the clients are used to seeing their own pics like they get from wartmart and again, lowers the impact and percieved value. Nothing IMHO takes all the professional effort and skill out of a customers mind than to hand them a postcard.

The other issue with being small is you can't get nearly as much for your work.
The clients are used to a postage stamp costing 15C or whatever at costmart which makes it difficult for you to get any sort of decent price for them. Your fixed costs in doing the event are the same and the difference between printing costs of a 6/4 and something decent are not reflected in the sales price anyway. If you are having your prints made at a lab you might pay .50C for a postage stamp and .75C for a 5x7 but you can get easily get $15 for a 5x7 but few people even seem to sell postage stamps for $10.
I have NEVER sold 6/4's, I have a professional dislike of the size for these reasons but I can well see how trying to charge $10 for something I have seen specials for .10C is going to meet with resistance.

And oh yeah, heard all about educating the customer and all that baloney and it's the image your selling not the piece of paper. Ah huh, then someone show me how to sell 6/4s all day long at $30 like I get for my 8x12s then. Sizes DOES matter in the mind of the client and now shooter is going to change that no matter what lofty impractical ideas they have.

Doing 5x7's however changes the base and throws a lot of their objections out the window. I now do 6x8's for things like corporate events which cost me actually less than anything else because I cut 8x12 paper in half I get a fantastic deal on but the WOW factor 6x8's hold for the clients goes a long way and I can get $15 a lot easier or bump the price to $20 at some events and get it no problems.


Clients will always ask for psotage stamps and I got that all the time as well. I really believe the main reason is people want them is to get more prints cheaper. I have read where people have put this to the test and offered 6/4 and 5/7 at the same price and sold the 5x7's 50:1 against the postage stamps. That really puts it in perspective for me and totally agrees with my own thoughts and experience.

While it is a good thing to give your clients what they want, sometimes it's just not a good business decision.

Despite the old consumer BS " I would have bought more if they weren't so expensive" that's total and utter rubbish. People mostly have a budget of what they are comfortable spending. They will spend to that limit and thats it. What they are really saying is " I want to get more for my money": but the kicker is also, " If I can get what I want for less, so much better".

I'd say at least 90% of people I have read about on forums undercharge for their action/ onsite work. Frankly it often does my head in and completely removes any understanding of why they even bother in the first place. If a person is charging $3-5 for a postage stamp or sometimes even $5 for a 5/7, they are absoloutley wasting their time and frankly are being ridicilous. There is no way to make any sort or remotely worthwhile money at those kind of prices yet they are the main sort of prices I see bandied around.

Lets say for arguments sake a person is charging $10 for a 6/4 and $15 for a 5x7.
The amount of EXTRA pics you are going to have to sell at an event over all to come close to the profit of just doing 5x7's will NEVER add up. If you take it a step further and do what I did and do 8x12s only, then again the numbers blow out even more.

A solid average day for action work for me was around a grand a day. That was comprised of prints and disks. The question would be if I did postage stamps, would I sell 4 times more to equal the amount of 8x12's I sold? And in reality, even though the postage stamps are 1/3rd the cost of the 8x12's I would at very least have to sell 4 times more to make anywhere near the same profit.

Firstly I'd have to edit that many exrtra images. We did basic levels and crops but it took time. secondly the print time is not proportional because the image going to the printer and the printer warming up etc is again a fixed not an image dependent time. Materials are not proportional either so 4 6/4 sheets would cost more even if ink use was the same.

Then I would I expect I'd get more customers so that's extra workload on the staff handling those orders, taking payment bagging them up when finished etc. So far everything is less appealing and profitable to offer that size. And there is still another thing.... Have I got 4+ times enough compelling shots that they will want to buy or are they still just going to pick one or 2 favourites and just get those?
And I haven't got to the biggest drawback and killer of the matter yet.

Time.

For what I did, we always got a huge bunrush at the end. I tried offering early bird specials and everything else but nothing worked. We even did events where the people would be sitting literally 12 feet in front of my tent waiting for 90 min for scores before giving the awards out after the comp was over and still few people came and looked at pics till the rush when it was over. I never got my head round that but it happened repeatedly at a whole range of different venues.

At the end of the events it was full on to get things done because everyone came at once and if people can't see and get their pics in a very timely manner, they simply leave and the sale is lost. Anyone that has done onsight knows this.
There is no way in hell that we would be able to suddenly do 3 times, let alone 4 or 5 times more prints in even probably double the time we did. Takes just as long to Find, edit, send a shot and not much less to print a 6/4 than it did an 8/12. The few sec print time is the only advantage. There may be a little time saving in multiple orders of postcards but that would be offset by more people ordering and all the fixed time that involves.

Now sure if you are doing Cheer or something where the traffic stream may be more spread out it may be different but still you are mainly going to have rushes of people coming at certain times and you are going to have to cope with that. You could put on more staff but then again you are shooting yourself in the foot with higher costs to get the same money.

I used to get people walking off saying they didn't have time to look now and wouldn't be able to buy seeing we didn't put them on the net. I had people tell me they were too big for scrap booking or their albums. I had all sorts of storys why people couldn't buy and every time I tried to cater to these complaints it cost ME money in lost sales and revenue.

When I said no, they won't be online, it's now or never, 95% of people not only found the time to look then, they looked far longer than average! When I said I can do 4x 6/4s on a page for $30 or 2 5x7's, they still bought the 8x12. I only sold one lot of 6/4s in 3.5 years and that was to put into a framed award certificates from the organiser.

The bottom line is no matter what you do you won't get every sale or every client. the trick I found was not to worry about trying to cater to everyones requests ( because that will leave you taking home about $100 a day IF you are real lucky) but to do what is going to make you the most money and lose you the least sales.

Sometimes you just have to say NO and stick to your guns for the sake of producing the most profitable return on your investment and time. Sure not everyone will be happy and you'll get complaints but that's just the way it goes. It's hard enough making money out of sports action, you can't afford to let anything reduce the returns you do got out of it.

Not trying to put anyone down that does do 6/4's rather just show reasons why they are are no where near as profitable as doing larger sizes and why it's not always a good idea to cater to what clients ask for.


As for doing T&I in favour of action, YEP! Mee too!
Sold my trailer and what I could of the onsite setup computers etc and trashed the rest. Got onto other things including T&I that Don't require me to leave home in the dark and get home after dark working 4 of us to a frazzle for $1000 a day...on a fair day. a Poor one saw us bring home 1/3rd of that and it happend more than once. Now I can work 3 hours to 1 day and make 3-5 times as much usualy with a fraction of the effort and only my wife and I taking it pretty easy.

I have a T&I coming up for one of the groups I used to do action for next month. 4th year on the trot.
We get there about 2 hours after we used to with what will rattle round in the back of the truck instead of having it loaded to the hilt and with a trailer behind. I work for about 30-60 min shooting Group and individual shots and Then pretty much sit on our butts drinking coffee and the complimentary food they keep us plied with while the parents come along and order and we print. I do a template for the group shot, add in the names and then batch print the orders with actions set up in PS that require one button press and they drop out the printers. By lunchtime we are all sitting in the sun chatting and socialising and then amble around packing things up in a very leisurely fashion.

And the thing is I earn a couple of hundred bucks MORE doing that that we did busting our chops with the the action work.
Thank heavens I got smart eventually!





Aug 14, 2014 at 02:11 AM
pokemanyz
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · On-site Printing at sporting events


Nice write up glort.
Thanks for taking the time to do it.



Aug 14, 2014 at 07:40 AM
glort
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · On-site Printing at sporting events



Glad you got something out of it and it didn't put you to sleep!



Aug 14, 2014 at 08:58 AM
markedman
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · On-site Printing at sporting events


I did onsite printing for about 6 years using dye subs. Because the technology was new to many it was VERY successful. It is the 'hot" sale. Where you can sell them while they are excited about the event.
However now that there is no longer the fear of online purchase the market has changed considerably. Now my clients would rather do it from home.
I know there are photographers that will not post online and hold everyone hostage at the event to purchase. But if you do that there better be plenty of equipment and manpower to handle the rush at the end. I understand their motive. But I think that is bad PR.
Anyway if you do onsite printing time is the enemy. Keep the choices simple.
I did 5X7 and 8X10. That's it . Chocolate or vanilla. The more choices the more time used to decide. There should be a "super" product like
a poster ( delivered later ) on display for those few who have the bigger budget. Also consider a show special - "buy two get one free" or a CD package.
If you can notify the people before the event that there is a pre-event registration special. Perhaps with an announcement.
Sign up with deposit and get a discount or free print.
I do $20 deposit will get you $30 credit.
Deposits will ALWAYS separate the "window " shoppers from the buyers. And don't under value your efforts ! You are there to MAKE MONEY!
Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.
Good shooting.
Mark



Aug 16, 2014 at 07:47 AM
glort
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · On-site Printing at sporting events


markedman wrote:
I did onsite printing for about 6 years using dye subs. Because the technology was new to many it was VERY successful. It is the 'hot" sale. Where you can sell them while they are excited about the event.


I think these are noteworthy Points.
Some years back being able to buy onsite was an experience in itself and I think people enjoyed the Novelty of that alone and it probably motivated w worth while number of people to buy. Now I think in some circles, the novelty has faded because they have seen it before and it's not such a big deal.

That said, in some events I do it IS still a surprise and also I think once people have had a few glasses of their favourite drop, are feeling good and enjoying themselves, they are more motivated to buy then than they would be tomorrow when they are getting over the effects of too much good time and the impression of the night is forever thereafter not what it was at the time.



However now that there is no longer the fear of online purchase the market has changed considerably. Now my clients would rather do it from home.
I know there are photographers that will not post online and hold everyone hostage at the event to purchase.


I had to laugh at the "Hold everyone hostage" remark. You make it sound like they have a gun held to their head!
Holding them hostage wouldn't have worked for me. The hostages would have been kids and the parents would have probably paid me to keep the little buggers and then what would I do?
I'd be stuck with them and have to pay the parents at least triple to take them back!!!
No, that's a real bad Idea!

In my experience and many other people I have read of and spoken to, Onsite ordering if not even delivery outstrips online sales by huge margins. There are guy on here that have been doing sports and events for years and they have 30, 50 and over 100 Viewstations so they can get those onsite sales. These guys are the big players in the game. If they could make the same with online, I very much doubt they would have the huge amounts of equipment and go to the trouble of setting it up and hauling it round.
The reason they do is because at the end of the day they know its well and truly worth the trouble and effort to do so. It also seperates them from the 100 other people vying for the primier gigs that don't have that facility and just do online.

My conclusion after months of trialing online and putting in excess of 25K images on line and not getting a sale was that it was a really good way for people not to buy today and never spending their money. I think many had complete intentions to buy but life gets in the way and they forget and there is another thing next weekend they can look at pics from and so it goes. For what I did I think it was a great excuse to pacify the kids and get out of buying anything.

IF saying today or never is holding them hostage, OK, I'm fine with that. So were the clients that kept coming back, some every single event I did they were at.

But if you do that there better be plenty of equipment and manpower to handle the rush at the end. I understand their motive.

Absoloutley!
The first rule of onsite selling is you can never have too many V stations. You need the people to process things in a speedy fashion and you need the systems in place to make it work as well.
But that's part of the deal just like you need the right camera and lenses for the job. Nothing different there.

But I think that is bad PR.

Why?
You said earlier that it was the Hot sale and you can sell them while they are excited about the event.
It's absoloutley pointless to go to the trouble of having an onsite setup if you are going to push online. Some people do it but the online is not heavily promoted and it's mainly for getting the 2nd bite of the cherry to pick up the scraps of what's left in the deal. That may be worthwhile but its not what a person is smart to rely on.


Anyway if you do onsite printing time is the enemy. Keep the choices simple.
I did 5X7 and 8X10. That's it . Chocolate or vanilla. The more choices the more time used to decide. There should be a "super" product like
a poster ( delivered later ) on display for those few who have the bigger budget. Also consider a show special - "buy two get one free" or a CD package.


Absoloutley agree.
I did one size for sports, 8x12. You could have it bordered, mag cover or as a souvineer border with text. If someone asked, they could have 2 5x7 or 6x8's on the page. We offered posters. Didn't sell many but the ones we did sell were more along the lines of " Is that 20x30 the biggest you can do?
No, I can do them 4 times the size " Great, I'll take one, CC ok?.
We also did Cd's, multiple image packages, 1-5, 6-10, 10+ images on disk.


If you can notify the people before the event that there is a pre-event registration special. Perhaps with an announcement.

I think that is a great way of doing things, unfortunately, try hard as I may, I couldn't get people to wear it. I really wanted to go to a model of only registered Riders in my case, would be photographed. Couldn't make that fly either. I would have loved to but I juwst couldn't get it through to people. It was me either shoot and hope or don't bother going because no one has registered.

That said, I think its definately one of the smarter ways to go.


Sign up with deposit and get a discount or free print.
I do $20 deposit will get you $30 credit.
Deposits will ALWAYS separate the "window " shoppers from the buyers. And don't under value your efforts !


I tried that with the online sales. Get more than what you pay for. Pushed it every way I knew how, Nada. Also to try and spread the late rush with the onsite, I tried early bird specials. At least 50% of the participants I photographed were done by 1PM but had to hang around till 4 or 5. You reckon I could get them to come see the pics before the very end even when they knew There would be no more pics taken of them?
Nope! Maybe we had 5 people in the 6 months or so I tried it. we gave out pamphlets, had 6 sandwich boards signs in all the places... nope.

I have to say I really get the impression my audience were exceptional in their resistance to new ideas. I consider myself half a chance as a marketer but these people just didn't respond to anything I tried really. Offered Video clips, that was a failure ( although I did get a few but still a failure) tried remote cameras and only one of those worked being a very low angle of a horse jump, and a bunch of other things that just didn't fly. Asked people what they thought of the ideas beforehand, yep, great idea but apparently not greater than just a print or pic on CD...


You are there to MAKE MONEY!
Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.
Good shooting.
Mark


Yep, and holding them hostage on the day was what made me the most money by far.
There is no perfect soloution. Whatever you come up with they will want something different.
Wether you do onsite or online, You'll loose sales even if you do both which was what I tried.
I found that I lost FAR less sales by doing onsite only.
It was funny after I stopped it and people would give me reasons and excuse they couldn't buy and a few even made a scene of walking off without looking but I knew from proven experience that online killed my profits stone dead.

So I lost 1,2 or 10 sales doing onsite only. I knew that I made another 25 though I would have lost with online so that was what I went with. The model that gave me the most money.

I think like anything people have to test their market and see what works for them. Online was a failure for me and it's way behind the profitability a lot of other people realise with onsite as well.






Aug 17, 2014 at 12:35 AM
markedman
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · On-site Printing at sporting events


Agreed on site sales are best.
However I think it is unfair to have a "now or never" policy. What do you do if the buyer/parent aka "keeper of the cash" is not at the event?
My online sales are very strong. Perhaps in your market it is different. When I started there really was no model for success. Every event was an experiment. Some good , some not so good.
As for not posting online. I still think that unless you have enough equipment to handle a rush it is the only way to go. But that adds considerable dollars and time to your overhead. The bad PR happens when people have to wait 30 minutes to an hour to get their turn. I admit there may be a bit of a burnout factor with me. I just don't have the same enthusiasm to move all the equipment and set up shop anymore.
As for online why not compile an e-mail list of the contestants? That way you can keep in touch with the buyers and remind them of deadlines or sales.
There is no "right" way. As they say in the auto industry "your mileage may vary".
May the force be with you.



Aug 17, 2014 at 12:09 PM
thoneycutt
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · On-site Printing at sporting events


We currently print 3 sizes at our events. 5x7, 8x10 & 13x19. I have found that my best seller is an 8x10 print with 3 photos. In addition we also offer digital files and other products that can be shipped to the customer such as photo blankets, shirts, etc.. We run a total of 4 printers from our trailer. We use graphics from www.digitalphototemplates.com for our Express Digital software.

Terry



Aug 25, 2014 at 09:52 PM
P Alesse
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · On-site Printing at sporting events


Terry... long time, no see. Hope all is well.


Aug 26, 2014 at 08:02 AM
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