Last September we decided to participate in this years Bridal Festival. It worked better than we could have ever imagined! We put 2 complete high end wedding packages on each cocktail table. We had a 12x12 and a 10x10 storybook album from 2 different weddings we shot from last year. We discovered something pretty funny about the books when it came to attracting brides: they came in substantially more often and in greater volume when they were left on pages with bright red and pink photos. At some point we started calling them "hummingbird feeders".
We had several people sit on the love seat and look at the albums! The fact that you could walk into our booth to look around and get out of the traffic set us completely apart from nearly all of the others too.
Overview of the show:
- $1100 booth fee
- $600 in prints
- $1300 in albums and parent books
- $500 in miscellaneous other booth goodies (carpet, couch, table, linen rentals, etc.)
- 6 weddings booked at the show
- 1 senior session booked, also at the show
wow! nice! We did ours sunday and all they would let us have is the 5 foot table they set out. I love the couch, great Idea as many are tired from all the walking... nice to relax and shows that your in touch with their needs. add a water cooler or wine... some cheese... lol
$3500 invested for 6 weddings and a senior session, not a bad profit. Especially since the prints and albums and doodads can be reused at the next show.
I have mixed feelings about spending money on a booth at bridal shows myself.
Wow, congrats! Actually, you can still use a lot of those materials when you meet with clients. I can see myself spending about $1k on albums, prints, and other things just for client meetings, so I think you did really well.
A few other notes for those curious:
- Get as big of prints as possible. The largest size you see in the photos is 20x30, and they look tiny. The smallest size you see are 11x14.
- Carpet is very, very nice for your own use when tending the booth all day. It's much easier on the feet than concrete.
- Getting placed next to vendors you like makes all the difference in the world too. One of our favorite DJs was across from us.
- We would not go with anything smaller than a double-booth.
- Watch your samples. People will walk off with them. We lost one of the sample slideshow cases/DVDs this way. They'll be in for a surprise when they find out the disk was empty and it's just a show sample though.
- About 30% of brides registered at the show took something. Most of those that stopped in the booth took something though.
Thank you all for the positive comments! Ryan and I are thrilled on how the booth turned out.
Just a thought for those who are participating at an upcoming bridal fair. Dress as if you were going to a job interview. That's what you are doing, applying for a job. We both wore black dress pants and shoes, I wore a blouse and Ryan a dress shirt. There were other vendors wearing sweatshirts, and one was wearing a bright orange hunters hat...(not kidding!) They were being avoided by potential clients.
We "asked" people passing through if they would like a brochure and price list. We did not push anything, and just let them come to us with questions. It worked wonders!
You did great. I spent about the same last year with 6 wedding albums, wall portraits, chairs to sit in etc.Dressed to impress (I always wear suits) with 2 assistants to keep up with the questions. Rave reviews from photographers and vendors but to this day not one sale.....nothing. Walked out that evening thinking it was the best show I had even done. Looking back it was the worst being the only one without onsite or after show sales.
If you find what works leave it alone and use it over again.
Looks great! We thought about doing a show this year, but we just started and want to spend the money in different areas. But I am bookmarking this thread to use for next year when we want to do one.
Awesome!!!! Don't get discouraged if, when you raise your prices, you stop booking AT the bridal shows. This is what happened with us. While we were low (under $2500), we would book while there... but once we hit where our lowest package was $3000, there was a drastic drop off in immediate response... but that's because we were in a different bridal bracket. We still booked as many as before, just three to five weeks down the road, as these people tend to THINK more about where their money is going, and not just looking for the lowest price with the best look.
