Hammy
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 p.2 #7 · Cheer event business model? | |
Allan,
You're kinda right, it's not really 'art' that we're capturing. It's a sport, a busy one at that where we have to get as many shots of as many competitors as we can in 2.5 minutes or less. But not just 'shots', we need photos that each competitor and parent can love of their child.
James,
24,000 x $10  I wish! But it doesn't quite work out to that. We only charge for one day's delivery, yet we provide disks for both days competition as well as the ICU competition: opening ceremonies, stunt groups and team shots also, VIP event, International Gala, Coaches party and some other awards ceremony that we covered last year.
JetMutant,
I'm pretty sure you were joking about the quality of shots. I hope so, because most of the rest of the crowd in this thread are squirrels that help me out. Come to think of it, I think that most of them I could blind fold and they would still provide amazing images!
Lurkers,
Just so that there is no misconception about the business aspects that Scott referred to: it's true that a good salesman can sell ice to an eskimo and get you're foot in the door, but like any real commerce item, there has to be VALUE in what you are providing. If our photos suck, then the customers would not value the price increase and the whole prospect would be very short lived.
As Luke mentioned, the economy is still on a downswing. Companies are doing anything they can to lower costs and increase revenue. I see alot of principles of each event we do there at the event setting up and running the show - to cut down on labor costs. And there are plenty of corners to cut and vendors to squeeze to get the most out of them.
For us, we've noticed the main issue being a history of quality: both in the images we provide as well as the customer service from before to after the sale. And those things take time to be noticed from customers and event producers. We were in business for about 7 years before we were able to land a gig with the event producer putting their price increase completely on our hands. But again, if there is a value there, then the customers appreciate it. It just takes time to earn the trust of event producers to know you can deliver what they are promising to their customers.
Adrian,
For Worlds, we provide viewstations, but this is at the event producers request - because that is what customers are used to. We did offer prints for sale at that first year and it turned out as we expected: barely made enough money to cover the cost of a cashier. Each year since, we have been running a minimum number of viewstations, with the intention of phasing them out soon ... maybe, they are still a great crowd pleaser and they stay occupied for most of the event.
While I'm not willing to open our books up yet, I'll let you know about our IPO when that happens. 
As far as putting on the web, that's a HUGE perk for our customers. Not just the ones that attended the event, but for their friends and extended family who can see the photos shortly after the event... certainly alot faster than it takes the disk to get copied and/or passed on. It also provides a more direct point of contact for customers who did not get a disc or had issues with thiers - which is rare, but seeing as my web server is located in my office with a 50Mbit fiber connection (up and down), it's only a small amount of disk space on our web server.
And as Luke mentioned, the market is saturated - especially with photographers at every event... last weekend and next weekend. Parents generally get picky with they have so much to choose from. Case in point: your event last June. There is so much more to selling on site than just taking photos!
Don't get me wrong, selling onsite is way better than just selling online, and I've spent just as much money on several dozen viewstations as I have on the infrastructure to burn on site. So what we do at Worlds certainly costs more than any other event that we do, but I know going into it what I'm going to make. And while we've done this long enough to know what we'd make with selling photos, there are still many variables that can affect the final numbers.
Really it's all a matter of keeping up. There is no other sport with the density of cheer. An average event over here is 2k competitors (that I cover) and they scale up to nearly 1000 teams (per day) at the largest event just 2 hours south of me. Whether an event has 50 teams or 500, they generally have a pace of 15 teams per hour, that is what you have to keep up with... the size of the show only makes a difference to how long your day is ... keeping that pace. So with 15 teams per hour, that comes out to over 250 competitors per hour (AllStar avg, Worlds avg is nearly double that) , but at your booth with 2-3 family members per competitor, you'll have nearly 1000 people per hour (potential) at your booth... every hour... if you've marketed well. So keeping up with that kind of customer flow is very demanding on yoru workflow as well as your hardware requirements to satisfy every potential customer that may be interested in spending money with you.
On the flip side, if you are working on the disc model, then its a matter of burning up to 300 discs per hour (including coaches) and have them ready by the time awards are done so people can leave with them. I usually say: "time or money, which do you have more of" Well, for cheer, time is not an option, better break out the checkbook!
And have I ventured DownUnder yet, not yet, I have been approached by at least one event producer, but like Allan said, there is a certain size that events have to be to make it worth while. It's just not worth it to try to do every event if the numbers aren't there to support the costs.
Again, shooters are the premium commodity that you have to start with and spend money on. Without that, your product is little more than fluff and the longevity of a company that uses sub-par photographers, process and customer service is not very long.
So if anybody skipped to the end and didn't want to read all that... to sum it up...
- shoot with one photographer, no experience needed
- upload to the web, when you get around to it
- don't bother with the expense and hassle of getting your services built into the event, customers don't appreciate 'free' photos of their kids. 
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Worlds, being our last event of the season could be somewhere that I could envision desire to capture additional revenue for our summer drought, I'll just have to figure out how to find sales people that are available during the week and can handle the nearly weeklong influx of 10,000 competitors from 75 different countries (think language barriers) where a major percentage don't have parents attending nor enough expendable cash to give me instead of Disney.