March 2024: Our first event as a photo-service company
So this process piece will be a bit more specific - all about shooting our first event as ‘woowoo sport photo services’ and CxM Sierra Blanca.
Quick side note, ‘woowoo sport photo services’ isn’t actually our name - I guess we don’t have one yet - and that level of novelty will be a recurring theme in the behind the scenes view of this process!
Getting the event and the first call
We had already talked about photo services as a way to bring some money in for the woowoo business - so at the end of 2023, we put together a long list of different sport events into a google sheet.
The criteria were pretty open, we were looking at events in Spain, Belgium and Germany (since we have some kind of base in each of those countries).
We were also looking for the first 2-3 months of the year, we’d rather have an event sooner than later so that we could put this process to the test, and see how it might work out.
ahotu.com was a great resource - it’s a website listing sport events, with filters by location, sport type and more. We found quite a lot of events through here, but still, some generic google searches like ‘trail running Spain’ bought new results as well.
Once we had a first list of events, we started the outreach, which included a short pitch email, along with a photo-deck - showing our story and photos from events in 2023.
The first call with CxM Sierra Blanca - “this could be even better than we thought”.
Marina of team CxM Sierra Blanca (a trail run held in Marbella, Spain), responded positively to our email, and we booked a call for the beginning of January.
This was already so exciting - the prospect of our first event, wow, we could really do this.
And then it got better…
Marina talked about their organisation, and how they didn’t just want to be a trail run, but do better at giving back to the running and wider community, as well as making running more accessible.
Our heads were spinning.
So now we had the chance to not only offer photos as a service, but to also do better ourselves and be part of something bigger and create a positive impact through selling photos.
That’s a triple woo.
Woo - selling our photos at a trail running event.
Woowoo - meeting people chasing their woos on the course.
Woowoowoo - bringing it all back together to help even more people chase their woo at the next event?!
Wow.
Dance party, and a bit of panic
As soon as the call with Marina ended, we jumped on another call between just us two, and started singing and dancing (this is how we usually start our team meetings, but this was a special celebration dance session).
We were both piggybacking on each other's excitement, first at the event, the location, and then the fact that it could be even bigger/better than we originally thought by bringing that added impact.
Then the mild panic.
How is this even going to work?
How much is it going to cost?
How do we price the photos?
How do we sell the photos?
We don’t have a business bank account?
REBECCA DOESN’T HAVE A CAMERA!?
And this will be her first sport event of this kind?!
There were a lot of questions.
“Are we crazy, basically just spending money to go and shoot? Or could this actually work?”
“Part of me wants to be more prepared, but the other part says some things only become known when you actually go through this process. It might not be perfect this time, but we will learn what works well, and where to improve for the next time.”
There was a lot to figure out, but we had enough time (about 1 month) before the event would take place.
Enough time to do research, figure some more things out, and even do a test event or two (didn’t happen, oops).
We made spreadsheets to look at our costs, booked travel and accommodation, and started looking at the different routes to see where the best photo spots were.
We also reached out to other photographers who could join our ‘team’ for the day, to get even more photos of the competitors (something we thought would increase the chances that they end up buying the photos).
Again, this didn’t work out (which is actually lucky, looking back!).
So how did it actually go?
Overall, the day and days around it were great.
We were doing it. For real. And it felt awesome.
We arrived to our Airbnb in Malaga on the Thursday before the race.
On Friday, we did a recon mission, it was wet and very windy - but luckily it was just getting the bad weather out of the way - race day turned out to be mostly clear with a bit of sun.
The recon was a chance to check the locations we’d picked out on google maps to see if they were actually good photo spots. (they were… if the runners were running the way we thought - OOPS).
Yeah - i don’t know how I (Alex), messed that up - at some point i just assumed the direction the runners would take, and stuck with it for the rest of the planning. Way to throw a curveball she’d have to deal with at Rebecca on her first event.
After the recon, we hit the supermarket for snacks and supplies - since we’d be out all day on the trail on Saturday.
Saturday, the day of the shoot.
Alarms set for 6.30am. First race start at around 8am.
We had a short walk to the start/finish area. Well, we thought we did.
We walked from the apartment, started seeing runners - but they were all going in different directions.
The start/finish area that was marked on the route map, didn’t seem to be anything.
I kept looking, whilst Rebecca went to get the car, since I would need to be dropped at my first spot with enough time for Rebecca to get back to shoot the start.
I met up with Marina the organiser, got our volunteer pack for the day and said we’d meet back up at the finish.
Then Rebecca picked me up and dropped me at the first spot.
We hadn’t done a recon of my first spot - but luckily I only had to walk around 5 minutes on the trail to find an awesome technical part of the route.
Meanwhile, Rebecca drove back to the start/finish area, thinking it was where the race was going to start…
But turns out the start was at the beach - a 10-15minute walk away, or a drive but potentially without anywhere to park.
And time was running out until the first start.
She drove to the beach front, got stopped by police, but pulled some “I'm part of the race media team” magic and was able to park and get to the start line just 2 minutes before the first wave of runners set off.
We exchanged messages and voice notes, about the panic, but also how cool it was.
The rest of the day went fairly smoothly (apart from Rebecca's spot 2, where the runners were coming the opposite way to what we thought).
We met back up at the finish line, and continued to shoot until the last runners crossed the line.
Then we said thanks and bye to Marina, before heading home and crashing on the sofa.
We triple backed up the photos (kept them on the memory cards, on my laptop, and an external hard drive).
We went for a steak to celebrate, and started posting some teasers on instagram trying to encourage the first people to request their photos.
How did the photo requesting-selling process work?
After going through quite a lot of different options, we decided to build a website page that contained a form for people to fill in - with their name, race number, and email address.
As people filled in the form, we went through the photos manually, trying to find their number. (this is so crazy looking back).
When we found a photo with their number, we took a screenshot of their face, and ran it through a facial recognition website (supawaldo), which had a gallery containing all our photos from the race.
This allowed us to find the rest of their photos quickly and easily.
Once we had their pack, we’d apply a preset / do a quick edit in lightroom, and export a low quality, watermarked photo for the runner to preview.
Writing this up a couple of weeks after the event, that already seems crazy, and it definitely had some problems.
The fact that we had to manually search for the photos was insane. And took way too long. (we were actually lucky that more people hadn’t requested to see their photos, I think we would have drowned).
Then we also had a problem with email as the communication channel: first, the emails were not always written correctly, which meant we had no way to contact people who were interested, and second, our emails sometimes went to spam.
Luckily, the day after the event we saw the problem and decided to change the contact channel to whatsapp. This would be way easier.
Not only was communication easier, but it allowed us to remove the first step of manually searching for the photos - instead, as soon as someone requested, we could use their whatsapp photo if it worked, or just ask them for one.
We also changed the website form a little bit - to ask people to include a picture with their request (although no one actually did that).
After that, our process was fairly smooth, we had it figured out.
So let’s look at the numbers
We decided to sell individual photos for 6euros, and packets of photos for 14euros. Packets contained every photo of a runner. (the pricing was based on looking at other, similar events).
There were around 500 runners across the different races.
So, from that, we predicted:
80 people would buy the 14euro photo packs, resulting in 1120euros revenue.
And to be honest, the 80 people buying was a conservative estimate (I, Alex, thought it would be higher, even up to 50% of the people).
Well, that didn’t quite work out.
The actual numbers to date (29th Feb 2024):
49 people requested to see their photos.
14 people purchased a 14euro pack.
1 person bought 1 photo for 6euros.
Bringing our total revenue to 202euros.
Remember back at the beginning of the article, how we were so excited to do more than just sell photos but actually bring a positive impact?
Well, we promised to give 50% of our profits back to the organisation, so that they could continue supporting the community and making these races more accessible.
So we’re left with 101euros take home.
We definitely spent more on that.. Food, travel, equipment, car rental, accommodation…
BUT.
We learnt a lot. It was our first event - this is the way it’s supposed to go, no?
And we have some explanations as to why we maybe didn’t get as much as we originally thought:
There were about 5-6 other photographers working for the organisation who were on the route. They gave their photos away for free, since they were paid by the event to be there. (This was a misunderstanding / not clear to us when we were preparing - we thought there would be 1, max 2 photographers.)
People only found our website through instagram and facebook (the event reposted our photos and links). I think we missed out on a lot of people who missed those communications, or simply aren’t on the platforms to begin with.
Note: we did have posters at the start/finish area, with a QR code to the web page - but I doubt anyone actually came from that.
The whole process
Do people really want to fill out a form to see their photos?
2 days after the event, we had a call with ‘photohawk’ - a platform which would allow runners to upload their own photo, then see all their photos directly, and even make the payment there and then.
The platform takes a % of sales, and the payment provider takes a % too - so we weren’t sure if the benefit was worth it (we’ll test it next time, I think).
Is that the end already?
Of course not, it was attempt 1. We’re booked in for 1 more event, and in the process of reaching out and trying to get many more bookings confirmed - so we can continue to test and optimise, and hopefully get closer to that estimated number at the next events.
We’re booked in for The Ardennes Monster - a road cycling event in Belgium.
We’re talking to the organisers of a trail running event in Ibiza.
It doesn’t sound too bad :). Let’s see it!