Short Notice on shooting an event

[HotShots]

My daughter's gymnastics coach is practically begging me to shoot their meet this coming Friday and Saturday. This is something I have been working toward but due to my personal schedule and a few other factors, I had decided not to try to set anything up at this meet. But, as I said, the coach is practically begging and I hate to turn him down.

If I had decided earlier to do this, I would have planned a little more. Now I have until Friday to make sure I have everything together and can do a quality job.

I will have a 14 year old assistant available throughout the day to help dump cards, recharge batteries, etc. My concern with her is that she's 14 - she might be totally focused and a big help. She might also be off in LaLaLand and be no help at all.

I'm not going to try to do any onsite printing or anything like that. I am going to send people to my website to view and order the pictures.

So, that brings me to my question: What is the best way to generate traffic? Would any of the ideas below be beneficial or would the actually hurt in the long run?

1) Set up a slide show. I will have a laptop and could have a fairly large moniter. As I dump the cards, I can open a slideshow so people can see what I am taking. My concern is that there will be some bad pix mixed in and I won't have time to edit all of them out. Should I put up a sign next to the monitor saying something like the bad ones get deleted, the good ones get better. Or, would this do more harm than good?

2) "Special" Poster. I had created the attached poster for my daughter. It was fairly easy and I have the .psd file as a template. I am considering displaying it with a "Special" price and something to the effect of - visit my website, select your picture and email me.

Any other ideas? I think the main reason I am so concerned about this it that I had not planned on doing it. Now I feel rushed and I want to make sure I do a quality job.

Thanks for your input.

TDF

[Mike R]

Bring plenty of business card to hand out to parents. IMO I would leave thh laptop at home and make sure you have a sufficent amount of memory cards and charged batteries. The less equipment (laptop,chargers etc..) you bring,is that much less to worry about. Also remember that the Camera,format you shoot in and settings all play a part in how many shots you can get on a card. Displaying the poster is a good idea.

[NC_Photo]

Ditto what the last poster said.

I'd bring enough memory cards and batteries to capture it all, and leave te laptop at home. Print a few sample images to put out on a table for parents to see some of your previous work. I would have the assistant there to help field questions from parents and to hand out your business cards and let them know that in about two weeks (or whatever your time frame is) they can visit your website to view all the pictures taken at the event as make purchases if they wish. I wouldn't be putting my images in the hands of a 14 year old to dump on the computer and put into a slide show.

[Mike R]

You want the images on your web site ASAP, Parents may even be looking for them that night, :lol:

Try to have them on line within 24 hours.