Event Images - Leave them online or take them down ?

It seems this question appears to have more answers than a room full of consultants.

Most photographers would agree that you need a web site. Once you have one of those most photographers will include a gallery as part of the site. In some cases it is just a showcase that gets updated occasionally, others use it as a method for selling images.

Selling via an online gallery, seems to break down in to 2 classes; the collection of fine images that you hope will sell occasionally for a high price & the event gallery which is much easier than producing the prints on site at the event.

It is the event gallery that my question relates to – “When do you take them down?”

The benefit of printing at an event is that people get caught up in the moment. Disney worked this out years ago. As soon as you step off the ride, while your blood is still pumping and you are having a great day, they offer you a photo. If you don’t take the option there and then, they are gone. Pressure is on to make your mind up. The downside is that if you are taking photos then you are not going to be processing them and putting them on sale, so that equates to needing staff, having to manage the process, quality control etc etc.

So you take the option to put them on a web site and hand out cards at the event. If it is all going to plan the organisers booked you to be there and you have secured advertising in the programme and a link on their web site. You get full control over the post processing, the lab that does your printing is going to be a known quantity. A good site offering hosting will typically have all the tools you need for credit card sales, fulfilment etc. Easy and simple option.

However, you have lost the focus of buying in the moment. As long as people think the images will be there they are in no rush to purchase prints. They e-mail the link to their friends and family all of whom look on your site. The hit counter on the web site shows astronomical figures, but the orders don’t match the volume of visitors.

So here is the question – How do you achieve the ease of the online galley sales and yet match volume of sales at an event?? The holy grail of having your cake and eating it too.

Second question this seems to generate is when do you take the images down ?? Most of the hosting companies offer limitless hosting and a search facility, so why bother to take down the images, when it costs “nothing” to leave them online and after all you might make a sale. The downside – as I’m currently experiencing – is the potential customer, who in 4 months has not been able to “find the time” to make her selection and buy the photos (the best bit is when she calls to tell me how busy she is and how she hasn’t had time).

In short as long as they are online and clients can visit the web site to look at them – why buy them?

Okay – time for me to be quiet now … what do you think or do … ?

Cheers Dave

We sell on location only, no images posted online. Period. Strike while the iron is hot. If people know you don't post online & they're really interested in your product, they'll buy at the time. If time doesn't permit viewing during the event, we'd be more than happy to book a viewing at the studio at your convenience. Generally speaking, I bet we book less than a dozen studio event viewings/year.

That being said, for some events we may bring along the preceding set of images from the archives. For instance, if we covered a motocross event earlier in the year and are covering another in the same general area a few months later, we'll bring along the first set. Same thing for dance. We get enough extra sales to justify the overhead of hard drives & enclosures, plus a bit.

"The hit counter on the web site shows astronomical figures, but the orders don’t match the volume of visitors."

And every one of the subject's friends, relatives, enemies, dogs & cats now have a free copy of the photo they just downloaded from your website, watermark or not. Hence the disparity between orders/site hits: nobody needs a print now that they have their own digital copy (printable or not).

Some event photographers have a very successful online business model. I'd venture to say that most of these are in the US where sports are viewed & taken much more seriously. Up here in Canuckistan, our print on location business model works well for us.

I shoot HS sports. 10-20+ games per team/season. I leave the images on line through the following season. ( ex: photos from this school year, will remain on line through the 2013-14 school year)
I didn't do this at first but then had people asking for them, and when re posted, they bought. When I do take a gallery down, I send out an announcement, then I hide the gallery for a couple of weeks before removing it. It's easy to just make it visible again.
I have said this before but will repeat it... Sell the team a slide show for their annual banquet, You already have the shots and if you compile it as the season progresses, it's not hard or time consuming. It helps supplement individual on line sales. T&I is another excellent way to boost revenue. It's all prepaid by the parents when you shoot them.

My NET from a team/season must be better than a conventional part time job would pay or I drop the team. I walked away from one school but at another, I'm in my 7th year and haven't left a team yet.

It really depends on the type of event. For sports events or something like that, never put it online.

For weddings, I leave them up indefinitely.

Putting them online just seems to get people going in and harvesting the images to display on their facebooks pages to their friends. I've never seen that end up in any sales.

It is a difficult balance to find. Sales are brisk and worth having the system to do it. No complaints there at all, it is the balance with the number of people looking that has me wondering.

No desire to stop sales just to stop people looking, but would like to convert the casual observer more.

A 10-20 day time limt is starting to look like the best middle ground answer

I think it depends on the type of event and how it's billed. If people come there expecting to be photographed and to be able to buy them then yeah, day of. If it's a bit of a surprise or the event doesn't really lend itself to buying on the spot (long distance cycling comes to mind where you're mainly thinking about food and laying down) then a short time period would seem alright. If the prospects typically will buy way after, weddings, then a much longer time period makes sense but probably low-res thumbnails. Cheers

I would do 30 days, and then hide the gallery. Send out an email blast (if you have emails) at the 15 day and 25 day mark, to let people know their opportunity is going away. I would also only put up watermarked thumbnails in the gallery.