Selling event portraits

I am a videographer/multimedi​a guy that over the past 4 months have started offering Photography as a service. AND I LOVE IT. (its nice that a majority of the skill set from videography transfers over!)


Doing freelance for a number of years I understand that PRICING may be the touchiest subject amongst peers. Everything is situational and personal. Therefore I'll try and make this question fairly focused.


I have been asked to shoot portraits at a piano concert. Number of musicians is very high (in the hundreds). Subject matter will just be on a black backdrop with a few props (I have the drop, they have the props).

Much like a 'prom' setting... kid #1, snap snap, kid #2, snap, snap... etc.
I've never priced anything like this before. Could some experienced pro's suggest pricing amounts and package types?
Notes:

• The center wants 20% off the top.
  
• I will have my video continuous lighting (will order a couple spare bulbs)
  
• I am 90% sure I'll be taking orders AT the time of photographing.
  
• Thank you for your input.

Just a few initial thoughts,

Are you taking 100's of musicians in the same day? Holy Busy Day Batman.

20% is kinda steep, especially "off the top". A % after expenses would be more reasonable.

I'm 90% sure you're not going to be taking any orders while you're shooting. Do you have 2 or 3 helpers to collect order forms, collect payment, pose the subjects, take notes, etc...?

As for the packages,the more options you offer will mean more photo sorting when it comes time to print and deliver. You could offer a base package of 1 8x10, 2 5x7, and 4 wallets (or some such combo) as a required purchase. Then offer Add-Ons. Most people will just get the basic package, and that will make life easier on you later.

Pricing is up to you. Figure out how much you want to make for your efforts and price accordingly, based on 50% sales.

So if you want to make $1000 profit (for example) and you have 100 potential customers, the price per package would be about $35. (50 people buy, net is $1750, gross is $1000) Adjust accordingly for what you want and how many clients.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Ill just say this... 400+ kids.
Yes I will have one helper for sure.

The first logistical problem I see is how to get the kid AND the parent at the same time.
No problem getting all the kids fed through (will require discipline and massive organization on my part). But that is w/o the parents.

Very interesting point about starting with the end in mind and reverse calculating it from there.
I planned on having MPIX do the printing and shipping. I orginally wanted to post them to an online gallery like Smugmug and let them all handle it. But... 1. There probably would be more sales the day OF. 2. The center that this is taking place wants the numbers right then and there (yeah tell me about it... 20% .

And I think this job may be to busy for batman... I'll brush off my superman cape

Is $35 a reasonable price for a package like that? < big city in the Midwest >
**I'm just use to being a portrait/wedding photographer... slightly different ball park when it comes to pricing.

Sorry for the double post in advance (if it shows up twice). Here is the bottom half of the ad that will get emailed out to all the kids. This is for the teacher to print out and hopefully the kids will show up with this ready to go (extras @the show).

Thoughts?

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

If you can get the order forms out in advance, that would be the way to go. As they walk up to get their photo taken, they hand you the order form and payment and you mark the file number on it and shoot. With large numbers of kids, be very careful not to mix things up or you'll have a huge mess on your hands trying to figure out who is who and who ordered what
I also would include a contact number for the parents on the order form in case you have any questions about the order (I noticed there wasn't a spot for this on the order form placed above)

I have two ways to do this:

- Organization hires me for shooting (reduced rate per hour since I make additional money from the sells and the photos aren't used in a commercial way), I sell the photos for pretty low rates. Great when organization wants me to take photos there but doesn't want me to price the prints really high.
- I want to shoot a event, then no costs for the organization and I sell the shots for higher prices.

In both cases I'd ask permission to do some marketing with flyers and stuff. Hand over a flyer or business card to every person you photographed.

In the first case income is guaranteed because of the rate per hour (or fixed price per event) and I'd also hand over some shots to the organization, for publicity uses, with credit line. Therefore I don't need to make much money on the prints and I'm able to use low prices. When shooting kids low pricing is recommended, parents are more likely to buy then.