I’ve Done Two More Small Pop Up Events, What Was Learned

Recently I was invited to do two small pop up events at a local establishment.  These were inside events, so no tent (yay!).  They were also a 1-day events, where setup and breakdown happen 6 hours apart (exhausting!).  I learned from this and want to share my learnings.

For Starters, I had Most of what Was Needed

This was a last-minute ‘hey here’s a thing, can you come?’ kind of event.  I was able to show up with almost no prep and I have to admit, I had enough images from other ventures to meet the need.  It was a slow first event, but there was educational value.

For one, I bought two milk crate style holders to display images.  These half worked.  For photos that were in a mat frame, it worked great and got people to sort through them.  For those that were loose, they were ignored.

On my second attempt, I brought back the dish display items (discussed here) that I didn’t like for the loose images.  It was better.  I’m still not a fan of these dish holders, but it will probably keep working for now.  They break down nicely and don’t use much space.

Price Tags?  What is That?

In previous events, I kept several price lists around with things like ’12×18  $60′.  Yeah, no one knows what 12×18 is.  I should have noticed this back in August, and I thought I had solved the issue, but I did not.

So I bought a few different price tags.  One snaps onto grids, and one can be written on with a liquid chalk marker.  These items were good ideas.  It kept prices clear, which is a strategy I can recommend.  Prices need to be clear, and it helps the clients and makes your life simpler.  The snap on price tags were difficult to get the label inside of the hanger, but they were cheap enough that I would do it again.

And Now, I have information on 2 Types of Images

I try to keep notes on what images are popular and I have two classifications.  #1 – this image is popular and people buy it, #2 – this image gets people to stop and start talking.

In my August event, which was at a beach, I intentionally put an iceberg image just outside of my booth.  This was printed at 18×24 (so, big) but is stunning in person.

And while it didn’t sell a single copy, ever, it gets people to stop and talk.  And sometimes, other images sell too.  If you can get a person to stop, they might buy something.

There’s also one image that has both gotten people to stop, and made sales.

The first sale of this was only a few weeks ago.  And it was to a person who used to live in Oregon and has since moved to the Carolinas.  But then it went on to make 2 more sales to two people who have never lived there nor have they ever been there.  One North Carolina native said it was ‘bad ass’.

The biggest issue I have with this image is that it is older.  I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything like this here (yet) but one of the limits of the under 20 mpix cameras is that they struggle to make larger prints.  My old and long ago sold D70 was 6 mpix, and when I tried for a 12×18 print, this turned out a little bigger than it could create.  The D70 at 12×18 is 167 pixels per inch, and resulted (at the time) in very slight pixelation when printed (but this is at under a foot away from the image, which is not normal viewing distance).  This image above was taken on a D300, which is 12 mpix.  I have some tricks, and this image is a bit forgiving, but I have someone who requested a 24×36 — that’s 2 feet by 3 feet, which is huge.  That is really pushing how far the original can go, and dropping down into about 120 pixels per inch.  Now I have some tricks and I’m not against some forms of upscaling.  With my tricks, I managed to make it look good.  But not every image from the D300 will be as successful.  For comparison, at 24×36 my D850 (45 mpix) is 230 pixels per inch and my D750 (24 mpix) is 167.  This is going to be a challenge, and probably a disappointment, in the future; some of my older images simply cannot be printed at certain sizes.

And that is ok.  I have what I have, and back in 2013 when I took this image of Multnomah Falls I was just interested in making a great image.  I had no idea that 12 years later I would start a business and 8 months after that would sell a few copies of this photo.  I am using my catalogue of images to get started with my business, while staying open about the details.

Even with those concerns, I enabled sales of almost all images on my store to 20×30, the next size up from 16×24.  This whole investigation caused me to realize I could.  Or I think I can, let’s see how it goes.

Oh and my biggest surprise sale was this image.

I just call it “Greenland Iceberg 2”, but I’ll rename it for a good price 🙂 .  It has been a decent image for me, and the popularity was a little unexpected.  Cool!  An image that is more popular is never a bad thing.

Quick Summary and Conclusion

The best selling image I ever had was one that captured the location where I was doing the event.  Let’s not kid ourselves, images that are local (in this case, about 500 ft away from my tent) will do well.  But images that capture a certain place or have no place will also do well (waterfalls and mountains do well, but my stones on a beach do just as well).  At my tent show I had people who said they wanted more images of that beach and people who thanked me for having more than just beach images.  You really cannot please everyone.

-Brad