-Prom Night Photos

[joyina]

So I am not certain if I am posting in the right forum, so if I'm not, I apologize in advance.

-I have an opportunity to place a bid to do a school's first prom photos, 75 students. I haven't any idea on what to even charge the school, if at all....I have an idea on package prices for the students.

Any suggestions on how I should go about placing this bid? I would LOVE to do it/get it.

[Stevewebb]

Hopefully Chris will be able to help with the whole bidding process thing as he used to teach in a high school.

In the uk the photographer would almost certainly show up for free and make their money from sales alone. So if it was me I would be trying to sell them on the quality aspect or maybe coming up with a concept to be a bit different or show the students more value.

It may be a long shot but a good way of giving something back to the school is to donate a certain amount per print or a percentage of sales to their charity or sports fund or something.

[chrisc]

Never to sports...give to the arts programs...sheese, sports get the lion's share as it is.

I've been on both sides of the school photo shoot for prom. The best way is to get your backdrop, set up your camera, lights and take pre-orders they do at the door - "do you want a Prom photo - yes, then step to the right and follow the white cord." Bingo, you know this is a sold setup. Best to have no more than three packages. Make sure each package has a good supply of wallet sized ones as those are the traders.

The last prom I attended as a chaperone (last year), the packages anged from $29.95 to $59.95 with the expensive on eoffering several 8x10's and 5x7's with a ton of wallets. You won't sell as many of this one. The middle package is the highest seller because it makes the guy not seem to frugal, nor does his date expect him to overspend the night...make the package attractive enough for a good sale yet enough so you also make a decent profit.

You shouldn't have to spend more than 25% of the cost of each package to make the prints leaving you a good profit. I always provided an album with the higher end package.