Our First Bridal Expo - My Thoughts
 

We did our first bridal expo a few days ago so here's a few of my thoughts from the experience:

- Audio is relatively ineffective at an expo with all the noise from other vendors plus people walking around talking - and you want to be able to talk easily with couples and not be drowned out by your own music/sound effects etc ... We were the only "audio/visual" stand in our area of the expo so we just had some music tracks playing softly in the background with two 40" LCDs looping photos and video

- We felt we should have included some footage of us shooting in our video loop because people didn't seem to get it with the video. Not necessarily footage of how we get our shots but a little bit of footage showing us interacting with brides and couples, having fun etc ... rather than just a loop of my 'killer' shots.

- There's no way possible to showcase your video work effectively in an expo environment (especially without music) but it's an awesome opportunity to meet and greet people plus let them see your personality and passion for what you do.

- Have clear goals and outcomes for being at the expo - i.e. are you looking to book people on the spot? Or are you wanting to direct people to your website or studio etc ... Our goal for this expo was to meet and chat with people - and then encourage them to check out our website and blog to see more of our work. We're all about getting to know the couples with whom we work so we treated the expo almost like asking someone on a first date. i.e. "Hey, if you like what you see ... let's spend some time together and get to know one another" ... but obviously not in those words :) It wasn't so much about the 'products' that we were selling (photography and video) but more about us ... if that makes sense. Everyone's business is different but it's important to have a clear vision for why you're at the expo in the first place.

- Know your target market and present yourself accordingly. We're pretty selective when it comes to the weddings that we shoot so we didn't set out to book every bride or couple that walked through the door. Out of 400 or 500 people that came past our stand there would only be about 3 or 4 weddings that I'd be really keen to shoot.

- Go all out with your booth if possible. We didn't spend much money on ours but instead thought 'outside the box' for ways to stand out. It really helped to re-inforce our personality and quality. With some creative thought you can come up with something cool that will hopefully help you stand out in the crowd. You can check out some photos of our booth/stand here: Shadowplay Blog Our First Expo! - I found that there was a bit of an attitude from some vendors of "Well, it's just <insert town or city here> and this is our 5th expo this year so we'll just do the same old thing we've always done and it's such a drag being here ..." Because it was our first expo we were super-excited to be there and figured we may as well try something different - and it really showed both in the response from people on the day and the enquiries we've received in the meantime.

- Make it a priority to meet as many of the other vendors as you possibly can. Exchange cards with them and have a chat if possible - after all, they're all in the same industry. We did this towards the end of the day as things quietened down and met some lovely people and made some good connections.

- Don't just rely on your promo video or your booth/stand/display to draw people in. We made sure to have at the ready a handful of flyers or brochures plus an easy smile and a "Hey, how it's going?" or some similar pleasant greeting. Making eye contact and smiling works wonders. The heart-shaped chocolates we handed out didn't hurt either. The funny thing was that right next to our booth was a weight-loss business :)

- Setup the day or night before if possible. It was a great feeling to arrive the morning of the expo and walk up to our finished booth while a lot of the other vendors were racing around getting theirs setup ;)

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the whole experience. I just thought I'd write them out and then post them on here in case they might help anyone.

Cheers,

Matthew.

We did one but never again, the cost was pretty high to do it, plus the time it takes. we had some pretty snazzy banners made but now we have the new logo and colours so they dont work any more.

It yielded zero results. Weve spent less on online advertising and achieved a much higher turn around. But it depends on you, the day, the competition, the couples etc.

The biggest pain was that we couldnt have any audio as around us we had a harpest trying to play, a guitar man and a load of photographers all with slideshows and music plays such a big part in our productions. Without it the video losses context. Im sure many of you will think you can do it without sound but its over half of your product gone. People also walk by and dont watch the full thing so for them to watch in the comfort of their home seems to work best (we gave out bucket of demo disks).

Some swear by them, we will sometimes check out the local shows to see what the competition are doing and see the same names crop up. Mainly the older guys who offer the totally discreet service (the ones with the huge shoulder mounted cameras and the mahooosive microphones). Weve just given up on selling ouselves as discreet, you cant get the shots when hiding in the bushes and there is nothing discreet about a glidecam.

[QUOTE=Weve just given up on selling ouselves as discreet, you cant get the shots when hiding in the bushes and there is nothing discreet about a glidecam.[/QUOTE]

Bridal expos are a waste of time and money.

"Discreet" or "unobtrusive" is code for "We are just lazy a$$ videographers, so, for that reason, you should give us your money"

We use a crane and a steadicam at the reception .

We went to Expo 4 weeks ago and it was disappointing.

We had two big TV looping our video but not much people interested. The Brides are interested to stop by photographer stall, flip their albums but don't want to stop for 30sec to check out the video......

Matthew thank you again for your feedback and for starting this thread. Just a few questions for you

Did you hand out any price lists at the show regarding any of you packages?
What did you list out on your flyers? Did you have a separate flyer for your photography and your videography or were they combined? Did you do anything to get some leads from people passing bye? i.e. sign up and win a free photo montage or STD video if you book...

Thanks again.

Hey Carl,

Pricelists - No, we didn't hand out prices or packages. If people asked we let them know our package starting prices but then moved onto telling them that we're all about getting to know our couples and making sure we're a good fit so check out our blog and make an appointment to visit our studio if we're within your budget and you like our style.

Flyers - Combined with both photography and video. Just a cool photo and our logo on one side - and a bit of info on the other side - i.e. "Katie does the photography. Matt does the videography. Check out our blog to get to know us better" etc ... Mainly it was like a big business card to direct people to our website and blog so they could see more of our work, get to know our personalities a bit more and then get in touch for an appointment. I've made a decision to only do wedding videos for couples that book the photography - that way I always get to work with an awesome photographer (Katie) and get to make the kind of videos that I want to make.

Incentives/Discounts - Nope. Some of the other photographers offered that sort of thing - i.e. "Book today and get a discount or enter the draw to win something." We decided against offering a discount or free shoot as that may not attract our ideal client. As I mentioned we're pretty selective so we wanted couples to choose us on the quality of our work and if they like our personality. We were after quality clients rather than quantity.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Matthew.

I don't make a lot of money off of those shows, but I still do them. Exposure is good...(exposure lock is even better...haha.. sorry). I book between 6 and 8 wedding when we attended the big Bridal show in Sacramento. We never book them that day, or at least not yet, but usually within the next month or so.

As far as giving away DVDs, I contemplated not making them anymore, but instead decided to make a few, but only give it out to those who ask. So I put them on the table and whoever expresses interest, I give them one.

The bridal shows are good though, I pay $1000 to attend, and maybe a few hundred on other stuff to prepare, and I get back 15 grand or so. Just today I had someone write me who said they met us at a bridal expo a few months back and just saw us at a relative's wedding. I've only been at this for a 2 1/2 years, so I think the continued exposure will be good through time.

Thanks Matt for sharing, some great advice, we haven't done one yet so should be intresting when the time comes.