IOV Convention 2009 - Seminar - Entering The Wedding Industry

[John De Rienzo]

Hi,

I know some frequent here from England. I will be giving a seminar on entering the wedding industry at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry on the 14th October at 10.30 a.m. and hope to catch up with some from here....obviously if you live in England!

Here is a short prelude clip to be going on with.
As always, comments appreciated.

Entering The Wedding Industry! IOV Convention 2009. on Vimeo

Cheers,

John De Rienzo

[Steve Shovlar]

Hi John I will be up at IOV next Wednesday but won't have time to listen to your seminar.

But can I ask an honest and genuine question? Why make more opposition for yourself?

If you give a good talk and someone is watching in your very area, they might go away, set up a wedding business and hey presto! The next thing you know is that you are losing business to someone who you showed how to do it!

Hopefully you will say enough negative stuff to put everyone off and they can become wedding photographers instead.

;)

If you think I am joking though think again. I went to a seminar run by the chap from Wicked Days about 4 years ago at Earls Court. He is based in Christchurch in Dorset, and our local areas just very slightly over lap. I listend intently to him, saw the opportunity and took it. In those 4 years I have grown from the first wedding (a freebee so I had something to show potential customers) to 43 weddings this year and still more to go (right up to 19th December)

Right now my bookings are way up compared to this day last year so hopefully 60+ in 2010. And I know for a fact that I have taken bookings away from the guy who ran the seminar because the brides themselves have told me so.

It's a dodgy game giving away your secrets. But I thank him for it.

[John De Rienzo]

Hi Steve,

Good question!

I would imagine the same reason why other here have given seminars. We have all been inspired and I myself have many people to thank for their advice since starting out. As you know, the wedding industry here still has a very low value to many b+g not helped by the fact that many are still operating with the 80's mindset!

I believe that if I have information that can be useful to help those starting out then I should share it with them. Healthy competition is good. I personally turn away alot of work due to being booked, and guess what, I give it to my local competition! They also return me the favour. Whilst we are in a competative market we can also help each other out. I recently helped a company here from Yorkshire on two occasions. Thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a thing or two myself!

I will not shy away from the many pitfalls when entering and I will try to use a positive after a negative. There may be some who do walk away and find it's not for them. There may be others who will think, I can do this, and better than that speaker! great, that's what we need, people who are passionate about the industry, not those who do it with no care, thought, or attention.

Hope to see you there, if not at the seminar!

Cheers,

John De Rienzo

[Steve Shovlar]

Hi John, some good points and yes I agree with what you are saying. I was playing a bit of Devil's Advocate.

Being a very busy wedding videographer myself I often find I can't take bookings because I am already booked. By February/early March my diary will be full for every Saturday and with many venues taking a big discount for mid week weddings I find I can have 3 or four weddings a week peak season.

Whilst that is not a bad thing (except delivery times do slip) I often have to turn away bookings and offer them over to other videographers. Trouble is who I want to hand the booking over to that I could trust doing a good job.

I am more expensive than the majority of videographers in the area (Dorset, Somerset, Devon) charging £1300 compared to most who around the £850 mark (or cheaper).

I believe you get what you pay for and as you know, the business is full of wedding videographers with very little if any business sense, who do it on a part time basis, are using dreadful Digital Juice effects ( the whole range on one DVD!) and haven't clue what to charge.

This is the crux. If you know what you are doing, charge for it. Far too many videographers get dragged into a price war and get knocked down by couples after a bargain. never discount, even for midweek weddings. It takes the same amount of work, doesn't it?

Sorry I am off on one. Time for a beer.

[Vince Baker]

On a lighter note, great clip.... but how did you not get attacked by that swan?????

[John De Rienzo]

Hi Vince,

I gave the swan a couple of my maltesers and he agreed to do the shoot....

Now where's the smiley!

Cheers,

John De Rienzo

[Steve Shovlar]

Hi John, I managed to sit in on your talk yesterday and it was interesting for people getting into the industry. Came up to say hello at the end but you had too many people around you, and for a moment my eyes were distracted by a girl in glasses wearing a very tight red skirt!

I was the guy who asked the leading question about the Merlin not being able to fly the EX3.

Hope you enjoyed the experience.

Cheers
Steve

[John De Rienzo]

Hi Steve,

Yes, I remember you, sorry to miss you at the end of the seminar.

Hope you had a good time at the convention.

All the best,

John De Rienzo

[Philip Howells]

As a visitor to the exhibition alone I thought the paucity of stands and the poor turnout - I was there for the lunchtime "rush" just to see Sony and Edirol - spoke volumes for the state of the business.

[Steve Shovlar]

Must admit I was around the show in 15 minutes. Nowhere near a big enough event for a 3 hour journey. A lot of the main retailers are struggling though as we hang on to our money and make our camera last an extra year or so. rather than have items in stock they are just buying in when an order comes in.

Seemed to be "The Rotolight" show, where the makers have found a 0.99 pence tent light from China, cut out Lee filter sheets to go with it, gone heavy with advertising and charged 100 times more than they are on Ebay. Good luck with that!

[Andy Wilkinson]

Yeah, that was my take on the Rotalight too!

Not sure if I'll bother with IOV next year as it was certainly a bit small (for in my case a 2 hrs journey there and same back). But I did find a couple of the Apple guru seminars run by Planet Video very good and I got some good prices on some stuff I bought so we'll see.

BVE in London in Feb was excellent earlier this year and I'll continue to go to that as a definite - when I can (will most probably miss the next one due to a trip to the Artic circle). My wife wants to see the Northern Lights and wants me along too, with my camera...sounds like a plan!

[Philip Howells]

It's the same for me, a couple of hours each way to Coventry or Stoneleigh compared to a full day to London and back. Then again the IOV's role is to make amateurs into pros so perhaps it's unfair to complain - many of the high end equip stands at BVE would be a waste of time for that market.

Re the Rotalight, I asked the guy demonstrating the filters how I'd stick one on an AT897 without a wind foam. His suggestion was to wedge foam around the mic! Very professional!

Saw the Northern lights from a plane flying Tokyo to Anchorage once - I think I'd miss BVE for that too!

[Steve Shovlar]

Originally Posted by Philip Howells

Re the Rotalight, I asked the guy demonstrating the filters how I'd stick one on an AT897 without a wind foam. His suggestion was to wedge foam around the mic! Very professional!

I got told the same. Also, I expected the LED to be colour balanced, but they are just plain old blue/very cold in colour LEDs.

Here you go.
48 LED Portable Lantern UFO Camping Tent Umbrella Light on eBay (end time 18-Oct-09 04:02:59 BST)

[Andy Wilkinson]

Yep, I have one of those UFO lights - bought it from Wilkinsons Hardware (no relation) a few months ago when I was looking for cheap LED lighting solutions. I got ripped off though as I think it was £2.99!!!!

Unsurprisingly, it was practically useless as a camera light so is now a shed light where it works as advertised.