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Pricing for an event
Apologies if this is the wrong place for this post, but I couldn’t immediately find anywhere more appropriate.
My daughter takes ballet lessons at a dance studio. The studio has an annual performance where there are 25-30 dances by around 150 dancers, lasting a total of 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
I am a TV news photographer, and am venturing into the freelance world, and I produced the video of this year’s performance for a modest (okay, embarrassingly ridiculous) fee.
The owner has asked me to do it again next year, so my question is, what’s a good ballpark figure to charge her? This year she sold 70 copies of the DVD.
Thanks for your help.
Rick Carhart
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7 Replies
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Base it on the hours you’re going to put in shooting and editing. Have you figured your day rate or hourly rate yet?
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So a full day rate for the shoot, plus 40 hours editing/copying DVDs, and then a per-DVD price as well. The owner charged her students I think $22 to buy the DVD. I believe I heard $9 a DVD is a reasonable price for me to charge. Sound about right?
Rick
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I would insist on a minimum paid per-order for any job like this, at least enough to make your expenses. What happens so often is that one or two folks buy the disk from you and then they pirate copies to everyone else.
I think keeping your per-unit price really low makes this much less of a threat, but still, if it was me, I’d need a deposit against such a potential loss.
You have to be able to make a profit out of this, or its not a business, its a charity.
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Thanks Mark,
I appreciate the knowledge. It definitely makes me comfortable coming to her with a budget for this year’s performance. (I’m sure I have done my last video for her based on what she’s willing to pay…and based on the quality of the video production the years before I did it)
Rick
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Pre-sell it, with a guaranteed minimum number of orders, or you don’t do it. That puts it on them to make sure enough people actually buy the copies, before you put in all this work for nothing, and they do the leg-breaking and discipline against anybody who wants to pirate it. You could also take a tip from yearbooks and have sponsors underwrite some portion of the show in exchange for a little commercial mention on the intro or the end credits.
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In these cases.. I always make a price for the event and the master plus a small price for every DVD (that includes box, printed cover, my time in recording it, etc).. So I would say something like… 1000 + 5 x dvd
siRoma di Marcello Mazzilli
Corporate video productions in Italy
http://www.siroma.com -
I charge the school $25/dancer. They re sell them at $50-65. Most schools include it on the registration.
I base it on a day rate per camera and editing.
Minimum 50-99 one camera
100-149 two cameras
150 up three cameras
See the demos under Live & Stage https://www.dvtvproductions.com/index.php?seccion=DemosDouglas Villalba
https://www.advertising-villa.com
G5 QUAD 4.5 GB RAM, Decklink HD Extreme, HVX200, FX1, A1 & HV20. Letus Extreme 35 mm adaptor, Rails, GlideCam
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