s4jones

It would be nice to have a "scrapbook" kind of CD collection of each event. Stuff like:

* Cars all assembled
* Life in the paddock
* Folks in the hot pits
* Bored SO spectators
* People doing exercises in the slalom school
* Drivers milling around in the fog
* Instructors singing karaoke at the event dinner

I'd also be inclined to get another CD, although I'm not sure if I'm an exception or the rule.

Leslie: You might want to ping the PNW folks as the time nears for the Feb. event to see what they'd like and the general level of interest.

Mike S

Thanks for all of your responses. We always appreciate comments and take each seriously.

Here are a few points I'd like to make.

1) As Leslie noted, we have signed a deal with and were chosen as the Official Photographers of the Audi Car Club for the 2005 year, renewable for future years. We are now National (vs regional) Level sponsors and will be covering 45+ of the 66 days of Audi Club DE's this year. We would be covering even more, but many of the events are scheduled on the same dates.

2) We generally just do not have the time to shoot paddock, pits, stands, etc. We promise 7-10 times the number of photos per participant in comparison to our competitors (or in general) and we really need to be out on track.

We could maybe spend 10-15 minutes doing so if requested by the event organizers (very rare), but we would not be doing our customers "right" in spending so little time on track. And needless to say, I don't like doing things half right!

3) There is no sponsorship money or finances available to come from the Audi Club to sponsor discounted CD's. We also cannot make a single CD with photos of everyone for sale to the group as there is the issue of a customer buying one, copying and distributing. We also cannot include other peoples car images on another customers CD's, unless it is pre-arranged and paid for beforehand. Any photos put on another disk may prevent a sale, which we cannot afford.

4) We do offer repeat discounts! : ) We offer second CD's for $65, and third for $55 (all additional are $55 for the rest of the year). This is discounted from our regular price of $75 per CD. This deal is good for CD's purchased within the same "track season" (generally Jan 1-Dec 31), but we will honor this deal with the PDX group from the Nov event through this coming years event at PDX next fall.

5) We have many, many, many repeat customers. We have customers who have bought from us for four years straight, multiple times per year. We generally sell to way over 50% of our prior customers within the same year. Many of our clients buy CD's from each event.

6) The point of new participants spending more money on imagery is correct. We see higher interest from "noobs" than we do from dedicated, hardened vets like some of you guys!

7) There is just no way for us to produce and maintain a web site with our imagery on it for sale post event. Consider that the avg track photo company shoots half a day or one day of a two day event, and shoots 1,000-3,000 images. This level of coverage is easy to post and maintain, and these companies generally do not offer the sales trailer or opportunity we do.

We, on the other hand, shoot 7,000-10,000 per day, or 14,000-20,000 per two day event. Now consider our file size of roughly 2.5MB compressed per image (much larger than most of our competitors) and the fact that we shoot 80-100 track events per year from coast to coast. All of the time between track events is spent producing CD's (1-2 hours per) , photos and driving from one event to another.

Besides, we'd need over 1 TB of hosting space annually and the cost of hosting and the time to post WAY offsets the post event sales, which are minimal.

Our entire business plan (which works very well for us) is to offer our images at an event in a quality environment. We only receive 1-4 requests for photos post each event and the avg sale to these people just doesn't pay the bills. I've been selling at track events for five years, and post event sales are not what we want to base our business on, as profit levels do not support the costs.

8) Lastly, a request from us! PDX/SEA participants, please realize that we have been in business for 12 years, are incorporated, bonded, insured, licensed and legitimate. We offer sales guarantees and post them in our trailer (Your order will be post marked within 15 business days of your order or it's free!) , on our order forms and on our receipts. We sponsored your event (along with 12 others this past year), are now National ACC Sponsors, and are long time Audi owners and ACC members/instructors ourselves.

I say this as we had an overwhelming (totally overwhelming) response for status updates on products sold at the PDX event long before the items were even scheduled to be shipped. As noted above, we promise shipment within 15 business days of an event or the product is free, and we met that obligation with each and every PDX order this past Nov. We did not invest in all of our trucks, trailers, four wheelers, golf carts, and six figures worth of camera gear, let alone drive all the way to Portland from Chicago and sponsor the event, to rip anyone off. We are not a fly-by-night photography company.

We work for four of the five major US car mags, have worked for teams in IRL, CART, F1 and ALMS, as well as for Audi and BMW corporately. We simply run our track event business as a sideline to our normal motorsports work.

In November, many members alerted us to posts on the NW Audi list where members were worried about ever receiving their photos, etc. We received over 50 phone calls and emails on less than 50 orders, all from people worrying about ever receiving their products. The time it takes to respond to each and every contact makes the orders arrive even later and really is frustrating from our perspective.

This past year we covered over 100 track events and left PDX directly for Sears Point for another Audi Club event. We had not even left California (or even had time to work on the orders) when people were calling asking where their orders were.

In comparison to our 400+ track events over the past five years, we have never had more than 3-4 calls from one event tracking an order. We are an honest and long standing business and we are here for the long haul. We will not "take the money and run", as they say.

Those of you who choose to purchase from us at our next mutual event, please trust that we will deliver what we say, when we say it will arrive. On that, you have our guarantee.

I hope after everyone received their orders ontime and they see the quality that was offered, that these fears will have subsided when we meet again! : )

Thanks again and please write back with any questions or concerns.

Regards,

Mike

AlanL

My lament about a lack of "people snapshots" was from the perspective of being the NW Audi Club Webmaster for building an event gallery. I would prefer to NOT put in a lot of shots of people lapping - maybe a handful at best to convey some of the more interesting moments. I think I need to start keeping a pocket camera handy to capture what I am looking for here which is the people side of the event rather than the track.

Endless shots of cars lapping so drivers can maybe see one or two of themselves is an incredible waste of website storage from my perspective - if drivers want to see shots of themselves driving they should be buying a CD from you anyway. Considering that we had almost 70 drivers at the track, we would have to post almost 140 shots of lapping cars in order for each driver to see 2 of themselves. That doesn't strike me as practical for either of us to host.

I'm sorry to hear you got so much grief for the CD's you folks made for Quattrofest - I didn't really have an issue with the wait at all and felt you met your obligations properly.

Please keep up the good work - most folks don't realize the shots taken vs shots worth keeping ratio that goes into producing a good collection of photos and wading through a day's shots to weed out the keepers is time intensive. Add in processing time for touchups and it's quite clear to me that you and Leslie are putting in some long days given your event schedules.....

s4jones

I was pretty much AMAZED that you guys would come to an event like Qfest and get all us recreational lappers. It was shocking. I loved it! My suggestions were just ruminaitons in response to Leslie's note on how you could leverage being there at all. Please don't construe my comments as anything more than out-loud thoughts! I think Leslie is well aware that I am super supportive of you guys being at these things and appreciate what a unique opportunity it was to get this kind of quality photography of our cars being flogged. Can't thank you folks enough.

Mike S

Your points are well taken and I am wellllllllll aware you are among our biggest supporters and best customers in the NW.

I took absolutely nothing negative from your comments. On the contrary, I am glad you took the time to think it through and offer your ideas. I just didn't want you to feel your points were ignored.

Thanks so much for your patronage and comments. I think it's very probably we will be in PDX in Feb. Hope to see you there!

Take care,

Mike S

Mike S

We really appreciate feeb back and your points are well respected.

I will certainly take the time to shoot whatever I can next time that represents the event. We usually do a little of this on our own, but usually in the AM and the fog really screwed us up in PDX.

We look forward to seeing you in Feb!

Best regards,

Mike S

leslie

sorry my response is a bit late, I had it typed out earlier, but have been battling the flu the last few days.

I think Mike answered most of the questions (and addressed a few other things that weren't really directed at either of you I know...)

what I had typed out earlier...

Yes, the "Best of disc" is focused I believe almost solely on action shots. Getting the late starts due to fog, we simply didn't have time to shoot anything other than track action. And in all honesty, we probably wouldn't have shot paddock shots as we only do that upon request and in most cases never receive that request... Not that it isn't a valid request, just uncommon. We try and service the participants foremost, and most of them are able to capture the paddock action they are interested in w/ their own cameras.

Getting some of that stuff will be definitely harder on a one day event as we are typically scrambling to shoot every session, so I can't make any promises. But I'm sure we could work that in to next year's Quattrofest.

Thanks for the opinions! We hope to see you in February!

take care,
leslie

AlanL

I would love to get a chance to peruse something like that if possible. I snarfed a couple of interesting shots off of the web from what others posted to populate the NW club website gallery, but I was at the mercy of the posters as to the resolution and what was available to choose from.

I think for the people angle I am thinking of for the website, I really just need to carry around my pocket camera and yank it out a lot. Our website should be focusing on the social angle of the event with a couple of track shots tossed in to portray that angle as well. As a great example of what I would like to get more of, check out the wonderful <a href="http://www.audiclubnw.org/Gallery/BremertonFall2004/slides/RichL-HeelandToe.html">photo</a> John Ewald got of Rich showing a student how to heel and toe on the Bremerton Gallery from last Fall's event.

You guys can't really hang out watching for something like that when you need to be out trackside covering lapping - it's almost a random occasion where subjects like that pop up. That's one of the reasons I carry a pocket camera every day just in case....

Mike S

via mail with the rest of the CD's.

Leslie can answer more accurately, as she handles this part of the biz.

Take care,

Mike S

AlanL

Thnx - I will go work over Paul and see what I can work out