Holiday Videos?

thebigmc

Hello Boardsies,

I wanted to see if anyone can share their opinions on an idea I have for a winter business.

This might be considered a bit of market research, or an open question?

Would you consider paying for someone to film and edit a day of your ski holiday?

I'm thinking of a little part-time business venture next winter, where I will offer this service. I would spend the day with a group and set up some nice shots as well as alot of go pro footage, then take it all back and put together a great edit of a holiday.

I estimate the price would be €100 for a one day shoot.
And add €50 per extra day of shooting.

This is a very early stage idea, and I thought I'd throw it out there to see what peoples think. I have good experience in video production and will be able to use sample videos to show potential clients what the standard of the film they get will be. A day shooting would probably edit down to a 10-15 minute film, there would be a chance to get all the raw footage also, and a shorter highlight clip.

derv

i think it could work well where you have a big group,
maybe 10+ people where you would only have to pay a tenner each,

people who have not been skiing / boarding before might not want videos of themselves falling on their a$$es for a week :-)

their friends would want this for comic relief.

The Big Gig

Good idea. But personally I wouldn't only because I do my own with a couple of GoPros. You'll have a few issues to deal with I think. Overcast / snow days look crap on GoPro. A lot of groups usually have someone techy in the group that will probably have a camera and be filming anyway.
I would love to see this take off the ground for you as it would be a great way to spend a season! I also think ten minutes is too long for anyone to watch. From my last couple of holidays I have found that the shorter 2/3 min videos I do get shared around much more. So a shorter edit might be an option to go with
10 min version.
I also think a killer promo vid is what you need to sell the idea!

robinph

I've seen similar things offered in resorts before so there is definitely a market for it. Have seen videos of a groups days skiing video that had already been edited being shown in a resort bar, as they then came in to drink beers and pick up the copy, and then obviously the video people were using that as advertising to round up other clients for the next day.

RATM

There's a company already doing this in Tignes / Val d'Isere as far back as my first visit in 2004 and I suspect many of the other big French resorts might already have some sort of video operation in action.

It's certainly a good idea and even if there are one other operation there I'm sure there is plenty of space in the market for others. I thought of doing something similar myself years back as if you can make money from it then it is a great way to do a season and be able to ski rather than working as a barman and waiter.

Just a couple of points-

-expect to have to pay the owners of the mountain a fee to operate a business on their land. They would probably also want some re-assurance that you are going to be there every year, no doubt you won't be the first person to approach them with this idea and they'll be wary of ski-bums who just want to do it for one season so they can ski for free and get paid for it and then move onto a different resort the following winter

-flyers / brochures hotels and restaurants backed by a good website would be the way to sell this and get the word out. For any hotel / chalet that rings you up to book on behalf of a guest then expect to pay them a commission of 10-20%, they're not going to display your brochure in the lobby otherwise and business in ski resorts typically works on a kickback scratch my back system. Ski instructors / schools could also be a good sales force for you, again they would be expecting a kickback for doing so.

-Getting a busy apres ski bar to allow you show the edited version the following day so other groups see it and book you would also be a good way to go

-Finally you better be a top notch skier / snowboarder and capable of doing very high speeds even on black runs because some people won't be booking the service for a bit of craic, they would be using it to play the video back and analyse their technique and if you can't keep up with them then it won't work. I've videoed mates before when ridnig and it does take a bit of concentration to get it right

Hope this works out for you. It is a good idea and there is a demand out there for it. It is not a massive demand but in resorts with 10-20k people visiting every week it is present. If it is something you work hard at over a number of seasons then it is very much a scaleable business too- you could easily be set up in 10-15 different resorts across Europe and be employing people every winter, at least that was my own vision when I considered it. You'd have no lack of seasonairres who would be queuing up for a job like that. You could also centralise the editing aspect and outsource it to the Far East using labour from a site like freelancer.com or odesk.com then have the finished AVI files sent back to the resort to be burned to DVD. This would save money and also give your staff more time to sell to other groups and ensure their services are used six days a week.