Wedding Fair - sealing the booking on the day

[ppentertainments]

I know it's another wedding fair thread :o

My normal advice about wedding fairs is not to take bookings on the day but gain contacts to follow up at a later date.

However.....................
I am doing a wedding fair tomorrow at a hotel 5 minutes up the road. Nothing fancy but does hold a lot of weddings. I done a fair last year, got a couple of bookings, but noticed other suppliers gaining bookings on the night - mainly cars, photographers and the chair cover company.

I have spoke to a few DJ's who do try and seal the booking on the night so wonder if it is worth a go. I don't really want to offer discount (not my style), but was thinking about offering another service ie photo projection free if they book that night. I will be truthful and don't really like this but in all honesty my pricing is a bit above this hotel, but as I say it is 5 minutes up the road, easy access etc. and is one which I could put another DJ in if I got a better booking.

opinions ??
Cheers

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I am doing a wedding fayre this coming sunday. I have re-done some flyers with new designs and also some discount vouchers too. I know you say you don't like giving discounts BUT...if you work it out properly, you can still get what you always get if you know what I mean.

I always take a set of blank booking forms with me to take down details and if someone wants to confirm on the day then I always mail them the proper forms in the post. Taking the booking on the day means that it's one less thing for them to worry about. I also take some invoices too so if they want to pay the booking fee on the day then they have a receipt for their payment. As with the booking forms, I always send them receipts too as a lot of people have wedding insurance these days and they ask for one.

[Dance FX]

Took four bookings with deposits at a fair the other weekend.

More than paid for the stand :)

We were doing a discount of £20 for booking on the day!

[Vectis]

We were doing a discount of £20 for booking on the day!

Shhhh.... for some on here that's a half-price deal :eek: :zip:

[Dance FX]

I think our stunning new web site is the main reason for more bookings Martin ;)

[MagicMusic]

It sounds familiar. My local hotel is a pretty classy venue - two old country mansions which have recently had a few million spent ugrading them. The have a great Ohm sound system installed, Formula Sound mixer and a Martin Lighting rig. Al in all a very nice place.

Trouble is, I know that they offer an in - house DJ for £150 so I would have to undercut them or go out on a limb to get the work at their fayre. As it turned out I was scheduled to be in Aviemore that weekend so couldn't attend the fayre anyway .

If I had gone, I imagine I would have had to offer considerable extra's and would only likely have succeeded in securing bookings by getting them on the night.

I would have probably pulled the old chestnut of making the potential client believe that "I'm giving you all this for only XXX that's a saving of XXX". Seems like a lot of extra work for little reward but I'd love to get a foot in the door of this place even just for the photo opportunities.

I think the best way to approach a fayre environment is to be friendly. Explain everything about your services and how much things cost, show your enthusiasm and, the killer for me - give the impression that you don't need their business, be chatty and have a laugh about anything you can pick up on from them. In those circumstances people tend to either sign up straight away or go away for a wander and return later impressed that there was no pressure from you to close the sale.

At my stand my plan is to have my brochures, cards etc a couple of giveaways, my laptop playing some music, maybe a light and my imac set up with a printer to give the visual indicator that they can sign up there and then.

[ppentertainments]

Welll just got back !!

Found out they now have a resident DJ for £80.

So....... I decided that I would not lower prices but knew I needed to give an incentive other than my usual selling techniques.

Made the decision with 5 minutes to go (very quick slideshow change :) ), that any booking secured on the night or within 7 days I would give a free projection slideshow. Bit of extra work for me but minimal cost. I still went with my full wedding fee (that's more than a standard disco fee before anyone asks :p ).

2 people booked on the night, 1 e-mail waiting for me now to confirm, 7 contacts to ring tomorrow to arrange a meeting.

The resident DJ did not even turn up. Spoke at length to the wedding coordinator. I am there next month so I said to her to make sure she pops in to see me - she is cute :) :)

Would I do this again - No, because to be honest, the venue was not the sort of venue I am aiming for.

[JDB Entertainment]

Welll just got back !!

Found out they now have a resident DJ for £80.

So....... I decided that I would not lower prices but knew I needed to give an incentive other than my usual selling techniques.

Made the decision with 5 minutes to go (very quick slideshow change :) ), that any booking secured on the night or within 7 days I would give a free projection slideshow. Bit of extra work for me but minimal cost. I still went with my full wedding fee (that's more than a standard disco fee before anyone asks :p ).

2 people booked on the night, 1 e-mail waiting for me now to confirm, 7 contacts to ring tomorrow to arrange a meeting.

The resident DJ did not even turn up. Spoke at length to the wedding coordinator. I am there next month so I said to her to make sure she pops in to see me - she is cute :) :)

Would I do this again - No, because to be honest, the venue was not the sort of venue I am aiming for.

Not suprised there DJ never turned up and to be fair you could have used that to your advantage in telling your potential clients that when justifying your cost.

You say you would not do it again, but you gained bookings off it! :confused: Confused.com

[ppentertainments]

Not suprised there DJ never turned up and to be fair you could have used that to your advantage in telling your potential clients that when justifying your cost.

You say you would not do it again, but you gained bookings off it! :confused: Confused.com
I never bad mouth another DJ. Just a rule of mine, I sell my positives but never mention others negatives. The main reason is that a lot of the lower charging DJ's are as good, if not better, than me and a lot have better equipment etc. What lets them down is how they 'personalise' each night.

I would not do it again because TBH I rarely go out now for my minimum fee. Had this been elsewhere I am confident of upselling the photo projection on top of my fee. Add to this ceremony music, uplighting etc makes a good fee. My basic fee is high for this area but still relatively low in reality. Not bragging here, but if I wanted to, like most DJ's I could be out every weekend without a problem, but at a cost :(