Event Photography Rates

[kdsns]

what's a reasonable rate for event photography that's not a wedding? For example, an event put together by a PR firm...like a grand opening of a store/restaurant.

[Jessica Merritt]

We usually set an hourly rate for this sort of thing. Also have to consider the opportunity cost-is it on a night that you could potentially book a wedding on instead?

[epoh]

The price is also going to depend on their stipulations. Do they want all the photos and printing/publishing rights? Do they need prints or proofs by a certain date? Will this event require 1 or 2 (or more) assistant shooters?

[lscottpht]

I'm not sure if this is the going rate or not, but I just covered an event for a big media outlet. The event was for 4 hrs, and I charged my half day rate of $750. This got them the dvd of images with rights to print in one magazine (they won for party of the month) and their website. I do very little processing on these images, so I only spent a couple of hours in LR editing them.

[kdsns]

nah, they're not nights i could book weddings on instead. they'd want a CD and would probably publish the pictures in something like Paper City and it'll require one shooter.

So about 200 dollars an hour, lscottpht? Do people often pay that much? Nobody tries to haggle with you right? haha

[lscottpht]

Yeah, about 200/hr, and that was the price I told them right away without any haggling back from them. I did one other commercial deal, 8 hrs, for 1500. Again, no haggling. Accepted right away.