Weddings How many bookings from Bridal Show?

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DJ Cam

New DJ
Oct 20, 2006
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Pittsburgh, PA
www.djcamonline.com
I wondering how many bookings other DJ's get from Bridal Shows?

The big shows here cost from $600 to $2400 for a booth.

I just don't see it being very profitable with 10 to 25 other DJ's there. My average wedding price is $750. So at the small show I feel I would need 5 bookings to make it worth my while. Where at the big show costing $2400 I need to book 4 wedding to just get my money back. At a fair advertising budget of 10% I would need to book 32 weddings from the $2400 bridal show.

Maybe my expectations are off.

What do you hope for from a bridal show?
 
Here's the thing about a bridal show, it's not so cut and dry as "x" number of bookings from it will make it worth my time and effort. While it's true that's about the only way to quantify it, there are a ton of other things to think about.

Networking with other vendors...it pays to be nice and play nice. We've found out we're on two different venue's lists and haven't paid a dime or asked them to be on their lists and part of that comes from being nice and networking at the shows.

Long term advertising benefits...we have a caterer who always has the booth next to us and he told us, he doesn't need to do this show, but he does it for the networking and to stay fresh in people's minds. At least at our shows around here, the major movers and players in the local wedding industry are the ones who are consistiently at the bridal shows regardless if they need to be or not.
 
To answer your questions more specifically, we just hope to make back the money we invested into it. This year that will be 3 weddings will make up the costs of the 2 shows we're doing. Anything beyond that is a nice bonus from the show.
 
The trick to it is work the lists.

Email...Phone...SOC...Whatever it takes keep in the minds of the people you have spoken to. Any booking you get that day is a bonus it's the future ones that you work for.

Our local show usually gets about 200 "brides" I estimate 60-70% are legitamate and the rest are registered as brides for the chance at the free prizes etc. The best I ever did from a show was 16, I worked the list hard. The worst was 3 and I didn't work the list hardly at all.

Like Jmac said sometimes the more important contacts are the vendors
 
The first show I did probably around 1996 or so, I didn't do well...why? Because of the lack of preparation and not knowing & understanding what brides were wanting. That was a HUGE lesson and prompted me to make drastic changes if I wanted to be successful in the market.

The second show I did a few years later, was ok at best, and I got my money back and then some. Not bad, not great, but I still didn't know what I was doing wrong.

Thus, this year will be my third attempt and the first one in many, many years. I've done my homework, looked at other successful bridal show booths and know that I'm prepared and will be doing it up right. ;) I expect to get my money back times 3. Anymore than that, I'll be thrilled!


Cam, I don't really understand your math, especially for the small show. Since you are wanting to rebrand, it seems to me this would be a perfect time to do so. To re-ignite the fire that has you doing this and network with others that have the same fire. To get your new image out to a captive mass. Priceless in my opinion, but just looking at the dollars, if I were you and doing one show for $600 and got at least one booking for $750, I'd mark it up as a success and smile all the way to the bank. The long term effects could be much greater!

Btw, I probably wouldn't be doing the show, except I was contaced directly and made a great deal with the sponsor to be there (that's another story). And, the fact that my main job's life-span is unclear, I've decided to step my game up and do more wedding work.
 
My business model allows for a 10% advertising budget. So to spend $600 on advertising to be succesful I need to make $6000.

I figured for bridal shows I would accept 20% at first. So I need to make $3000. That's 4 basic weddings.


I understand I'm reworking my company but I'm not throwing money away. I run my DJ business in the same manner I would run any business and as I learned in school.
 
I did a Bridal Show once. Of course it was on a Saturday so I had to leave early to keep a real bride happy and make some money. I remember I got one job out of it and it didn't pay for what it cost to get it.

NOW days I put my printer in overdrive and print up some flyers and take a couple of my grandkids and we carefully put flyers on the cars in the parking lot of the Bridal Shower, buy the grandkids lunch and go home and get more business out of it for a lot less money.

You can call me cheap but I make less money at this now than I did 10 years ago.
 
We DJed the reception for a banquet hall manager on 12/31/09 and her facility hosts a bridal show every year. She gave us a HUGE discount, we only had to pay $100.00. We started working the list the minute we got back. We already booked over $3,000 from the event (possible $7,000, vendor wants to buy a photo booth).

It also helped that the people who were doing the fashion show were the banquet hall manager's friends. They kept telling guests at the bridal show to stop by our booth (since they had an awesome time at Carli's reception).
 
I worked one 2 years ago for a guy i was "partnered" with. (we swapped work back and forth).

I really don't like doing weddings, But for some reason i did really good selling at that show. He said he booked 15+ weddings from it, And i booked 3 on the spot.

I brought my gig machine, and a small set of computer speakers that have a small sub. I was playing all kinds of stuff...People dancing in the mall all most all day long..

All the wedding stuff went to him, Everything else went to me..

I was booked for a bunch of private party's and some other stuff.
So...The way i look at it, Just focusing on wedding stuff there could be a mistake too..But this show is held in a large mall here...So your "booth" is kind of like a kiosk...Sort of wide open, And alot of fun.
 
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