Hello again; I had planned to move on to discussing some of the things people should think about when selling mechanical rides, but there has been some criticism of my first post. People thought it was too long and that there should have been more photos. So, today I am going to focus more on suggestions about photos and videos before moving on to the various types of equipment and specific suggestions for each.
I guess I should first address how a blind man is qualified to give this advice. The truth is its a valid question. You see I had perfect vision until I was four years old. I had quite a lot of usable vision until I was thirteen or fourteen. And I had a great polaroid camera that My dad taught me to use. And since I’ve been running the website I always ask whoever is helping me what makes something a good picture. I usually work with my brother Patrick, and he will explain why one photo is better than the others or why I shouldn’t use a particular picture at all. And it just seams to stay with me. And I hope that you will get some benefit from my experience.
Now, let’s get to this week’s suggestions. Like I said before you should regularly take new photos and videos of your equipment just so you will be ready when you need to sell one of your rides, games, inflatables, concessions trailers, etc. But once you decide to list an item for sale, you need to find that headline photo that one image that makes people just fall in love with what you are offering. And to help I am going to include a few examples here.
This first photo is of a flying flume ride for sale in Australia. Notice how they provided a beautiful panoramic shot of the cars as they are flying through the air and about to plunge in to the water tank. The photo is a large image, and it was taken by someone who knew how to capture the spirit of the ride. And the owners followed this up with several other quality photos as well as a video with good music playing in the background.
This next photo is of a compressed air shooting gallery for sale in New Jersey. Again, they have provided a large panoramic shot that displays the entire shooting range. They followed this up with many photos of the equipment included in the package. And again they provided a video. This video was taken on a cell phone and uploaded to youtube as I previously suggested.
And this one is an areal photo of a roller coaster for sale in England. The ride for sale is a large attraction, and they rightly realized that any photos taken from ground level would not show the whole attraction. So, they had this photo taken from the air. Now, instead of one long video; they sent me four short movies taken on their cell phone. Since they were all taken at the same time of day, I decided to merge them into one video. The end product runs about four minutes. Doing this with the video isn’t ideal, but it did end up being effective.
So, how do you take one of these headline photos? The first thing to do is to take an honest look at your equipment. Decide when does it look its best. Some items look better in strong light, some look better in twilight, and most look their best at night with all the lights burning. This is especially true of equipment that has the new LED lighting.
The image that was chosen for my logo is a strong one because of how the setting sun casts just the right light on the rides pictured in it.
Another thing that helps create the perfect image is crowds. I shouldn’t have to mention this, but try to take your photos when the midway or amusement park is packed with people. As my daddy always told me nothing looks better than when it has a line of happy laughing people standing around it waiting their turn. And if you have to, I don’t see anything wrong with offering free rides, games, food, etc to get the crowd for the photo. I would advise against including employees unless they are very clean cut and they remove their uniform clothes.
I’m not saying that you can’t sell a given piece of equipment with photos and or videos taken after the season is over and carnivals and fun fairs are in their winter quarters; but it is so much harder. It often means taking photos in poor light or adverse weather like rain and snow. It may even mean having to use pictures of the items loaded on their trailers instead of set up for operation. It could mean having to take pictures of items crammed into a garage, barn, or workshop. Given the amount of amusement equipment for sale, you want to give yourself the best chance to impress buyers.
Next week, I will address the questions you should think about when preparing to sell mechanical amusement rides. hope these posts are getting you thinking about future equipment sales. If you have questions about what it takes to list an item on my site, then please send me an email or use the contact form And if you have enjoyed this post, I hope you will share it with your friends, family, and coworkers. I also hope you will leave comments. You don’t have to subscribe to anything to leave a comment. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks and take care, Max