I photographed a sports event last week for the organizers of a tennis tournament. The media relations folks were, as always, fantastic. They were friendly, helpful, accommodating and always available. They answered every question, sorted out every problem, had all necessary tournament information available, arranged every interview, and of course, the free pizza and beer at the end of the day didn’t hurt.
The media work space was perfect: air conditioned room with tables, chairs, power, Internet access, refreshments, and large comfy chairs for some folks to have a quick afternoon snooze, although one photographer just napped on the floor using his camera bag as a pillow. Did I mention that some days ran 14 hours?
The number of people in the photo pits was controlled to ensure that each photographer had enough elbow room and could get the pictures they needed.
The result: photographers were able to concentrate on photography and were able to quickly transmit tons of pictures. This meant lots of coverage for the event and its sponsors. The organizers fully understood the purpose of having media coverage.
By contrast …
In two weeks time, Toronto’s annual photographers’ hell starts up. The film festival.
This event has no media work space, no tables, no chairs, no power, no Internet access. The media/PR staff are usually unavailable and no one knows anything. Except for media credential pick-up day, the rest of the week is nothing but grief from the staff who think photographers are nothing but an in-the-way nuisance.
Photographers are jammed into spaces with enough room for maybe one-third of them. There’s no control over the number of photographers, so photographers have to line up for several hours to get into some photo pits, most of which have no protection from the rain and no washrooms.
Lack of work facilities means missed deadlines and reduced coverage, especially for those of us who shoot for European publications. Late evening coverage also gets lost, except for publications in western time zones.
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If you are planning an event and expect media coverage, please consider the following:
- Photographers need power and Internet access (except for brief events). In today’s world wide web, there’s a deadline every minute. The sooner a photographer can edit and transmit pictures, the more likely your event might get coverage.
- Make sure your people are available to answer questions. Specifically, they should know the correct names and titles of everyone who was photographed. If a person can’t be identified then that photo won’t be used.
- Photographers need physical access to the event. The further away a photographer is from the action, the worse the photo will be and the less likely it will get play. If you want good picture play, then allow the photographer to get good pictures.
- Getting picture play is far more important than getting a text mention. The reasons for this should be obvious. Professional photographers never go to an event for their own amusement. They go because they are hired to do a specific job. If you understand this, then you’re already a few steps ahead.
- Good picture play assumes good pictures are available. Talking heads, cheque presentations, ribbon cuttings, sod turnings, and groups of executives wearing hard-hats, never-never-never make for good pictures. News value comes from real people doing real things. If you have hired a photographer to cover your event for you, then consult with them, well-ahead of time, as to what might make for a good picture. Remember than “good” is defined by the news value and not by the number of visible corporate logos.
Tags: event coverage, press releases, public relations, rant
Wow…read my mind exactly about TIFF. Covered it a few times and they seem like their job is to protect the talent from us. They seem to forget there’s a difference between paparazzi and credential press photographers.
Did you see the email they sent out Labour Day weekend? Business casual and no running shoes in the press pens. Ya…a day covering carpets and standing on ladders wearing dress shoes should be fun.
So the event is over and they didn’t really enforce the dress code.
That was good news to the photographers who showed up wearing, literally, beach wear (shorts, sandals, big ol’ t-shirt, beach hat and sunglasses) to the semi-formal events.
Also good news to some of the event’s own staff who wore shorts, sandals or running shoes and t-shirts.
Of course, some of the celebrities wore ripped jeans, running shoes and t-shirts.