WGAN eBook: Why Attend PMRE: Photography+Media for Real Estate Conference

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	WGAN-TV \| Why Attend Photography + Media for Real Estate Conference (PMRE) \| Guest: Photography + Media for Real Estate Conference (PMRE) Owner and Organizer Brandon Cooper \| Thursday, 20 June 2024 \| Episode: 219 ✓ www.PMREconference.com ✓ Save $100 on PMRE Standard Registration with Coupon Code: WGAN100 ✓ Save $50 on PMRE Livestream/On-Demand with Coupon Code: WGANSTREAM Transcript (video above) -- Are you ready to amp-up your real estate photography business? -- What are the best practices for running a real estate photography business? -- Do you want to connect, learn, and grow from the best real estate media creators around the world? Stay tuned. Hi all, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the [www.WeGetAroundNetworkForum.com]. Today is Thursday, June 20th, 2024. You're watching WGAN-TV Live at 5: a podcast for digital twin creators shaping the future of real estate today. We have an awesome show for you: Why Attend Photography + Media for Real Estate Conference [www.PMREconference.com] on November 13th, 14th and 15th, 2024 in Las Vegas. Our subject matter expert is Brandon Cooper, Owner and Organizer of PMRE. Brandon, thanks for being my guest on the show today. - Thanks for having me, Dan. - Brandon, for a 3D/360 photographer, a digital twin photographer that may never have heard of PMRE, tell us about it. - Yeah, sure, so PMRE is the Photo and Media for Real Estate Conference that we host every year in Las Vegas. Started back in 2019. It's evolved over the years, but where we stand today is essentially an event for those who are out there creating media for marketing real estate. So that can be anything from photography to videography, drones, floor plans, 3D, all of that kind of stuff. We get together once a year. We have roughly 300 attending. In the past five years, we've had 300. We've moved to a new venue here, brand new in 2024. So the hope is to grow a little bit. We're anticipating about 350 people from anywhere from 12 to 14 different countries. Plenty of industry sponsors, a lot of companies that service the industry will be in attendance. And yeah, it's just a great time to kind of get everybody together, once a year. We always kind of say, "Hey, put your camera down for a couple days. Come over and let's talk about the industry; talk about our businesses in general; kind of elevate to 10,000 feet and look at things once a year, reset, and then go back to our markets all inspired for the next year." - For someone that attends the conference, what should they feel like having attended? - Well, the hope is, number one, we want people to get a bit of a refresh, right? Like I said, it's once a year. It's an opportunity. We're all very, very busy. Our business can be a grind, right? We can get a little bit caught up in the day-to-day, high volume, moving fast. If we're being completely blunt, it can be a very lonely industry, because it's fairly competitive, and you don't necessarily want to be sharing best practices or challenges with your local competition. The nice thing is, you come to Las Vegas, and all of a sudden, you have an opportunity to talk to people who go through the same thing that you do every single day, and they're from all over the world. So they have no reason to kind of hold their information. They're open to sharing best practices. Just lots of shop talk, a lot of learning, and then also just building these contacts around the world that now you can use as a resource. When you go home and you're re-energized and you're ready to kind of rock and roll, you've got a whole bunch of new friends that you can call who might be experts in different areas of the industry. So again, at the end of the day, we really focus on learning. We focus a ton on networking and connecting people in the industry, but at the end of the day, if I had to just say one thing, it's, like I said, "put your camera down, come to Vegas, hang out with 350 like-minded people, and go back to your market energized and ready to go for the next year." - Is this a conference about F-stop, shutter speed, ISO, lighting? - It's a very good question. The short answer is no. It's very hard to get extremely technical on a stage in front of 350 people for 45 minutes. So in the early days, we weren't sure exactly what this thing was going to look like, and it evolved based on feedback from past attendees. And at the end of the day, most of the people that attend this conference, not everybody, have already kind of been through that phase of their career where they've learned the majority of the technical stuff. So we try to focus more, again, on the networking, the higher level business stuff, marketing, industry trends, where things are going in this industry, all that kind of thing. That being said, there is a caveat. We do have some technical workshops that bookend the conference. So they are optional. They're a different charge than the conference. But we've got some world class instructors that come in, they're very small, very intimate, 10, 15, 20 people tops, where you have a world class instructor going through the hardcore technical stuff. But again, that's an optional add-on that people can choose when they're going through the registration process. - So bookend, that means before the conference and after the conference, there are workshops? - Correct. It is usually prior to the conference, but because, and I'm sure we'll get into this at some point, but because we're adding a third day to the conference this year, we've got two days of workshops prior to the conference, and then one day of workshops at the end, because those are a little bit more relevant to the audience that's going to be most likely to attend day three. - So how would you describe day one, day two, versus day three ? - Yeah, so day one and day two, I'll try to keep this as brief as I can. That's our hardcore real estate days. Like I said, we've always focused on real estate. But as the industry evolves, as our audience evolves, there's quite an amount of people in this audience who are already dabbling into the commercial world, or at least have aspirations to, and that commercial world, we've kind of named day three commercial and corporate as an overarching umbrella. The goal with that was to essentially make it anything that's not related to kind of hardcore day-to-day real estate media. So that day there could be anything from hospitality, new construction, interior design, architecture, anything else, like I said, that falls out of the hardcore day-to-day, shooting homes to be listed on the market, providing that media to the Realtors to market those properties. So the first two workshops leading up to that conference, to the first two days will be focused more on the real estate side of things. And the day after the conference, is geared more towards the folks that might be dabbling in the commercial world. I hope that answered your question. - So, yes but to follow up on it, so I would think perhaps day one and day two is about residential real estate. Is that a reasonable categorization? - Yeah, I would say so. Again, we're providing a certain -- most of the people that are in attendance for day one and day two, the majority of their work is working for real estate clients , creating media for whatever it is that they're trying to put on the market. So obviously, there's going to be some commercial in there, but definitely focused more on the residential side. The sort of the high volume transactional world of real estate. - And day three, which I think you've nicknamed PMRE+, so commercial real estate, that sounds like photography, but I think I heard some other words used around the word commercial real estate. - It's all about media creation in general, regardless of what day you're on. Day three, we added just simply so that we could bring in some -- not everybody in the industry that attends day one and day two has any aspiration of shooting hospitality or restaurants or hotels, anything like that. So day three is sort of a catchall to say, "Hey, listen, you've already got all of the gear that you need. You have tons of experience, you have all kinds of clients. Why are you walking by that hotel or that retail shop or that shopping mall or whatever, resort, restaurant, and not going and introducing yourself or dropping off a card?" The focus on day three is to kind of say, "Hey, you've already got those skill sets. You've got the gear. Why not consider some of these additional opportunities as streams of revenue that can help you grow your business if you want to?" Again, we want to make sure that people know we're not losing focus on the fact that real estate is our core business. Real estate media is our core business, but there's so many spinoffs and opportunities for those of us in the room who, like I said, have the gear, have the training, have the experience, have the relationships. There's a lot more opportunity out there. So day three is kind of aimed at those who are curious about the potential beyond the day-to-day residential work. - And that may even be beyond photography, because we already have the tools or we have access to third-party tools that logically let us do other categories. - Absolutely, so again, going into -- A lot of the 3D companies that I've been talking to in the last year, they're making major pushes into the commercial world. They want to be creating digital twins of shopping malls and resorts and hotels and all that kind of stuff. A lot of our day one and day two attendees are very proficient in the 3D world, whether they're operating with a Matterport or an iGUIDE or a CubiCasa or whatever other software that they're using. Again, those skills and gear are very transferrable. And we go even one step further on day three, where we'll talk about maybe some higher level videography, getting away from just, not getting away but adding on to, if you're going and doing a one or two minute real estate video for an agent, we're going to be talking a little bit about lifestyle videos. If you've got this amazing property and you have an opportunity to shoot it, $20 million; $30 million, who knows, some unique property, we're going to have some people there that can help you talk about creating the right story for that property that can then be repurposed in multiple ways to get attention for both you, your client, the listing, the agent, whoever it is involved. So yeah. - I think if I could frame that differently, day three may be a little bit more about diversification, leveraging the gear and expertise that we have, but to diversify beyond residential real estate and to add, perhaps, some revenue streams that may not be as price sensitive for real estate photographers as working with a real estate agent. - Yep, yep, that would be fair. For sure. - Would there be other threads that you would describe? Here are add-ons; here's diversification; here's a higher margin kind of business. Are there other words to put around day three? - I think you could, what I've seen up to this point where day three's really appealed to people is, we've seen the growth over the last five, six years. We've seen the industry change from, if you were to go back to PFRE, back to the first conference, 70% to 80% of the people in that room would've been single operators mostly focused on photography. Fast forward to 2024, that's flipped where the vast majority of the people in the room are focused on full service marketing partners for their client, whether that be the Realtor or whoever else. On top of that, a lot of them have created teams. They're building agencies. So those agencies are then looking for an opportunity to diversify, and not have all their eggs in one basket, right? If you're just shooting residential real estate, and things slow down, your whole entire business slows down. But if you have all of these other opportunities out there, and again, going back to the fact that you already have the gear, the expertise, the connections, why wouldn't you pursue some of those additional opportunities to make your -- you could say scale your business; you could just, say, diversify your business. You could just kind of say, like I said, not have all your eggs in one basket. So this day three edition is just a natural evolution of what we've seen our audience go through. So there will be a lot of people there who run agencies where maybe the main person of that agency has been shooting real estate for eight years. That's their bread and butter, that's their wheelhouse. They're running a very well-oiled machine. They've got a great business. They don't really want to go out and shoot five homes a day anymore, but they've got that solid business. So they're going to pursue some of the more commercial interior architectural jobs, but not abandoning their core business. And the two, in my opinion, compliment each other very, very well. A lot of people out there draw a hard line between residential real estate and say interior architecture. And while I do see the differences between the two, I believe wholeheartedly there is an element of an overlap there. And that's kind of how this has evolved, because again, it's not us coming and saying, "Hey, we want to do a day three of commercial [real estate]." A huge portion of our audience is saying, "Hey, I'd really like an opportunity to get some education on some of this other stuff, because I've kind of learned what I need to learn about the real estate world. Now I want to move into some of these other opportunities." And so it only makes sense for us to provide that for them. - Okay, great. So let's go back to day one and day two. If I am a solopreneur, I'm a real estate photographer, and for the [WGAN-TV] audience, specializes typically in 3D/360, Matterport, iGUIDE, other platforms, other cameras. Is this a conference for me as a solopreneur, or is it really just for teams, agencies with multiple photographers? - No, I would say it's absolutely a conference for your solopreneur. The whole reason I started the conference was for me, and I am that solopreneur. I've only recently, in the last six months or so, brought on a person to help me. Up until then, I was the guy out there shooting five to seven homes a day, photos, videos, 3D, drone, everything, doing it all by myself. Going to the conference has always been the reason, like I said, the reason I created it's because I needed it. I needed somewhere to go where I could talk to like-minded people; share best practices; talk some shop; but also be able to sort of tell our tough stories and get through things together and realize that I'm not the only guy out there that's kind of on the grind. By doing so, I have this one example that I keep going back to. It was three years ago. I was at the point where I was really seriously debating scaling up my team, trying to find a way to get myself out of the day to day as much. And I sat down and had lunch with a gentleman. We spent two hours together. He just so happened to be a couple years ahead of me in his business development. And those two hours that I spent with him saved me six to eight, maybe even 10 months worth of trial and error and pain on my own, just based on some of the lessons that he could share with me that he learned and saved me that trouble. So absolutely, it's a great place to go as a solopreneur. And the other thing too is, I really feel, after I've been in this industry quite some time, it almost never fails that when you get to a certain point as a real estate media creator, you hit a fork in that road, and you're either going to go the horror design route where you're the brand, you're the artist, you're shooting nothing but the best properties, you're shooting just a few a month, but they're high price points and they're extremely detailed. Or you go more the business route where you're trying to build systems and scale out a team and kind of take that route. If you'd asked me six years ago if I had any ambitions of building a team, I would've said, "heck no." But as I've learned through the conference and made connections and just gotten more experience, I got to a point in my life where I thought, "You know what? I would like to maybe scale a bit of a team so that when I leave town, I want to have a little vacation. I'm not let down my clients for two weeks. I've got coverage. I'm not going to go to my competition for coverage very likely, but if I have a team built, then we can support one another." So my whole mindset shifted and I started moving towards that scaling idea. So whether you're there now or considering it, or it's not even on your radar, it still doesn't hurt to be exposed to the people in the industry that are doing amazing things around the world. At the very least, you could take home some things as a solopreneur that I believe kind of gets you ahead of the average folks that aren't going down and meeting up with the best people in the industry from around the world. So absolutely. I know that was a long answer, but absolutely it's a place for solopreneurs. - Can you share with us one of the tips that you got that saved you months of time as a result of going to PMRE? - Yeah, and in hindsight, it's kind of obvious, but one of the things that was said to me was to build out sort of my standard operating procedure and really invest heavily on the front-end with training. So it wasn't like, "Hey, bring this person along. Let them shadow you, and then eventually, they're at a point where they can kind of do what you do." Make sure that that person, before you even open up any information that you want to share about how you do things, how your business runs, the technical stuff, the skills that you've acquired over the years, they need to buy into the culture of what you're trying to do. You have to make sure that they're the right type of person, because they're ultimately an extension of you. So if you spent the last eight years building this reputation with your clients, and all of a sudden, you bring in a stranger, a lot of them are going to say, "Well, okay, I like this new person, but Brandon, I want to make sure that you are shooting the property." The best piece of advice I got was to bring that person in. Go through the standard operating procedure. Once you've got the person that you think is a good fit, bring them in with you quietly, get them trained up, get them shooting the same properties as you, start to deliver some of their images, then go back to the client, check for quality control. Say, "Hey, have you had any issues in the last month? How are you feeling about our image quality?" All that kind of thing. And then at that point, you can say, "By the way, I've been training a team member for six weeks. The last three deliveries that we gave to you was their photography. Just want to make sure that you know the level of quality we'll maintain." And that was my biggest fear, because being in a small market and being very focused on my relationships, I was concerned that if I brought in someone else, the relationship would kind of fade away and we wouldn't be able to see the growth. The beautiful thing is the person that I've hired has fit that role in every single way. And if anything, she's added to the valley, because now there's two of us to support rather than just Brandon. So that would probably be the most important thing that I learned from that guy when we were sitting down at lunch. - And that was as a result of, even though you're the founder and organizer, you're still an attendee. And so that was something that you had an opportunity to sit down. Was that with one of the presenters, or was that with one of the- - No, it was just a random attendee. I actually ... A couple of my friends had gone and booked a lunch and they just invited a bunch of folks that they had met throughout the years, and I happened to join him for the last half hour. And then he and I got talking. And that's the thing. The thing that's kind of cool about the event, and even more so this year, because of the new venue that we've moved into, we're going to be taking over half the hotel up. It's going to be impossible not to be bumping into PMRE people nonstop. So you can just go to a restaurant, you'll look around, half the room will be wearing their lanyards and people are very open, they're very excited to find out where you're from, what you do, what approach you take to the business. So those types of little meetings happen all the time. And we really have, over the years, after getting feedback from attendees, doubled down on creating as many networking opportunities as we possibly can, because like I said, that's the intangible thing. We try to focus ... I should back up for one second. Going back to your question about how technical it is, in the beginning, we weren't sure what this was going to look like. Over time, we've gotten feedback from the audience, but we've learned that the thing we need to focus on is, in this day and age, you can learn everything you need to learn about the technical side from home in front of your computer often for free. There's so many good videos and tutorials online and on YouTube. So we try to focus on the things that you can only get if you come to Las Vegas, which again is that personal connection, the opportunity to meet the companies in person and ask them questions about their new products or services, get to know some of the speakers that you might have been sort of looking up to over the last five, six years. It's that personal connection that really, again, you just can't get if you don't come to Vegas. - Today is Thursday, June 20th, 2024. I went to: www.PMREconference.com I looked for the agenda. It's still not there. Why not? - Yeah, so that's always a question that we get, and it's a bit of a challenge. We've gone back and forth on that, whether we publish an agenda, whether we hold off. And at the end of the day, there's value in publishing it because for those who aren't familiar with the conference, it gives them some additional sort of peace of mind. They know what they're investing in, that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, the industry can change so quickly. We prefer to choose the talent that's going to be on stage because they're always going to be great minds. They're always going to be able to offer a lot of value, but what they decide to talk about can change depending on how the market changes, depending on what happens in the industry. We've seen in the past one major change in legislature or a big acquisition or something like that can completely shake things up. So rather than commit to what they're going to talk about now, we rather commit to the person, and then as we get closer to the date, we really dial-in what that message is going to be from the stage. So we could go publish an agenda, but in all honesty, it could change by 50%, and I just don't really think that makes any sense. I think what we do is we focus on connecting people, hiring the right talent for that stage that's really committed to coming and trying to educate and share as much as they know about the industry and about what they do. And then we'll dial in the messages and get closer. - Can you tell us about some of the presenters? - Yeah. Do you want me to go through all of them and just kind of just give a quick high level? I mean, there's quite a few, but it's up to you. It's totally up to you. - Yeah, why don't you give us all to date and maybe a line or two about why you thought that they would be awesome for PMRE 2024. - Sure. So I'm going to go, just based on [www.PMREconference.com], so I don't miss anybody. So the way it's designed right now, most of the day three speakers are at the top of the screen. So I'll start at the top and just kind of like, so just give you a little bit of a line or two about each one. - Excuse me. This is at: www.PMREconference.com/presenters and these are the presenters as of 20 June 2024. - Correct, and we are probably going to be adding a couple, maybe three more speakers. Again, we like to launch registration with a fairly robust roster so people have an idea what they're investing in. But we also are in talks with other speakers. Again, industry trends can change. I like to keep a little bit of an opening if something big comes up, and we want to make sure that we have someone there to cover it. So starting at the top, we have Kelsey Kurtis. She is our host for the first two days. Kelsey is actually a lifestyle and branding photographer out of the northwest. She was a speaker last year. She's sort of an expert in personal branding. She was a massive success on the stage. People loved her. She's just a great energy. She has really come to love the PMRE community. And it just made sense. She brings so much energy. I just decided, "You know what? Let's bring Kelsey back. Keep that energy high for the first two days." So she'll be looking after the hosting responsibilities for day one and day two. Once we get to day three, as we shift focus a little bit more to the commercial side, Tony Colangelo from Victoria, BC is going to emcee that day. We're going to have likely four presenters and a discussion panel where we can open up the opportunity for the audience to ask questions to those speakers. We've done a few discussion panels in the past, and they always seem to be a massive hit. Audience loves the opportunity to kind of get a chance to ask their questions in real time. And there's a very good chance that someone else in the room has the exact same question as you. So it starts more of a dialogue and a conversation rather than just someone presenting from the stage. We also have Brandon Barré, who is arguably, I said this the other day on a different program. I Googled who's the best hospitality photographer in the world, and Brandon Barré popped up. That was after we had him booked and everything. And like I said, that could be just, he's got a great SEO team or whatever, but he's in incredibly high demand. He's very low key. He's been around for a long time. He shoots a lot in the Middle East, but he is sort of arguably one of the best hospitality photographers in the world. So he's going to come; and he's never done this before. He's never offered a workshop. His workshops sold out in four minutes when we launched registration. Clearly, people are curious to learn from him. He has a global wealth of knowledge, and he's going to talk a little bit about the hospitality [space]. I'll share some of his story and then be there as a resource to answer some questions. Alexandria Abramian, she's based out of LA, and she used to write for a lot of the big publications like Architectural Digest and Elle and all of those types of things. But what she does now is she consults creatives on how to get publicity for themselves and for their clients without paying a boatload of money for it. So she's kind of a master. She's the person that was the gatekeeper for years and years and years at the magazines, getting all the pitches from all the different photographers and creators out there. So she sort of dialed into a system where she can help you create exposure for you and your client without forking out a ton of money. So I saw her in person one time before. She was phenomenal, so I just couldn't help but reach out to her. Ema Peter is a Vancouver-based architectural photographer. She travels the world nonstop. She's been a part of PMRE for a couple years. Dan, was she there when you were there last year? I don't think so. - I don't believe so. - I think no, last year, she did a workshop but she didn't do a presentation. That's what it was. I mean, other than being one of the best architectural photographers in the world, she's very inspirational. She's got an incredible story. She really comes to this industry with a unique perspective, and like I said, she's got an incredible history, so I'm not 100% sure what she's going to talk about yet. We've bounced around a few ideas, but she's one of those people that no matter what, you see her on stage for 45 minutes, you're going to be a little bit better once you leave that room. Chris Stacey is kind of an interesting one for us. He's a cinematographer by trade. He's done some full feature films. He just was the main director of photography on a movie they put out last year called "The Blind," which was a documentary on the father from Duck Dynasty actually, but he's from Orange County, and he's kind of became famous for doing a couple videos with Realtor Tim Smith, who's one of the top Realtors in the U.S. And the videos have gone insanely viral. So if you go to Tim Smith's YouTube, you can see some of the stuff that Chris Stacey has done. He's just an incredibly creative person. And the thing that's kind of cool about that session, it sounds like Tim is going to join him for a discussion on the stage, and the premise is sort of the relationship between creator and client. When you have a project, and the cool thing about it, like the focus is, it doesn't have to be a $50 million listing or a $30 million listing. The point is, when you have a property that you want to market, regardless of what it is, the process is the same and it's just scalable. So where does that creative process start? What does the relationship look like between the creator and the client? And because they have such a good rhythm together and work so well creatively, we thought it'd be really kind of cool to be a fly on the wall while they discuss that, and then open it up for conversation to the audience. Our last speaker on day two, so we're going into day one and day two now is Matthew Anderson, who was a busy real estate photographer. He's moved into more of the architectural side of things. Why I [booked] him this year was because I thought that he would do a really good -- we've had some amazing conversations, and I thought he would do a really good job of starting to shift the focus from the hardcore sort of daily residential real estate to being in the mind of maybe an interior and architectural photographer. So he's going to kind of bridge the gap between the two and talk about some of the pitfalls that you might experience when you're dabbling into that new world. And he has said something to me in the past that really resonated where he said, no matter where you are in your career, no matter what your focus is, whether you have zero ambition in going into commercial, once you get to a certain point in your residential career, you will be approached by a builder or a designer or somebody else that wants to use your images. And the minute that happens, the way you handle your photos and the way you handle your rights and your usage and all that completely changes. So he's just kind of cool -- he's in a unique position because he can kind of dabble in both worlds and speak to them both from a place of experience. Danny Bertollo is from Australia, and he's kind of become sort of famous in the industry for kind of crazy real estate videos. His main focus is nothing but real estate videography. We've been talking for a couple years. Every time I get on the phone with him, his energy is kind of contagious. He's very high energy, really knows what he's doing. He is very passionate about teaching it, and he's also really trying to be the tip of the spear when it comes to making sure the quality of real estate video is where it needs to be. So he's doing a main stage presentation, and he's also doing a workshop. I should mention too, by the way, Chris Stacey is also doing a workshop. He is one of those, on the Saturday after the conference, focused on all things film. He is going to be bringing in a bunch of different cameras. He is going to talk about gear, he is going to talk about lighting, how to light a property. They're also going to bring in some talent and teach people how to work with talent. So if you're doing a lifestyle video and you want to have some actors and stuff like that, he's going to talk about how to direct, how to direct them, how to light them, how to incorporate them into your narrative and your story and just kind of go over all that kind of stuff. Reed Fish is the host of the Upmarket Podcast, and he's going to be a host of a session that we're doing called, this is kind of a working title, so don't hold me to it, but it's essentially, "The Future of Real Estate Media and Where We Fit In." There's obviously a lot of changes happening in the last year or two, right? Big box acquisitions; technology disruptions; you name it. So we're bringing in some very sort of experienced industry leaders who are kind of at the tip of the spear of that in terms of what their companies are doing. So, some presidents and vice presidents of some of the big 3D companies. People who, again, if we're out there shooting real estate day-to-day, they're the ones out there that are kind of trying to look 5, 10 years in advance and see where the future is going. So I thought, what better opportunity than to -- I mean, it's really hard to get in front of those people on a day-to-day basis, so let's get five or six of them on the stage, let's ask our questions, and let's hear what they have to say about the future of real estate media, technology interruptions, where things are going. So Reed's going to moderate that. I think he'll be really good. He's a very objective voice. He's got a good sense of humor. He'll keep things moving along nicely. But I'm looking forward to that panel. Melissa and Gerard Lynch, our husband and wife team out of Manhattan, the main reason I reached out to them, they have a unique business. They focus on Manhattan and the Hamptons, so very, very high-end. But they've been in this industry for I think 2008. So very, very early adopters of the whole real estate media approach in general. They've just built an incredible business. Their model in terms of customer service, the way they operate, the way they scale responsibly, all of that kind of stuff, I just thought, you know what? These guys are going to provide a ton of value. It's kind of going back to the day that I had lunch with that guy and I left, and I thought, "Man, oh man, that could just save me 6, 8, 10 months of trial and error." That's exactly what I think they can do for people. And I just thought, more than anything, again, we'll dial in exactly what they're going to focus on because they could probably talk about 10 different topics for 10 different hours, but we'll dial that in as we get closer. Devon Pastorius is the lead at Windsor Creative. Also happens to handle most of our creative. He was sort of the brains behind our release, our announcement video that we played at the end of the conference last year that, I believe you can see. I don't know if it's still on our website or not. Yes, I think it is. But people can go and kind of get a, if it's not the full version, at least get a glimpse of what we did to announce to the audience last year that we were moving to a new venue and you were there for that, Dan. So Devon, he's an incredibly creative guy. He is a full-time [Windsor Real Estate Photography], but he has a creative agency that focuses on all kinds of stuff. And he's kind of mastered -- he's really good at sort of helping you figure out when you are trying to get promotion or when you're advertising or growing your business, how to dial in your target audience, your target customer, and make sure that you're focusing your efforts towards the right people. Not just kind of putting things out there for the sake of, but doing it very deliberately with intent. Matt Michalski, he's a co-Founder of Aryeo. Aryeo has done the state of the industry the last few years in a row, where they go up on stage and they just throw out a bunch of stats of how many listings are happening in the U.S. Of those listings, who's using photo, video, 3D? Basically, a glimpse into the data of our industry where most of us wouldn't really have access to. So it's a bit of a shorter session. It's pretty information-heavy, 30 minutes or so, but it really gives a good insight of where things are at. Ian Holmgaard is the CEO of Esoft. He's going to be one of -- Esoft is one of the world leaders in photo editing, and they also have a large real estate photography business over the Scandinavian countries. And so he's been around in the industry forever too. From everyone I've talked to, he's a wealth of knowledge and he's going to be one of the gentlemen that's participating in that panel, talking about the future of the industry. Michael Vervena ... He is the [VP of Sales & Business Development] now for iGUIDE [Planitar]. You know Michael. So he's going to be on the stage as well talking about the future. Aaron Smith is also on that panel. He is from CubiCasa. Then we've got Natalia Robert, who is the Ladies Luncheon host. She is the founder of the Grove Studio. And each year, we do a Ladies Luncheon where we essentially just book a room out, provide lunch, you can add it to your registration when you sign up. It's just kind of a way to take the guesswork out of it. We just know that this program's going to happen at lunch. You don't have to worry about trying to get a reservation from 50 people in the restaurant and then split bills and all that kind of stuff. So Natalia has kind of led this for the last couple years. She does an incredible job. She typically brings in a speaker or two, and it's just a nice time to just bring the ladies together and have a luncheon and meet some of the speakers and network with each other. And that, as for now, is for speakers. I do have Wayne Capili and Fraser Almeida [Listed] here, because [Wayne, Fraser] and Tony Colangelo are running their two-day workshop for luxury real estate on Monday, Tuesday. This is the third year, I believe, that they've been doing it. It always sells out. They just did one in Carmel, California back in April. It's sold out in a week I think. Awesome. I mean, I can't recommend it enough. I've sat through the workshop myself. We've had people that have gone to it three times in a row. They absolutely love it. So that's something I would encourage people to check out. It's an intense two-day onsite and in-classroom combination, and you've got three incredible presenters. So that's where we're at right now. And like I said, stay tuned, because we will be adding a couple, if not three more, presenters between now and November. - So if you are thinking about attending PMRE but you're waiting, you're just not quite sure yet, timing, you hear voices in your head about hold off, why register today? - Two reasons. Number one, we're already about 70% sold out. So we're way, way ahead of schedule from last year. Like I said, we sold out all 75 early-birds in less than five minutes this year, and it hasn't really slowed down. So we're already about 70% sold out for the entire event. Sponsorship wise, we're 90 to 95% sold out. We have 4 of 20 vendor booths left. All of our premier opportunities have been spoken for. And the other one, just from a cost perspective, typically, not always, but typically, flights are much cheaper if you book in advance, and you can always get cancellation insurance. Plus, we do offer on the registration form, you can buy registration insurance. I think it's 8% of your total buy. I would encourage people, make sure you read the terms, because it's a third party company that we work with, so we don't have control over it. They've been amazing to work with in the past, when anyone has had a claim. You just have to make sure that if you do have to cancel and you've purchased that insurance, that you're canceling for a legitimate reason. And there's all that information on the website. You can go and read the terms. So ahead of time, your flight should be cheaper. We do offer insurance. So really, there's pretty low risk to get in there and save your spot. And then number three is the hotel rooms. One of the biggest challenges that we've always had with this event is we're very mindful of keeping costs down for our attendees, right? We try to do everything we can to pass on savings. In order to upgrade to the venue that we did this year, moving closer to the strip, obviously, the property itself is a massive step up. Excuse me. So room rates go up as well. So we've had to really go out on a limb. We've booked just under a thousand hotel room nights; ourselves. So we are on the hook. So in order to get the right room rate to pass on to our attendees, we're basically saying, "Hey listen, we'll book these rooms. We'll fill 'em. If we don't, we're on the hook for it." But those room rates can fluctuate quite substantially, especially at that time of the year with F1 new to Vegas. We're only a couple weeks before F1. We've negotiated room rates, I believe, between $105 and $150 per night. There's fees and taxes built in there as well, but those rooms could easily go up to $400 a night if you don't book and claim your code sooner than later. So it's just a reality. And that's kind of an industry standard. Trying to get decent room rates for our audience is something that we're committed to. And so I would just encourage people not to miss that opportunity. - If you hold off on registering but you're interested in a workshop, would you anticipate that the workshops will be 100% percent sold out, both the pre and the post workshops? - I would say, most likely, in the past four years that we've offered the workshops, every single workshop has sold out except for one, and it only had one spot left. As of right now, the Brandon Barré sold out in five minutes. The Danny Bertollo one sold out in five minutes. There is a wait list, because we're considering adding a second workshop. So if you're interested in those, by all means, definitely go and register for the wait list, because there's a kind of a threshold. If we hit that threshold, we'll initiate the workshop. As for the others, I think the Wayne/Tony/Fraser workshop is already over 50% sold. So there's not really a whole lot of spots left in the workshops as of today. Like I said, June 20, 2024. So yeah, there's not a lot even as of right now. So I certainly wouldn't wait. If that's something that you're really interested in, by all means, get those booked up. - And if I'm not interested in a workshop but I am interested in perhaps day one and day two only? - Yeah, that's a total option as well. We didn't actually talk about that. For the conference, you can book day one and day two only. You can book all three days, or you can book only day three, if you prefer. If you're just someone that only wants to focus on the commercial. And then we also have a livestream option. So again, I would recommend, I mean, as long as you're 60%, 70% sure you want to go or can make it happen, book your PMRE 2024 conference and get the insurance. That's 8% of your total purchase price. That way, you've got your peace of mind. Get your hotel room confirmed, then you've got your rates secured. I would highly recommend that. - And what kind of reasons do you have to purchase protection -- what does that cover you in the event that there's some reason that you can't attend? - Yeah, I'll just pull it up myself here. I'll give you a couple examples real quick. Obviously, don't quote me on this because- - Sorry. - So purchase protection covers severe illness and injury, COVID-19, hospitalization, death in the family, transportation failure, crime and home emergency, employment obligations, acts of nature, legal obligations. So those are fairly generic, but they're also fairly robust. I mean, like I said, we've been working with this company now for three years. I've only ever seen them turn down one claim, and it was just a very, it was like the person said, "I just don't feel like going anymore." And they're kind of like, well, you've taken up a spot from somebody, you've booked up a hotel room. This isn't really something we can get involved in. So again, I highly recommend it for the amount that it's going to cost you for peace of mind. But obviously, that's up to the individuals. - Tell us about the party. - Yeah, so the party has become kind of one of our flagship events at the conference. We've always had a blast. We are shaking it up quite a bit this year, I will say. So in the past, the party has been a party. So you show up, we open the doors at seven o'clock, it's kind of networking from seven to nine. We hit the stage, we do some giveaways. And then in the past, we've hired a really good band, and it's kind of from 10 o'clock on, it's a big party. It's kind of rowdy. It's not exactly what we've learned over the years, not necessarily the best. We started the band at 10 pm. For those who were not interested in the band, they could call it a night if they wanted to. We didn't want to kind of hijack the party. But it's Vegas. People are investing to be there. We also wanted to put on a real good show for them. We're switching things up this year. So the party happens at the end of day one of the conference. We usually end the conference at about five o'clock. We're going to open the doors for the party right around six. The big difference this year is, number one, we're going to provide food for everybody. So there's no need to go out. In the past, we've kind of offered appetizers and stuff like that. This year, we're opening at six. We're going to actually provide a legitimate meal. The bar will be open. We're up on the rooftop ballroom that has an indoor/outdoor space. So there's a patio about 50 stories off, the ground looking at the strip. And we're really going to kind of dial it back. This is going to be focused more on just networking, food, drinks, friends, hanging out, getting to meet people. It is going to be hosted. We've got two sponsors for the party, which is HDPhotoHub and Pixlmob are sort of collaborating to create the party. So there might be some sort of a little bit of a program. There'll definitely be some giveaways. We always make sure we have some cool giveaways to hand out to people. But for the most part, we're going to kind of chill it out a bit. It's going to be starting earlier for those folks from the East coast so that they're not staying up too late. Keep it a little more mellow and really focus on the networking and the conversation side of things. - You mentioned a couple of sponsors, so there's still, and I think I heard you say there's still an opportunity if there's a company interested in sponsorship. So I presume they could email you at: info@PMREconference.com to express interest in sponsorship of the conference? - Yeah, they can absolutely do that. They can also go to, if I'm not mistaken, we can go to: www.PMREconference.com/sponsors and there's just a form you can fill out. And then that'll get you a kind of direct line. That way, we can ask the questions that we need ahead of time so that we can kind of save you some time. - Okay, so that's: www.PMREconference.com/sponsors I imagine that email would also work for a photographer that just has some questions in general about attending. If your FAQs doesn't answer the question, they could still email you or perhaps they have multiple team members and are wondering if you have a group discount, a special offer for groups. - Yep, absolutely. And also, if you go to: www.PMREconference.com/faqs my personal cell phone number's up there. So you can just call me directly and I can answer any questions you have, whether it's sponsors or potential speakers or attendees, anyone. - Mm-hmm. So you've been kind to extend to WGAN-TV viewers the opportunity to save $100 on PMRE Standard registration with coupon code: WGAN100 and an opportunity to save $50 on the PMRE Live Stream - - which is also available On-Demand -- with coupon code: WGANSTREAM Could you talk a little bit about your live stream and On-Demand, either for those that simply cannot attend in person? We do have an audience across the world, and I could imagine that there are viewers who are interested in attending and are interested in the conference, but it's just too great a distance for them to travel. And actually also, I say the live stream and On-Demand, but even for those that attend, about whether they should be signing up for the On-Demand as well. - Yeah, sure, so a good question. We started live streaming the event a couple years ago. To your point, we have a lot of folks overseas, especially Australia. We do get a couple people that come over from Australia every year, but they have to take 10 days out of their market, the jet lag, I mean, it's a massive, massive investment. So we kind of thought, hey, what can we do to sort of, to get them involved? So we started a livestream. Last year, for the first year ever, we introduced the PMRE app. So anyone who registers for the conference, whether you're an attendee in person or a livestream attendee, you'll get access to the app. The app then gives you access to every vendor that's in attendance and has a virtual booth on the app. Every attendee that's part of the conference, whether they're in person or livestream is in the app. They can decide if they want to turn their profile off or not. But this is our way of connecting attendees without having to share their personal information. So as an attendee, you can now reach out to any other -- you can talk to speakers, sponsors, attendees through the app. Like I said, if you don't want to be a part of that, you can just turn yours off. But the app is also what acts as our distribution for the live stream. So you can watch it directly on your phone, any kind of device that you have. You can watch it from your desktop if you want to. You have all those options. We leave the app live all year round. So as of this moment, if you were at PMRE last year, you can open up your app, and you can still see all of our sponsors from last year. You can still view all of the On-Demand content. And the plan here is likely -- we're still working on a couple bugs on this side of things -- but we're likely going to keep past year's content in the On-Demand section. So if you join for 2024, you can then watch the On-Demand From 2023. And the whole goal is to just kind of build that robust library so that once you join the PMRE event, you can go back and history and see all kinds of other valuable information, that kind of thing. So yeah, so that's basically how it works. You register, you get access to the app, and that's how you do your live stream, that's how you reach out to any attendees. The sponsors have their virtual booth so you can actually reach out to sponsors and request a meeting with them. They'll upload a lot of marketing materials. Sometimes they have videos, sometimes they'll have discount codes. You go to their booth, you can download their discount codes. And it's just a way, it's better than just having to sit in front of your computer and watch the event live. In my opinion, it kind of gives the overseas attendees an opportunity to feel like they're actually a part of it. They can comment, they can ask questions, they can communicate with everybody else involved. - Are all the sessions live streamed? - Yes, all of the conference sessions. We don't live stream the party or anything like that. And that's actually something that I should, one thing that we didn't mention, part of, or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. Were we going to talk about the format of the event or the venue at all? I'm not sure. - That'd be great, sure. - So, okay, so just to give people, for those who have been in attendance in the past, it's been at South Point Casino in Las Vegas. We've had one big Showroom. Everything happens there. One stage. Everybody's in the same room. Even the sponsors, their tables were in that main Showroom. Everything happened there with the exception of the party. This year, we've changed things up. So we have a Showroom, kind of a similar style. One stage. All of the main presentations happen in that one room. The change that we've made this year is that, with the exception of the four premier sponsors who will have, they'll each have a booth in the main Showroom. And I should mention two, by the way. I'll come back to that. - You've mentioned two of the four. You mentioned HDPhotoHub and Phixer. I think you probably- - HDPhotoHub, Phixer, iGUIDE and Aryeo are our four premier sponsors. So they will have a reserve booth in the main Showroom. But the cool thing about [Palms Casino Resort] that we're at this year is that it's given us the opportunity to create what we're calling the PMRE Lounge/Vendor Alley [KAOS Showroom]. So right next door to the main Showroom, literally a 10-second walk is this [KAOS Showroom] really cool space that we've got where all of our 20 vendor booths are going to be. So the vendors, that's going to be their home base. The Showroom is general admission. So you come in, you've got your badge, your lanyard, you find a seat, you sit down. There's no assigned seating, that kind of thing. The vendors have a home base in the Vendor Alley. There are a couple times, there's usually an hour each afternoon where we shut down the Showroom, go over to the Vendor aAlley. There's a bar open. The sponsors are all there. And that's just literally an hour dedicated to going and networking with the sponsors, getting to know the new products, the new companies that are there. We are going to be pumping a live stream from the Showroom into the Vendor Alley throughout the entire event. So the goal is to make the two rooms, sort of keep them open nine to five each day. So if there's a session on stage that really isn't kind of up your alley, maybe that's an opportunity to scoot over to the Vendor Alley, catch up on some emails, make a few phone calls, and meet some of the vendors. So I kind of anticipate a consistent flow to and from. And then some sponsors will be deciding how to divide their time if they're in the Vendor Alley or if they're going to be in the Showroom. So we kind of have the two complimentary spaces this year. And then again, the goal with that room over and above having the home base for the sponsors was a lot of meetings happening at this event. A lot of companies meet with their clients. It's the first time they've had a chance to meet people in person rather than have them go find a lounge somewhere in the casino. We've got this reserve space that has enough room to accommodate every single person in attendance and then some. So you can go over and have a meeting there, and you're still in sort of the PMRE ecosystem. You're not out at the mercy of the public and lineups and all that kind of stuff. So that's the two big adjustments. And then we already kind of talked about the party venue and what's going on there. - And this all takes place at the Palms Resort Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada? - Correct. - Brandon, you touched a little bit on the history of PMRE, but I think it's probably helpful if you went into it a little bit of a deeper dive. We know where we are today and what's coming up on the 6th Annual PMRE 2024. Take us back to how did the PMRE Conference even come about? - Sure, so what was it 2016-ish? There was actually a massive wildfire in my city where we got evacuated just in a matter of hours. And it was starting to look about, the city burnt down, and it was starting to look that maybe we would never go home. And so it was the first time in quite a few years where I thought, "Oh, like both my wife and I were like, man, we may not have jobs. Our whole entire future was up in the air." At the time, I had been to Tony Colangelo, who was actually my photography coach at the time. We had been talking about potentially doing a couple small workshops prior to this. Now that I was evacuated, I had no job, I reached out to Tony and said, "Hey, you know what? Now's the time if we're ever going to do it. I don't have an agenda. I don't have any clients waiting on me. Let's do this." So we did about six or seven workshops around North America, and the feedback was always the same. They enjoyed the education, they could go back and apply it to their market. All that stuff was great. But everybody always said, the most amazing thing about the workshops was being able to go into a room of like-minded people, drop your guard, share your best practices, learn from one another, and not feel like you're going to get kind of stabbed in the back when you leave. Like you would maybe in your own market if you wanted to take your competition out for dinner or whatever, right? So after the seventh or eighth workshop, it kind of hit me. There was a market for this. There was a need for this. It was so fulfilling for us to meet all these people. And we had people from all over the place, people coming from around the world, and we were in Atlanta and Vegas and a bunch of different cities. The feedback and the vibe was always the same. It was so positive and it was such a great experience. I said to Tony one day, I think there's a market for this. This industry needs an annual gathering where we can all bring everybody together. Rather than bumping around trying to fill rooms with 15 people here and there, why don't we just take a swing and get everybody there? And at the time, Tony, we were at different stages in our life, and Tony's a little bit more reserved than I am. And I just said, "I'm going to do it." So long story short, at that time, I owned the PFRE blog that I had bought from Larry, Larry Lohrman, who was the founder back in 2008. So we just put a couple polls out on the blog and just said, "Hey guys, if we found a way to pull everybody together once a year, we found the venue and put together a program, what would the appetite look like? Would you guys be interested? What's the price point? What cities should we look at? What cities should we avoid?" And the feedback was amazing. People were very candid. They reached out, they gave us all kinds of input, and then we went as far as to say, well, what if we did like a little bit of round of pre-sales to really see if there's interest? And so it's one thing to say, yeah, I'm in. It's another thing to put your credit card down and invest your time, your hotel, all that kind of thing. So we did that. We decided, we set a date, we found a venue, we launched a pre-registration on Friday. I can't remember what date it was, but by Sunday, the 75 early birds were gone, which gave us the ability to go and pursue this venue without too much -- Instead of like, if this doesn't go, we're absolutely bankrupt, it was more like our risk was minimized so we could focus more on the creative, a little bit less than worrying about the dollars and cents. And that's how the whole thing was born. We found the South Point Hotel Casino. We worked a deal with them. In 2019, we had 300 people from 12 or 14 different countries. It was a total success by all senses. It was very simple. We kept it really -- we really wanted to just kind of keep it simple and focus on execution. We were very excited. We had all these big plans to double down for 2020. And then good old COVID came along, and we almost skipped that year. Thank God we didn't. We ended up going virtual, which again isn't ideal, especially for a bunch of creatives. But what we learned was getting people together, once again, just for that one big gathering was absolutely worth the effort. We ended up having 525 people from 25 countries. So it helped kind of get the word out there a little bit more and show people that we were very committed to making sure that at the very least, we were going to bring people together every year. 2021, went back in person. It was a bit dodgy. That's when people were quite divided whether it was safe or not. We kind of took the position where we reached out to a lot of people. Most of them showed interest. So we kind of said, "Hey, we'll just follow whatever the state laws are. If they'll let us do it, take the risk and we'll do it." And so we did, and it was a lighter year. I think we had 250 people there. But again, it showed that we were committed to making this happen every year. And then went into 2022 and then 2023. And here we are now moving to, this will be our sixth event. [Palms Casino Resort], completely new format, adding that third day, and this will be PMRE 2024 at the Palms Casino Resort. - Yeah, congratulations, Brandon. My first PMRE in person was 2023. And it was everything that you've now described in the past hour about connecting, learning, growing, all the people that either I knew or met. It was really just a wonderful experience. So I've already registered for PMRE 2024. I've booked my air from Atlanta. I've reserved my hotel through the PMRE portal for the Palms Casino Resort. So congratulations on an awesome conference that I would imagine is going to be yet another sellout, both in terms of registrations and given you have four remaining sponsor opportunities, I imagine those are going to go quickly as well. And also, I would say, on behalf of the community, thank you, because while this is a for-profit business for you, it's really almost a public service for real estate photographers that for the most part are not around a lot of people when you're shooting real estate. So this is an opportunity to connect with peers that share your passion. - Right, well, I appreciate that, and we appreciate your support personally and the support of the community. Again, yes, it's a for-profit business, but it is risky and it is scary and it takes a lot, but we love it, and we want to keep doing it. And there are some things I hope maybe we can circle back and have a conversation in a few months when I'm able to reveal a few other things that we're working on. There's some pretty exciting plans that we have in our back pocket for the future. So yeah, I'd love to be able to chat again down the road. If you don't mind, can I ask you one question before, it sounds like we're kind of winding down. I'm really curious, because you were one of the people who's been around this industry as long and longer than anybody. You knew about PMRE for quite some time. You didn't attend until 2023 last year. I'm really curious, from what you had heard over the years compared to what you experienced in person, number one, was it what you expected? And if not, what was the biggest difference from what you anticipated to experience when you were there and what you actually experienced? - Well, what I had expected was a technical conference that would probably be F-stop, shutter speed, et cetera. And I was actually thrilled that it wasn't, and that it was about running your business; and how you could scale your business; and how you could grow your business; and how to perhaps bring on a virtual assistant or bring on the next photographer. Actually, it was unexpected in terms of the program, even though I looked at the agenda, looked at who would be speaking, I just found it tremendously helpful being in a room of like-minded people and having an opportunity to share, share best practices, what are other people doing. So I was thrilled to have attended it in 2023, and it's why I look forward to 2024. Brandon, thanks for being a guest on my show today. - Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. - We've been visiting with Brandon Cooper, Owner and Organizer of PMRE: Photography + Media for Real Estate Conference, which will be held November 13th, 14th, and 15th, 2024 in Las Vegas. There are bookend events, so there are pre-workshops and post-workshops. And if you haven't made it to the website yet, again, it's: www.PMREconference.com For Brandon, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum, and you've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.
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