A business question about damage caused by customers

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Last night I did a photo booth hire at a wedding. A couple of the guests try to knock eachother out and in the process collapsed against my booth. A piece of equipment was damaged which will cost me around £50 to replace.

The booth was booked by the bride herself. My question is, do I...
A) Suffer the loss of £50 out of my profits and say nothing
B) Bill the bride as it's in my terms that damages must be paid for
C) Write a polite letter with a picture of the damage and request that she attempts to claim it from the 2 people involved.

The biggest part of me says A - just put up with it, but then it annoys me the more I think about it because I didn't set this business up to put up with such things. But then despite being able to photograph the damaged item, I suppose it's still essentially my word against theirs anyway.

Any thoughts?
 

Goldilox

How do I edit this?
I think you'd be perfectly within your rights to charge the bride as per your t&c but I suspect the astute business decision would be to suffer the loss of £50 for the sake of avoiding a disgruntled customer & the social media fallout that might entail.

When I was hiring the camera equipment for the 44 pistol video we did a few years back a small 'mandatory insurance' fee was added to my bill, which seemed fair enough for the sake of no one chasing me for £10,000 had something been dropped. Something like that could be worth considering in future?
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
If you are prepared to go the A) Suffer the loss of £50 out of my profits and say nothing route this time, then you could maybe mention this to the customer in a "we'll say nothing about the £50 damage in this case" sort of way, on the basis that each booking will often result in another future booking...?

And maybe amend terms for the future.

If you've still got a reasonable 'win' from the event, then the upset may not be worth it.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Thanks guys, you have confirmed by thoughts too. I'll leave it be. I'm not too concerned about long term effects as I'm possibly packing it up anyway (too old for the nonsense involved) but have decided it's not worth any fallout anyway. :up:
 

kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
Thanks guys, you have confirmed by thoughts too. I'll leave it be. I'm not too concerned about long term effects as I'm possibly packing it up anyway (too old for the nonsense involved) but have decided it's not worth any fallout anyway. :up:

I'm quite fascinated @wmrcomputers computers by how you get your ideas for business opps. SInce I've been on this forum you've done white doves? Photo booth? wondered about starting a cafe? and probably lots more that I have forgotten. Do you like the fresh challenge of a new thing, or have none of them lived up to your hopes and expectations?
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
I'm quite fascinated @wmrcomputers computers by how you get your ideas for business opps. SInce I've been on this forum you've done white doves? Photo booth? wondered about starting a cafe? and probably lots more that I have forgotten. Do you like the fresh challenge of a new thing, or have none of them lived up to your hopes and expectations?
Haha... I suppose I'm a tryer, and more often than not a failer. If it costs very little to start up then I look at it as nothing to lose in trying. My domain host has a list of around 30 websites I previously purchased.... 4 of which are in use I think.
As it stands - computer work is almost non-existent now thanks to the rise in smart phone technology and many people not even owning a computer (yes really).
White doves - I owned them anyway so thought I would try it out. Not as popular as I'd hoped so didn't continue but lost nothing by giving it a go.
Photo booth - has succeeded to the point where it now owes me nothing, but recent events and a few other factors are making me reconsider continuing with it.
Starting a cafe - it was only ever a thought. Everyone I seem to speak to has considered it in their life at some point, but not something I decided to try as most don't - otherwise we would be over-ridden with cafes! :)

Do I like the fresh challenge of a new thing, or have none of them lived up to my expectations? A bit of both I guess. I just hope to find something that works for me eventually and if not I'll die trying.
 

hop

Well-Known Forumite
Any reason why considering giving it up ?

If it's the time and effort involved then perhaps look to simplify the idea.

You can buy 27 inch monitors for under £200 and a raspberry pi zero for £4. This can be placed behind a 2 way mirror, which is slim and portable, see image below

16_pretty_much_done.png


In terms of getting customers to interact with this portable picture frame photo booth you could add a 433Mhz sensor and remote control, or couple it with something like a WII remote / dance matt.

It's not hard to add 433Mhz functionality, if you want some assistance with he electronics give me a shout.

With this version the customer could collect the equipment from your home, take it away and return it later. Since it could be hung from a wall at the venue it may also be less likely to suffer damage.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Mirror booths, selfie mirrors or magic mirrors are nothing "new", but it requires powerful windows computers to run the kind of software that makes it fun and entertaining. It also requires touch screen interactivity too so it all becomes fairly expensive although I could make one. However it's not the kind of kit you'd leave unattended with a party of drunks. My printer alone is £1000 worth and all it takes is someone impatient to pull the print before it cuts it and it can cause irreparable damage. If there were an easy way of offering a simple mirror or booth set up on a self-hire basis though, then believe me I would do it in a shot.

These things are just amazingly "geek" and there are so many things that can & do go wrong, it needs a geek present and in control of it all.
 

hop

Well-Known Forumite
Nonsense you can run powerful face recognition on a mobile phone which has less power than a raspberry pi.

In terms of interaction a remote control can easily do the job, a wii remote or a dance mat.

Perhaps you should learn some Linux and you might realise that things are easier than you think.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Haha... I suppose I'm a tryer, and more often than not a failer. If it costs very little to start up then I look at it as nothing to lose in trying. My domain host has a list of around 30 websites I previously purchased.... 4 of which are in use I think.
As it stands - computer work is almost non-existent now thanks to the rise in smart phone technology and many people not even owning a computer (yes really).
Please don't ever give up the computer repair work! I still rely on my old faithful laptop, which you fixed so well a few years ago that it's still plodding along nicely in it's old age :) . (Can do straightforward forum posts on my smartphone, but have to resort to switching the laptop on specially to do anything else. :roll: )

Still got your number safely installed in my phone , ready for any disasters with the laptop :D
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Nonsense you can run powerful face recognition on a mobile phone which has less power than a raspberry pi.

In terms of interaction a remote control can easily do the job, a wii remote or a dance mat.

Perhaps you should learn some Linux and you might realise that things are easier than you think.

It's not just about the operating system, it's the computers ability to rapidly process high quality digital imagery etc etc. There are software programs ready designed for photo booths and magic mirrors that are not just capable of doing the job, but also making it extremely fun for the users. I'd say 80% of the people that use a photo booth at a wedding do so for entertainment value more so than the picture itself - crazy I know. It's all about using the props and being silly, and the software has to help to create that mood. As these programs are almost all written for Windows computers, using anything like linux etc would mean huge programming skills are necessary as well as some serious artistic elements to make it fun. You don't have a dog to bark yourself, and likewise 99% of photobooths out there rely on the big boys of software design to do the hard work and keep it updated with new features such as greenscreen, animated gif creation, social media integration etc etc. It's not just taking and printing a picture - there's far more going on than that.

Being so dependant on the software that exists therefore ties us not only to the Windows operating system, but also to the required specs of the hardware / necessity of a touchscreen etc. It would be like you or I designing our own phone operating system and expecting the world just to love it - of course the chances are they wouldn't. The creators of the software I use are leaders worldwide and have invested tens and tens of thousands of pounds to develop their booth software - a team of dozens of programmers work on it every day to bring new features that keep the popularity of photo booths growing. I'd never try to compete with that. There is one as cheap as almost free booth program out there, it rarely gets updated and only the DIY booth fans use it for one off events that don't want to pay people like me. I've tried it when I was evaluating the options that exist and it looked and felt "immature". That wouldn't get repeat bookings or recommendations.

So in short, I'd rather rely on tested and proven software for a few hundred dollars and another 100 a year for updates than even hope to come close with my own efforts. I do appreciate the thought though that there might be other options.

On a side note, someone I spoke to had a DIY booth turn up at their wedding after paying £300 and advertising using stolen photos from a professional booths website. He came armed with an inkjet printer that took 3 minutes to print a single 6x4 photo and started banding after it had printed about 10. Needless to say he was slated across social media and soon vanished into thin air. :D
 

hop

Well-Known Forumite
It's not just about the operating system, it's the computers ability to rapidly process high quality digital imagery etc etc. There are software programs ready designed for photo booths and magic mirrors that are not just capable of doing the job, but also making it extremely fun for the users. I'd say 80% of the people that use a photo booth at a wedding do so for entertainment value more so than the picture itself - crazy I know. It's all about using the props and being silly, and the software has to help to create that mood. As these programs are almost all written for Windows computers, using anything like linux etc would mean huge programming skills are necessary as well as some serious artistic elements to make it fun. You don't have a dog to bark yourself, and likewise 99% of photobooths out there rely on the big boys of software design to do the hard work and keep it updated with new features such as greenscreen, animated gif creation, social media integration etc etc. It's not just taking and printing a picture - there's far more going on than that.

Being so dependant on the software that exists therefore ties us not only to the Windows operating system, but also to the required specs of the hardware / necessity of a touchscreen etc. It would be like you or I designing our own phone operating system and expecting the world just to love it - of course the chances are they wouldn't. The creators of the software I use are leaders worldwide and have invested tens and tens of thousands of pounds to develop their booth software - a team of dozens of programmers work on it every day to bring new features that keep the popularity of photo booths growing. I'd never try to compete with that. There is one as cheap as almost free booth program out there, it rarely gets updated and only the DIY booth fans use it for one off events that don't want to pay people like me. I've tried it when I was evaluating the options that exist and it looked and felt "immature". That wouldn't get repeat bookings or recommendations.

So in short, I'd rather rely on tested and proven software for a few hundred dollars and another 100 a year for updates than even hope to come close with my own efforts. I do appreciate the thought though that there might be other options.

On a side note, someone I spoke to had a DIY booth turn up at their wedding after paying £300 and advertising using stolen photos from a professional booths website. He came armed with an inkjet printer that took 3 minutes to print a single 6x4 photo and started banding after it had printed about 10. Needless to say he was slated across social media and soon vanished into thin air. :D

Each to their own, what do I know, I'm only a polyglot in computer operating systems and languages and electronics.

The very fact the adverts in between popular shows such as the X factor are all created on mobiles and using open source libraries speaks volumes. With under 200 lines of C it would be possible to create an interactive menu using a remote or Bluetooth.

Keep up the hard work. One day you might learn to listen and learn how work smart and make your money work for you. Until that day good luck with the grafting.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
I'm quite capable of listening hop - I didn't mean to come across offensively so I apologise if I have. You may very well know a hell of alot more about programming etc than I ever will and I respect that. I was merely pointing out that you probably know zero about the photo booth industry and without that knowledge how would it be possible to design software for it. It's okay having a screen instruction to press something and then it delay before taking a picture, but that alone doesn't make a photobooth what it is. They are extremely fun to use - nothing at all like the passport photobooths at sainsburys which aren't there to entertain you but to merely take your pictures. There are also other Windows related factors - for example the common dye sub printers are all only compatible with Windows and not linux.

Just as an example, here's a magic mirror in action that uses a very cool piece of software. I'm not saying it's the best even, but it's a lot better than I could achieve or instruct someone to create for me.
 

hop

Well-Known Forumite
Don't apologise to Hop it was his post that came over offensive, as do most of his posts.

Offensive ? For pointing out that someone is making large assumptions. I understand full well what is required, this is nothing more than the type of application which is used to upload videos on the advert break for things like the x factor. These can all be created using open source libraries such as OpenCV - indeed both android and ios run a unix operating system under the hood (linux and bsd respectively). So if someone is going to trying claim that is complex and requires "a powerful windows system" is shows their ignorance.

Read back on the thread and you will actually see that I offered my services to help on the electronics side. Being willing to give up your time for free to assist someone in making a printed circuit board and creating the necessary kernel level driver and add-ins is actually very far from offensive. It is instead a very generous offer. But as stated I clearly wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
One day you might learn to listen
... this was the point where I personally thought you had taken offence - maybe @Roland read it the same as myself. However I also accept that I personally may have triggered that response from something I worded in a way that could be taken offensively - hence my apology regardless. No harm felt or intended either way ;)

I certainly didn't want to sound unappreciative of your (very kind indeed) offer to help. I was merely pointing out that I'd rather spend a few hundred pounds on software proven to work that is already recognised within the industry. There are also other more complex features like greenscreen removal that I'm not sure you would have any knowledge to create, but are requested a lot in this business. Then there are things like the dye sublimation photo printer to tie into it all as well which are not always linux compatible. To me, it just makes sense to use something that already exists, works well and has an abundance of great features. Also it gets frequently updated with new features which means that the competition don't instantly sweep ahead on new creations that I wouldn't be able to instantly introduce if I wasn't a user of such software.

Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of times that I think how great it would be to lose weight by using a microcomputer, not requiring a touchscreen which would reduce weight too etc. I'd love to create a mini-booth for kids parties that could be run from just a tablet too, but I am committed to the software that I now know and love - the only negative being that it is quite demanding for decent hardware and the compulsory Windows O/S.
 

hop

Well-Known Forumite
Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of times that I think how great it would be to lose weight by using a microcomputer, not requiring a touchscreen which would reduce weight too etc. I'd love to create a mini-booth for kids parties that could be run from just a tablet too, but I am committed to the software that I now know and love - the only negative being that it is quite demanding for decent hardware and the compulsory Windows O/S.

You do realise that sublimation is just a method of transferring ink from one media to another, there is nothing specific to any kind of hardware of software ? The ink is simply transferred to a print media with heat. From a practical point of view it is very similar to lithography a commonly used method to produce printed circuit boards. I have produced many circuit boards using photo lithography and acid etching. I don't see any difference from a practical point of view, maybe you can explain why you see that producing a simple image is more complex than a circuit board ?
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
@hop - I know how sublimation works. The printer itself, however, only has Windows and Mac drivers available. Therefore, I'm not saying that maybe you or someone else wouldn;t have the skill to make it work under linux - just saying that it would be yet another complication to add by trying to go smaller and lighter. Your initial argument was that I could make this far easier using a microcomputer etc. but I've given several reasons (the printer just being one of them) that this would actually be a nightmare situation. For me it's like this. I like Windows. I understand it well and know how to problem solve on the spot. It works with the dye sub printer. It works with the software I use. I love the software.

Although I really appreciate your thoughts on this, you are basically saying that I should scrap every little detail of what I know and love and consider exchanging for something I know absolutely nothing about, couldn't just fix on the spot, couldn't add new features to without relying on someone such as yourself etc. etc. It's just not a practical solution for the sake of trying to lighten the kit or make it easier to set up. It's like taking a mechanic and assuming he's going to be great at flower arrangements. I know what I know, you know?
 

Roland

Well-Known Forumite
Offensive ? For pointing out that someone is making large assumptions. I understand full well what is required, this is nothing more than the type of application which is used to upload videos on the advert break for things like the x factor. These can all be created using open source libraries such as OpenCV - indeed both android and ios run a unix operating system under the hood (linux and bsd respectively). So if someone is going to trying claim that is complex and requires "a powerful windows system" is shows their ignorance.

Read back on the thread and you will actually see that I offered my services to help on the electronics side. Being willing to give up your time for free to assist someone in making a printed circuit board and creating the necessary kernel level driver and add-ins is actually very far from offensive. It is instead a very generous offer. But as stated I clearly wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about.

It's not what you say it is the way you say it!
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Posting these pictures for the sake of another forumite as I'm unable to post them in a private conversation. Selfie pod v2.0 in the making, pictured below. Not quite finished, but should give you an idea of what will be on offer.

For anyone else wondering, I'm basically creating a basic table top selfie-pod to provide a photobooth experience at a far cheaper rate than a photobooth that takes up little room and therefore fits the smallest of venues. It also requires nobody to attend to it and can therefore be used for an unlimited amount of time making it much better value for money. This was in the planning stages anyway, but some of the above conversation prompted me to get out the tools a bit sooner than I may have done otherwise - so thank you all for giving me a kick up the rear :)

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