Venture - I have 'won' 125 pound voucher...so what's the catch?

[unicorn]

I imagine they try and sell expensive photos... but can you getaway with just the freebie?

If you have a VERY strong resistance to the Hard Sell, maybe. I have heard they use impressive techniques to get you to spend WAY more than £125. No experience of them - I think opinions of the Venture phenomenon divide sharply...

I 'won' too but when I rang up to book I was told the whole family had to go along. Dh had no wish to participate so I wasn't able to take up their offer. Not too fussed. But the catch is the hard sell, and whether you will be immune to your baby's photos. I know I would have struggled!

Ooooh I am so glad you posted about this promotion, because I feel it is extremely manipulative and unfair to parents.
We were pleased to win this as well last summer and went ahead with the photo shoot. I had planned to order perhaps three shots as well as the freebie.
I'm not sure about this particular chain but the one in Dublin which shall remain nameless only offers FRAMED "portraits" starting at exorbitant prices. I ordered one 8x10 and one 5x7 and it came to just under 500 euro (and this was after they'd subtracted the cost of the equivalent "free" portrait.) My husband was furious. I gave one to my in-laws as a gift.
They will present the photos to you in a very slick movie format with music etc., it makes it very hard to resist purchasing them.
Strictly speaking it's not a scam, because you could just take the free one and walk away. It's tough to do that though!
They will probably be amazing photos though so it depends what you feel is worth it...

Hi Unicorn,
I did this a couple of years ago and TBH the girl who did my "screening" was so nice that I would have been fine just having the freebis...BUT...as they well know there are very few people who can resist the lure of their angelic babes and airbrushed selves on the big screen. So if you really don't want to spend shed loads of cash...go in with a hard heart and a steely determination. (I spent 595 pounds incidentally!!! )

Not a scam per se but we got stung and got the real hard sell in just this way. FWIW - the £125 would probably pay for just one pretty small photo.....

They don't do a hard sell because the pictures sell themselves - you can just have the freebie if you want but you need a heart of stone to resist because they blow the pictures up to project them, and they are stunning. The photography session is terrific fun though, and well worth doing if you feel you can keep good control of your credit card! To give you some idea, we ended up with a frame which is about 18" x 30", it has three images of 4" x 7" and cost £700.

Their customer service is crap though. Getting the pictures was a nightmare, the first one was damaged, it then came back without its frame, was then sent to the wrong studio, got lost, and took about four and a half months (instead of 6 weeks) to arrive. We then found the staff less than helpful at chasing up the picture, and they didn't even bother to acknowledge our letter of complaint. The pictures are beautiful, but I wouldn't go back and have another one done.

hmm, I am tempted to try for just the freebie (we haven't got enough to spend on fab photos anyway)

dh probably won't want to do it tho ('they could see you coming' type thing)

They can't physically make you pay for anything else can they?

Everyone wins the £125 offer!

We did and I know alot of other people who have.

I did spend more but only £90 so it it possible to walk away without feeling robbed.

I asked the price on one particular photo/frame arrangment and DH and I laughed out loud when she said £600.
Day light robbery IMO.

No, you don't have to purchase anything else. But what you'll get for free is probably just a framed 5x7.
They do keep them on file though so if you come into some cash you can always order later on!

We did something similar and walked away with just the (really quite small) freebie. It's lovely though. When they're showing you all the pics, just keep the (very large) prices in your head and say 'no'. You could also investigate other local portrait studios that might do similar shots for less money - use the session to give you ideas about how to take your own pics, too.

Jackie, you're made of stronger stuff than I am!

We 'won' too. I have 2 children and DH. Our form asked us how many were in my family and I answered with the above info. When we won the letter said that all of the above had to be in the photos for us to qualify for the 'freebie'. When I called to book the appointment they asked for our credit card number incase we changed our minds and didn't show up they could take the cost of lost studio time off our credit card. I asked how it was lost studio time if we were getting it for 'free' anyway. The girl got quite mouthy with me, and I told her to forget about the pictures.

I'm going through this at the moment. I booked a session (supposed to be tomorrow) then changed my mind. I was going to ring yesterday to cancel but a letter arrived telling me they would charge me £25 if I cancelled less than 7 days before the appointment. As they rang me last Friday and made the appointment for this Thursday it was impossible to cancel 7 days in advance.

Dh is phoning them today to remonstrate and try and get us out of it.

Okay, s'whady'a have to to to 'win' then?

carla, fill the form in that they thrust under you nose in random supermarket displays...simply as that!!

I was stopped in Morrison and filled in a card. It's happened before so I knew I was going to 'win' and thought I'd just go along to get the freebie. I changed my mind because the studio is about a 45 mins drive from here and I can't be *rsed dragging dd around and sitting through the presentation to get a tichy photo.

I'm another anti-Venture person. The pictures I got were nothing like the ones in their brochure, they were very ordinary, and the price for the framed prints is ludicrous and you can't buy them unframed (which they didn't tell me before I went in, v naughty). The quality of the frames, IMO is no better than ones from Ikea. If you've got several hundred pounds to spend on pics of your family, hire a proper protrait photographer to come to your house and then just buy prints from that and frame them yourself. The cost will be the same and the quality is like to be better.

is that a mistype 3 photos 4" by 7" for £700

I got the impression these were big wall covering portraits

It all sounds pants, ladies. Look in your local paper/free local kiddie newsletter, and book someone local. Those prices are shocking; plus their attitude stinks.

not read the whole thread (attention span of a goldfish today) but we had "the venture experience" too.

Loved every minute of it, photo shoot made us feel like celebs. The photographer did explain taht the voucher covers the shoot and 1 framed 7 x 5 picture. went back to choose which one we wanted and like, others we spent a lot(or will have when we stop paying for them!!) but i don't regret it at all. In fact i would do it again in a few years.

We weren't given teh hard sell either, just sat on a sofa, i bf ds2 while dp and i looked at the pictures. We actually didn't liek a lot fo them so it was harder for us to choose what we DID want!

As someone else has pointed out tho, i think that there a varied opinions on this.

No, that's not a typo. 3 small images in one big frame.

The big, wall-covering things are upwards of £1000.

we recently picked up our free 5x7 venture picture
i found the studio time to be v v stressful, I was there with my 2 girls and felt the photographer was under pressure to get some excellent shots of them , or us. Maybe it depends on the photographer on the day - ours insisted on taking single shots of the older one first, despite me telling her that she should take younger one first before she got fed up. our pictures weren't great we just took the freebie a few weeks later
outrageous prices
I won't do it again
and the number of phonecalls they bugged us with to set up the appointment in the first place
grrrr
and I will now parp
(first parp!)

We went twice. Both times just for the freebie (in fact I need to pick up the latest one, good reminder this). The first one is gorgeous and everybody comments on it. I chose that myself. Second time I went with DH but we still only chose the freebie. Cheapos!

I must admit that I have also had a positive experience with Venture. I disagree completely that a portrait photographer can create something similar given the whole white room / studio effect. We have had some fantastic photos taken of dd and us...and yes...we spent quite a bit extra...but yes...it was worth every penny in my book as these are completely natural unposed, action photos that have captured the essence of us and dd as the people we really are, rather than the fixed smile, false pose kind of thing.

That said, I believe that there are more photographers who are recognising that this type of photography is what people are looknig for these days - I guess in the similar way to the fact that much more wedding photography is done 'reportage' style now and in black and white.

So would I go for Venture again? Having had the experience and photos from our first session which was all fab, albeit expensive, then probably not. However I would instead, try and find a local studio who was capable of doing the same sort of thing and then check out their portfolio as a comparison.

The other thing that I found really annoying was the quality of the materials they use is not that good - for the price of the picture I expected the quality of the print and frame to be superb, but they're not. While it looks great in the frame, at one point they sent the picture without the frame, and it's printed on cheap, thin, flimsy paper. The quality of the frame isn't that brilliant either.