Shawn Gossman
Supporter
What are your thoughts on this folks? What seems like more of venture for you? Selling footage or leading a chaser tour? Or both?
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- Science and Storm Chasing
- Advanced weather & chasing
Storm-chasing tours: From fad to full-fledged industry
- Thread starter Shawn Gossman
- Start date
What are your thoughts on this folks? What seems like more of venture for you? Selling footage or leading a chaser tour? Or both?
Drew Terril
Staff memberIt's not my cup of tea. That's just me though, and I'm a live and let live type so I don't really say much about those who choose to do that kind of stuff.
Alex Heimberger
EF2
Have to go with leading a tour. Along with seeing a tornado. Getting someone there to witness it with you is a great feeling of accomplishment too. Don't know if I could put up with the daily grind with strangers though. And the logistics... Out of those two still think it would be more of an adventure.
JamesCaruso
Staff memberOut of the choice of running a chase tour or selling footage, I think running a chase tour would be more of a venture (and adventure!) From a business standpoint (if you like that sort of thing), running a chase tour is more complex and interesting, and more scalable into something larger and more profitable. Either way you're out there chasing, but running a tour you get to meet lots more interesting people, bond with them during the sometimes intense experience of chasing, and as Alex said you get the satisfaction of showing others something they may have never seen. However, this doesn't mean I want to run a chase tour; if the third choice was to chase recreationally without the hassles and logistics (particularly trying to find rooms for a couple dozen people!), I would go with that option.
BTW, I first started chasing on a tour in 1996, and began chasing on my own in 1999. As you can imagine, there were not too many different tour groups back then. I went with Marty Feeley's Whirlwind Tours, which I believe was one of the originals (but no longer operating). I think the only others around back then were Charles Edwards's Cloud 9 Tours, and maybe Dave Gold's company, but don't quote me on any of that, it is just anecdotal memory!
Dan Robinson
EF5
I've had the privilege of bringing a couple of people to their first tornado, and it's an experience that really breathes a new type of life into a chase trip. I would love to do it all the time if I could. A few years ago, I looked into starting some type of tour service. The main problem I ran into was insurance coverage. If I use my vehicle or one I'm driving, carrying paying guests across state lines is very expensive to get "real" coverage for (IE, something that will actually cover everything and pay a claim) and involves a lot of red tape and regulations. Not having every I dotted and T crossed in that area will really put one in a serious situation in the event of even a fender-bender that results in injuries. A waiver doesn't even cover all your bases. Chalk that one up to our litigious society, it's a shame.
Again, it's doable, but very expensive in terms of overhead and a lot of work to get everything put together. You really need to get vans and fill them up with guests to pay for everything, which takes startup costs, advertising and a good business sense. I'm a terrible businessman and really hate the red tape, accounting, sales and paperwork side of things - to the point that having to keep up with all of that would take the fun out of chasing for me. I admire anyone with the tenacity to do it all.
If someone could figure out a chase tour guide "brokerage" (taking care of all the legal/accounting stuff), I'd be the first to sign up!