What’s the value of a ticket to Pro Photographer Showdown? Recommended retail : $20.

1500 seats sold out in record time for the  marquee event at this year’s TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival, opening the way for a Black Market trade that has really probed the question.

This was one of the funnest promo campaigns I’ve ever put together for the TELUSFest, with Mike Berard riding shotgun and making sure we didn’t get lost.

There were offers of people’s children. Plenty of would-be scalpees have been waving fistloads of cash.

But the #BlackMarketPhoto experiment has really put some quanitifiables into play.

We put two VIP tickets into the hands of Mike Berard, Amber Turnau, Mike Douglas, Rebecca Bollwitt and Dano Pendygrasse, inviting them to trade for whatever we could get. The successful barterers could then try and trade the tickets up again (a la One Red Paper Clip – could they be up-traded for a house in Saskatchewan? If a paperclip could, then surely 2 tickets to the Olympus Pro Photographer Showdown could get you there…)

Mike Berard kicked things off with a trade with Voleurz’ Mason Mashon, and Pro Photo finalist, for a hoodie. 

Mason then kept the trading going,  choosing to go with @CoolAssPuppy. He donated $500 to the Christopher Reeve Foundation for his tickets.

Photographer Dano Pendygrasse traded his tickets in exchange for a $150 donation to the Paul Brunes Young Heart Foundation by Colin Gilliam. Gilliam donated the proceeds from the sale of a print of his work. Here’s how that little trade went down:

@mikedski @danopendygrasse @amberturnau @voleurz @miss604 lookin’ for some #blackmarketphoto tix.. how bout a print from colingilliam.com ??

@ColinGilliam sell something and donate the proceeds to charity and you’ve got a deal.

Pro photo Tix Going, going…#blackmarketphoto RT @ColinGilliam: next piece of art I sell from my website I will donate proceeds to charity

@ColinGilliam Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. #blackmarket photo. Donating to Paul Brunes Young Heart Foundation #wssf

We then invited Gilliam to exhibit some of his work at State of the Art.

Whistler blogger Amber Turnau traded her tickets to Gay Whistler’s CEO Dean Nelson for a mysterious package of “Island Magic”, a mystery to be revealed tonight at the Showdown.

Skiing legend and Olympus Pro Photographer Showdown host Mike Douglas traded his for a tenderloin and prawn dinner with wine pairings (an Okanagan Pinot Gris and a Chilean Carmenere) cooked by Biglines.com’s Tim Grey.

Biglines: I’ll cook an amazing jumbo prawn and tenderloin feast for 2 tickets. Think turn key date night. #BlackMarketPhoto kitchen must be supplied.

But then Grey ended up with a work assignment, so Douglas went back to the trading floor.

MikeDSki: So far @StreetToPeak is in the lead for my Pro Photo tix. Can anyone up the ante? You NEED to be there. #BlackMarketPhoto

Hi Brooks from StreetToPeak has offered $550 worth of auction items for the Whistler Children’s Centre fundraiser on May 8.

In the meantime, Rebecca Bollwitt, Miss 604, went out to tender for her tickets, and the winning bid came from Whistler’s Cathy Jewett, with an offer to donate $1000 to Kidsport.

In all, $200 worth of tickets to the 2010 Olympus Pro Photographer showdown, at the market close, netted $2100 in charitable donations to KidSport, the Whistler Children’s Centre, the Christopher Reeve Foundation and the Paul Brunes Young Heart Foundation. Plus one package of Island Magic.  Pretty good ROI.