Photo Booth Rentals: What’s Included, and How Much Will It Cost?

welcome to another episode of the Pixilated podcast I am Patrick Rife I am one of the co founders and the CVO hero Pixilated and today we're gonna be talking about spoiler alert photo booth rentals I know super surprising right we're gonna click out a little bit today and we're just gonna focus just kind of you know quite generally on photobooth rentals you know what's included in them how much do they cost what you need to know about in order to rent one so for anybody that is listening or tuning in I just wanna mention up front that we have a great post a blog post over on our website that kind of goes even more into details on this we're gonna try and keep this not overwhelmingly long so if this resonates and you're trying to get more information I would definitely suggest checking out the show notes we'll put a link to that original blog post so you can go over and check the the actual copy out and read it for yourself see some photos but that being said let's get into it so right you're you're thinking about running a photo booth probably have a lot of questions and those could vary as far and wide as how much does it cost to why would I use it and how do I do it and what do I need to know about so whether it's finding the vendor what you're getting in exchange for it so you know when you host an event there's a very good chance you wanna make sure that there's some kind of photo moment that's there that's built into it but you know the different versions of photography at your event are wide and vast and they can be expensive and they can be cheap and they can be underwhelming and they can be overwhelming in this podcast we're gonna talk about you know what a photo booth rental actually package actually is you know like what's included what's the most important part of it some average photo booth pricing you know this that and the third so you know first and foremost what is a photobooth rental package so when you go to a wedding you go to a birthday party you go to south by southwest and go to the Nike spot and there's a photobooth there like nine times out of 10 it's a photobooth rental some of those brands and organizations they might own their own photobooth and they're using it on an ongoing basis we can help you too but by enlarge that's a rental and they have either found a local vendor or they have found a company that gives them the equipment that they need to be able to create that photo moment whether it's at your nieces about mitzvah or whether it's at the local ice cream parlor doing a fourth of July thing so in the world of photo booth rentals there are a ton of options as well so you have things that are like a full DIY style package right and it's gonna come with everything that you need comes with the stand it comes with the kiosk maybe there's a backdrop props etc etc you know when a lot of people hear Photoboost they think about your traditional kind of like on the boardwalk get in the box close the curtain and while those options are available for the events world more often than not you're gonna find something that's referred to as an open air photo booth and when you get to open air photo booth there's a huge gamut of options inside of those as well right so from uh your DIY photo booth kit something that like what Pixilated does right so you go into our online shop you pick out the photo booth that you want we build your order and we ship it directly to you all the way across to like a fully staffed you know person shows up they set everything up for you they stand there and they operate it for the duration of your event uh they pack it up and they take it away when it's over with so a lot of options that are there and and you can in your town there's more likely than not there are options for all of these that are there it's just all about figuring out which of these options are the best fit for your event you know based on what you're trying to accomplish so you know like a DIY kit might be the right thing if you're planning on using it for a week or you've got great brand ambassadors or people that are there to operate it you know a staff solution might be better if you're really worried about not having someone there to make sure that everything is kind of operating and going the way that you had in mind so so let's start off right from the jp you know like what's included in a typical package so like first and foremost it's the photobooth kiosk you know like the gear the booth if you will so most DIY packages are gonna include a kiosk some kind of camera right an iPad something more customized like a Pixilated booth where there's a camera integrated to it there's a touchscreen there's a tripod for it to sit on and either some built in flash or some additional lighting right so the idea behind DIY kit is to make it as simple as possible for you to set up and operate it on your own without needing a photographer without needing a person to come in there are a ton of great DIY photo booth options on the market and a great amount of ideas to help kind of get the juices flowing that is something that you can absolutely achieve if you if you feel like that's the right fit for what you're looking to do so epixilated that's what we do we have we spent a ton of time as a company doing both you know like we started as a full service staffed photo booth rental and then we built our own software and our own hardware technology and we have all the products that we got them to a place where we didn't really feel like it was necessary to send out staffing for our photoboost to be successful for our customers to be able to use them that being said you know like if the attendant option is what you're looking for you know like the benefit is that you're gonna have someone there that's able to take care of all of it right there they're bringing it in they're setting it up they're making sure that it's working you know the the hold back is that certainly from a price perspective when you're paying for staffing it's going to be more expensive but also if you want to use it for a longer period of time that may not be the best fit right you may not find that having a staff photo booth is the right thing for your 8 hour long you know conference that's gonna also be three days long you know like it might be a better fit for you to not have staffing at the same time if you're throwing a children's party and you're worried that there's gonna be a ton of kids there and it's gonna be hectic and the peace of mind of having a person there is is is exactly that it's bringing peace of mind then whatever that's the right fit for you so moving down the the next thing that that you're gonna have included right in a photo booth rental is gonna be your props and your accessories so like hats glasses but was anything you can think of that you traditionally see as well as if if this is like a branded or a corporate event like figuring out ways to integrate the branding of the organization you know like it's a nonprofit for whatever heart disease you know like figuring out ways that you can add props that are in there that are gonna complement the vision for what the event is about a lot of photo booth companies are gonna have a lot of stock events and then or some sorry stock photo booth props and then also if you got other things that are specialized either they will be able to provide them for you or they can point you in the right direction for where you might be able to go to get something that matches your event better speaking of matching your event another thing in the photo with rental process that you're going to take into account is kind of like the theme so if the theme for your event is a Great Gatsby party you want to look for some designs around the photo booth and that could either be the touchscreens that are on the actual kiosk where it says tap to take photo or let's get started or something along those lines matching right that Art Deco Great Gatsby theme could be the overlay that's going on top of the photos like maybe it's a cool gold frame maybe there's a few kind of different geometric options that are there but thinking about the photo booth theme is definitely another integral part of a photo booth rental package and then moving on from there kind of the last big element is uh is the the backdrop for the photo so this is a is there's so many options that are there there are so many ways to approach doing this maybe you wanna have something classic and it's just a solid white or solid back backdrop maybe you wanna have like a different color of sequin you know like a rose gold or silver sequin backdrop maybe you want to use something that already exists there inside of your space maybe you wanna use a step and repeat because it's a big branded event or you have uh it's a fundraiser and you've got sponsors whose logos you wanna activate behind you all of those are options but they're gonna fall under you know things that are included inside of a photobooth rental package and I think that that that probably like the the last important thing that's very unique is the amount of customization that you're gonna bring to it so an example of that would be if this is for a wedding you know like do the bride and groom have a monogram a logo a wedding hashtag that they want to be incorporated into the design right if this is you know like a fundraiser for the local pet shelter or if this is uh you know like the launch of a brand new model of Aldi car there's a good chance that they're gonna wanna have the low lane of the Audi logo right we want to have the model of the car we want to have some of that creative integrated inside of the system so those are kind of a lot of the the core themes that put together the look in the feel of the experience outside of that right from a from a photobooth rental package perspective you know you're looking at the the length of time that you're able to use it for like are there limits on the amount of photos that you can take again if we're going back to the the conversation of a of a self service DIY kit versus a full service staff kit right that uh that time limit question comes into sharp contrast there right so the DIY kits typically you're renting them by the day so you can use them as much as you want whereas if you are you're working with a vendor and a staff photo booth typically they are going to they're gonna contract with you by the hour 2 hour 3 hour 4 hour long event so something to think about moving on in inside of the the what's included in your package space or what it is that you're looking for there are options for Photoboost that provide prints on site so like your classic kind of photo strips probably what's more common these days is a 4 by 6 uh photo that prints out uh right so it captures three or four photos prints them out onto uh photo strip and then your guests are able to take them away versus a digital photo booth and and that's gonna allow your customers to be able or your guests customers guests to be able to email and text themselves the photos a lot of photo booth options out there offer both some only offer one or the other it's important for you to just know that those options exist and then from there way the pros and cons of whether that's something that is important to you obviously when you're adding printing uh similarly to adding staffing it's going to influence the price of your package but also thinking about it around what you want people to do you know like is it important to have people sharing these photos on uh on social media you know if that's the case then you wanna make sure that they have you know that they have their photos on their phones right so emailing and texting those photos is incredibly important if it's important to you to have them uh put the photo on their fridge with a magnet then then having a print photo booth there is gonna be something that you really need to take into account beyond that the other kind of extras and add ons that you might wanna think about you know like if you're if uh you've got a digital photo booth right if email and texting is a priority making sure that you have uh have a good Wi-Fi hotspot that's there you know typically in in the year 2023 most venues have great Wi-Fi and and that's not an issue but it's always something that is smart to plan for because nothing is worse than planning to have your guests being able to email and text the photos in real time so they can be sharing them and have that not happen so kind of those are just from like a jping off point those are kind of the things that you wanna think about so moving on what can you expect when it comes to uh the cost of of rental packages so obviously DIY kits are gonna be a little more affordable full service kits are going to be a little bit more expensive generally speaking you know like DIY kits are gonna run between 300 to 600 dollars a day uh sometimes the things that you're gonna see that that represent that kind of spread in pricing is you know are there different uh models of kiosk that are maybe producing different quality photos is the lighting different those are probably some of the things that you're gonna see influence the cost of pricing there on the other hand if we're looking at fully staffed photo booths you know the range could be as little as $750 all the way up to you know fifteen hundred dollars for your your average you know four hour photo booth you know granite I think what we should acknowledge is there are a lot of different photo booth types these days right there's like a classic photo booth there's a black and white booth there's a gift photo booth a green screen photo booth a mirror photo booth a 3 60 photo booth so there's a lot of variants in there so you know don't take these nbers as as the be all end all but at the same time like it's a jumping off point give you some idea of what to expect that's it that brings us to the end of today's episode I hope you guys all found this really valuable if you have other questions that I didn't answer or there's something that I said that would have been great for me to expand on a little bit more put it in the chat but otherwise make sure you hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening whether this is on podcast or in video format we want to make sure that you see these videos and podcasts on a regular basis so that way you can keep tuning in finding out more information so okay that's me Patrick Pixilated I'm out of here peace