Our company had a party and since photobooth was such a hit the first time, our HR person got a…read moreLiving Social deal to do photobooth again during our next party. I can't speak to how the setup was, since I wasn't the one doing the arrangement, so I'm purely just speaking about the experience during the party. Also, my HR person told me it's not Meghan that came, let's call her booth lady from here on out.
This is the detail of the deal:
Gathering Light Photography: A. Photo Booth Rental with Props, Attendant, and DVD.
1. When I first arrived, I was surprised to see the setup. It was in the back to Cap City Tavern in the patio area and the setup was in the back corner. It consists of the camera and booth lady on one side and a black cloth backdrop set up on the opposite side. Problem with this setup is that whomever is taking the picture has no privacy. Sounds silly but it matters when you're trying to get ready to get shot you want. Plus with only two sides, it's not really a booth now, is it?
2. Apparently during set up, the cord/tatter was broken so the booth lady ended up taking pictures manually with her camera. And here's where we run into more issues.
3. A normal DSLR does not allow many rapid fire with the flash, it takes time to "refresh". What that means is when we're trying to take pictures, one or two pictures would be taken, and then we'll have to wait, because the camera isn't ready. And then ok, back to our spot, smile, another picture, another wait. This actually is our smaller party. This "booth" definitely would not have been able to accommodate our normal bigger party. My bf, who's a photographer, mentioned that the camera she had was not a very robust camera for the job, but hey, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe her skills made up for it. Until I got the pictures.... oh wait for it...
4. The Living Social deal we got was for 3 hours, she was not quite done setting up at 5:30, but at 8:20, we were told she's supposed to be done at 8:30. Which I'm STILL ok with, but between 6:30-8:00, our group was a little preoccupied with drinking/eating. The whole time she's just waiting for someone to come up to take pictures, while she's texting on her phone. Didn't really try to engage anyone who might've been sitting there/walking by. We didn't have a huge group, nor were we having important meetings during the party, some engagement to help the empty booth probably would've been good. I get it though, might've been outside the job description.
5. The prop box. Ooooh poor prop box. It's sad really, I can pretty much list all the dollar store items she brought with her. 1 small white board that has a huge half erased question mark (partly erased, partly can't be cleaned?), one plastic fireman's hat, one purple boa, two or three eye mask, one turkey hat thingy, one black hat with feathers in them, two small tutu (that we used as bibs in pictures), two cardboard cutout with Popsicle sticks that says something "witty" on it, a plastic sword, one tiara, plastic glasses. Pretty much it, I'm sure whatever I missed isn't that memorable. I've been to other photobooth, please improve your prop box to more than dollar store items, it might help inspire people to actually go take different pictures.
6. Oh the pictures, don't even get me started. As mentioned, my bf is a photographer so I'm particular picky, but some things should be pretty obvious. I didn't even go through all of the pictures yet. Some are blurry. Some with hands cut off. HOW? the person is standing RIGHT IN FRONT of you? Pet peeve of mine, but don't chop people's parts off in pictures! Why would you leave two inches of blank space on top but not include the person's hands in the picture? This one group photo has blank space on the right and the person on the left is half cut off. If I wanted to get pictures that looks as if they're taken with a camera phone by a drunk person, I would've taken them myself cuz I can definitely do both AND saved the company a couple hundred bucks.
7. And guess what? You pay for your pictures. It's not included in the deal/booth cost. Comparatively, this is not any cheaper than the last photo booth we had in our last party. All they did was sent us this online thing to look at the pictures, what happened to the DVD that was included int he deal?
I can't speak to the wedding photography part, but purely from this photo booth experience, do yourself a favor and hire a real photo booth company. This is not worth your money/ruined experience.
P.S. HR person said communication wasn't the best either, had a hard time getting ahold of them.