Photo booths. Saturated market?

[lolage]

Just testing the water really, is anyone in this business? Particularly within the wedding industry? I've done a search and can see a lot of websites both offering photo booths and selling them. My first thought was that a lot of these websites which I came across were awfully designed and look like they were made in the 90's.

I've spoke with a couple of people and they tended to think that the market was perhaps too saturated? Now I'd like to think I have a good understanding of how to market something like this properly (my FT job is in marketing) but I'm also a freelance photographer and film maker so I have a good understanding of how I can utilize content to create good engaging marketing material.

I would ideally just like to start my own wedding film business, but I don't have the time now to edit videos having a full time job so I got drawn to photo booths due to the ease of editing the pictures compared to editing a full wedding video! This is a business I could carry on doing once I start doing films, as I could just pay someone to operate the booth.

Any comments/tips, guys/girls? Much appreciated!

 

[Bob]

Have a look at last night's Dragons Den

 

[lolage]

Have a look at last night's Dragons Den

Recorded it, I shall watch tonight!

 

[Bob]

It's well worth a watch although I won't spoil it for you by letting you know whether they got the funding

 

[movietub]

We went to a wedding fair and saw a photo booth which we decided we'd have for the reception. But we couldn't find the card when we went to dig up their details months later. So we looked online...

All I can say is it took hours of searching to identify a handful of identical photo booth offerings (out of what appeared to be thousands!) that matched the one we saw at the fair. That was 2 years ago and we did use the booth, and it was an excellent idea. I'm still not 100% sure it was the company we originally found though

So I don't know if the markets technically saturated.. But I'd say you sure as hell want to go into it with some major USP. Something more than a particulalry creative and humourous set of backdrops and hats! Also consider a company name that idiots like me can't forget. 'Arse Booth' or similar is a safe bet.

 

[Dan Izzard]

I caught up with the Dragons Den episode yesterday. "I own Jessops" from Peter Jones was a funny moment.

Personally I would stick with video (not necessarily in the traditional wedding video format). The photo booth trend seems to be packed and the barrier to entry in buying a budget DSLR and a few props is low (believe it or not, I actually ran a photobooth myself at a few events, taking and printing pics of an extreme sport attraction.)

How about a video message booth? Or photobooth photos turned into a montage / vine / instagram videos. Are other people applying the same in fashion vintage 16mm effects to video as they are to the photobooth pics?

 

[movietub]

The photo booth trend seems to be packed and the barrier to entry in buying a budget DSLR and a few props is low.

That's not the sort of booth we had at our wedding! It was a booth, for starters. Not a guy with a camera. That's just a photographer surely?

Ours was a proper photo booth, but adapted for space for upto 4 and had various interchangeable backdrops. And of course it printed photos for free.

 

[Dan Izzard]

True, but there are plenty out there that don't have a booth, keep the costs low and pack out the market.

Ours was a proper photo booth, but adapted for space for upto 4 and had various interchangeable backdrops. And of course it printed photos for free.

That sounds good though! For some reason my first thought on interchangeable backdrops was "I wonder if they had a library one"...

 

[Karimbo]

They're surprisingly expensive for what they are. The guy on DD was quoting 9 grand for 1 machine which is ridiculous.

n.b. the DD guys came in at 3-4grand I believe, the fully fledged curtained booths were 9 grand.

Also the DD guys booth was executed quite badly, the social media icons were overset on the photo - such an amateur mistake. It had a nice clean look but the digital part of it was really badly done.

Also I'm not sure people will be as uninhibited in front of that bar as inside an actual boot with curtains drawn. You want people to be uninhibited and really express themselves for good photos.

 

[Karimbo]

All I can say is it took hours of searching to identify a handful of identical photo booth offerings (out of what appeared to be thousands!) that matched the one we saw at the fair. That was 2 years ago and we did use the booth, and it was an excellent idea. I'm still not 100% sure it was the company we originally found though

That's something to bear in mind, people are fussy over design, I work in the exhibition hire space and do deal with people like that. A lot of people have specific colour, shape, dimesion preferences.

If you are providing them for hire - you need to have range so expect to pay for 4-5 different booths so you can cover for every tastes.

If you're selling them - you need to invest in tooling so you can adapt and create multiple designs. Which is probably why they cost 9 grand each because they are all more or less hand built to spec. There are probably only 15-20 of each that are ever built so tooling costs are absorbed heavily from the few machines built.

 

[HOSTMAN230]

I new someone who had a booth, his marketing was very poor, not even a website, he did have a Facebook page - He was kept very busy, perhaps he was just in a good area, though he did say there was a lot of competition - a good USP is essential, THINK I have one.

 

[HOSTMAN230]

The last post here was January, are people still reading, I would be interested in hearing more of how your doing thinking about, or in the photo booth market

 

[Karimbo]

I new someone who had a booth, his marketing was very poor, not even a website, he did have a Facebook page - He was kept very busy, perhaps he was just in a good area, though he did say there was a lot of competition - a good USP is essential, THINK I have one.

Uk (read London) events industry is HUGE. There is always demand for equipment hire for events. If you want to provide equipment hire services your imagination is the limit. You dont have to set yourself up in a niche which is already being served you can keep your eye out on emerging trends and buy equipment to supply to the events market.

Case in point, Soloman from apprentice 2014. He brought social media into the event space by displaying social media feeds onto large panel displays for a corporate event. Extremely simple technology. Any plasma screen can be used, social media all have API developed already. Just a simple programmer is required to customise the feed, create a simple GUI and connect it all up to AV equipment. But his solution as being something amazing - when in actual fact the technology is very simple.

That's just one example of using new technology for events. You don't have to do photo booths which are overdone. Use your imagination and come up with someone completely different.

 

[MrBinary]

I am sorry to BUMP this thread up, but I am interested in photobooths as well. lolage, did you find any more info?

I googled and found around 3-10 companies who do that and the biggest one was Zeven Media, going to contact them tomorrow and see what are they up to.

 

[Phillip Pilkington]

I know someone who had a photo booth buisness, he has sold it now. He got fed up with working every weekend. It was a good sideline, and if you currently do photography as well it could work. The market does have too much of this already, and the booth would have to look stylish for anyone to be interested. I have seen wedding photographers offer a booth, it is just a guy with a camera on a tripod near a white backdrop. Its silly because this is all it is. But because its automated it seems better, and costs way more...

 

[Chris Ashdown]

As with all things its getting sales that count, if you just rely for work in most towns and only advertise in the local paper and maybe a web site you will probably never get many sales

 

[Ashley_Price]

I don't think there is ever such a thing as a saturated market. While there may be hundreds of people offering a similar service, how many of them are offering a great service?

But, as others have said above, anyone entering this market would need to find a USP to get people interested.

 

[Turnkey Businesses]

they are popular at parties these days, hiring a photo booth and letting people have pics taken in the booth. some nightclubs have photo booth type rooms. if you were to hire them out for that market i could see it being a decent business.

 

[HazelC]

Interesting that you speak of editing the photos, most photo booth suppliers print out the photos immediately, some allowing the guests to take one away and stick another in a scrap book. I haven't come across any that actually edit the photos so that could be an added bonus / USP for you - or would people prefer to take them away on the day? I know I would...

 

[stevekay]

Although it is very competitive I wouldn't say it is saturated. I started my photo booth business 4 months ago and am already having to buy a 2nd photo booth. I was turning away more work than I was booking due to already being booked up on the required dates.
I have now had my own photo booth designed from a manufacturer and will be receiving my 2nd booth soon.
To add to the business we have also added plenty of other products such as sweet carts, LOVE letters etc to maximise income at wedding by being able to offer a one stop shop.

Good luck to you. It is definitely an excellent business to start around a full time job as 95% of the bookings are on weekends.