With a photo booth, one of the biggest things that comes up for us is "how long should my photo booth rental be?" When planning a party, there are a TON of decisions to make and it can get pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. However, a good way to tell if you’ve hired a great vendor is by how well they can help guide you with concerns such as these and hopefully help take some of the pressure off.
At koibooth, we take pride in our abilities to help you with any booking concerns but for the sake of this article, we will be focusing on how long you should rent your booth for.
There are a few things to consider:
- Type of event
- Other activities planned
- Location and/or location moves
- Schedule
Having these details can be very helpful for any photo booth rental booking because some influence others which impact your schedule overall.
For example...
If your event is a wedding you probably have a packed schedule with many activities happening throughout the day/night. Normally the booth is set to run during the reception, right? But there are important things that occur right when a reception starts. First, it takes time for everyone to get settled in. And once they’re all settled in, the emcee will ask that everyone stays seated while the wedding party is introduced. Shortly after that, the first dance tends to happen, and so on and so forth.
I think you get the idea right?? This is NOT an ideal time for your booth to be running as no one will be able to go and enjoy it.
It really isn't until dinner is being served that people start movin’ and groovin’. That all being said, if your schedule looks similar to what I just described, I’d consider waiting to start your photo booth hire once the meal is either about halfway through or wrapping up. Now I know that there are still many activities that take place such as cake cutting, performances, etc. but not to worry ! It only takes a few seconds for people to take the photos and it’s a good idea to have other things for them to do while all of that is happening.
I want to mention one very important thing...
Let’s say your reception starts at 4pm but you want your photo booth rental to run from 7-11pm. As long as your reception location is available and okay with it (they ALWAYS are), your photo booth team should be in there BEFORE guests start to arrive at 4pm. All set up and ready to go. They might not have the props out and may choose to just have a sign that notes when the photo booth will run. This ensures that you are getting every second of the time that you’ve paid for.
We practice this at koibooth and find it to be crucial in making sure everything is flawless. We also noticed that it gets people excited for it! It shows guests of all ages that there’s going to be this fun activity all night long once the party gets going. I would even go as far as saying that it builds up the excitement to a point where people actually take more photos. Which means more memories for the hosts to look back on. We LOVE that!
Just one more point to touch on here: If you start the booth hire later on into the party, guests tend to be much more comfortable getting silly in front of the camera. It’s kinda like the ultimate ice breaker (I may have said this before...but I mean it! It really is!).
Now I’m not going to go into the details of every party but I hope you get the gist of what I’m trying to say. Just really take a moment to look at your schedule/plan for the event. And if you still need guidance, I’m sure your photo booth hire will be happy to assist.
Let's talk location moves.
Something I mentioned in the above things to consider: location moves. This comes up because parties may start with a cocktail hour in one part of the venue and then the main event will happen in a completely area of the venue. My best advice for this is just to decide where the booth is going to be and keep it there. Yes, it can be moved (and I’m going to have to speak specifically for koibooth here) but packing it up, moving and restarting everything can take about 30-45 minutes. That’s considering that there is a clear space to walk through and there are rockstar attendants moving quickly and efficiently.
But it's important to note that any moving time is included in your hire (aka: your time does not stop during the move and then start up again). Meaning that you’re essentially paying for unused time. You’re also risking the possibility of stopping everyone from using the booth even if they are already waiting in line.
Ultimately it's your event and your decision to make. But to get the most out of photo booth rentals, we highly recommend to our clients that they just have the booth stay in one location for the entirety of their event. We just want everyone to get the most bang for their buck!
Finally, what length of time is best?
I always tell our koibooth clients that 3-4 hours is a perfect amount of time. There are special circumstances like say corporate parties that are 6 hours long and it makes sense to run the booth during the entirety of the event. But if it doesn’t make sense for your event, you should really just pay for what does.
I hope this helps but just know that whomever you hire should be an expert and they will be able to tell you from experience, what will be perfect for you and your event.
Happy partying!