Been reading for a long time and just got an interesting gig so I thought I would share.
I was contacted by the Holiday Inn here in town to do a New Years Eve Bash event (hence the title).
2 Ballrooms, 2 bands, 1 DJ, 4 radio stations.
I ended up getting the gig and have a combination of excitement and worry about it.
They are expecting 1k-2k people.
Two photographers, myself roaming and one at a backdrop shooting a funbox/photobooth style.
Two assistants taking payment and printing.
I'm playing with software but right now I'm thinking photoripper to add a boarder and print them.
I rented two DS40 printers since I don't do anything without backup gear. May buy one or both after the event depending on profits.
Photobooth photographer will be using a T3 with eye-fi card tethered to laptop print station (couldn't get my 7D to recognize the CF adapter with eye-fi card). I'll be roaming and dropping off cards every half hour or so.
Anyone I take pictures of will be given a business card with their image number on so they can go order prints when they want.
Prints and cards have a link to a gallery that will be available the day after the event for print/product ordering and .jpg purchases.

If this all works out I may be looking into the photobooth market. I also hope to get preferred vendor status with the Holiday Inn as it is they nicest venue in my small town.

Has anyone else done something similar? Am I missing anything?

Why not use a usb cable for tethering? Not enough space?

I was going to go USB, but the venue said they would prefer to have the photobooth on one side of an isle and the print/purchase station on the other side. Eye-fi is the best I cam up with without a $600 wifi grip that I will never use again.

Eyefi is cool but can be a touch slow. I wouldn't want to rely on it in a high throughput, high pressure environment. I'd be tempted to have some USB cables and gaffa tape at the ready just in case.

That Photog wrote:

Anyone I take pictures of will be given a business card with their image number on


You want to scribble them by hand

Very interested in seeing how the Eye-fi works out. I would guess they wouldn't be fast enough to transfer that much data.

They do also sell extremely long usb cables that you could use to wrap around the room to enable tethering.

Hendrikm - yes by hand. don't have a better way. Any suggestions?

Got the eye-fi and camera and will be testing shortly. I hope that the delay between one group setup and the next is enough to transfer a 10mp jpg. Not sending D800 raws here

Started at the USB side but they want the booth across a hall from the print station. Wouldn't want to gaff a cable to the floor and the ceiling is 10+ feet so that wouldn't work.

Since your printing 4x6's, small Jpegs will be fine and transfer faster.
What do the DX40's cost to rent? You can buy an RX1 for $775 delivered

DS40s were 250 to rent for a weekend. They will credit me the rental fee if I decide to buy.
I'm printing 6X8's but even then I don't need much resolution.
I looked at the RX1 but liked the cost per print and the speed of the DS40s better. In the end it probably won't have made a difference. They rented RX1s as well so I probably could have saved some purchase cost, oh well. So far I am very impressed with the DS40 as I am playing with it and print ripper.

Hmm I do think the eyefi might be a problem. I've used it myself for crazybooths and it nowhere near worked fast enough even with low res jpgs. If you can really keep the number of photos down to 1 per group then you might be okay but more than that and you're really going to struggle.

One other solution you might want to think about is having another laptop in the room with the camera. Teather to that then use a wired network connection if they have one in the room or failing that some of those ethernet over power things.

It might all work out with the eyefi but if I were you I'd really want to make sure I had a backup plan. The eyefi is probably your weak point.

Ai3x, I am going to tether to a laptop if I have problems, or just swap cards periodically, worse case.

I just tested the eye-fi in the T3 from across the room and it is under 20 seconds to transfer to the computer. I doubt the people will be able to get from the photobooth to the print station and pay in that time so I think I'm going to be good. That is with the camera set to M Fine (6.3MP files at appox 2.5 MB each). Even on M Course 6.3MP files at 1 MB, I think I will be okay (15 seconds for 4 pictures).

Well if anyone is wondering...
The event went of without a hitch. Well almost.
The technology was flawless. The sales just weren't there.

Learned a lot though, and hope to develop the business model further and see what else I can do.

i have found that with events like this, trying to sell on the spot is a hard deal. People want to have the fun of taking the photo, but are very reluctant to shell out any cash. Just look at how popular photo booths are at wedding. They're always packed....why, because it's FREE.
If the guests had to pay to use it, it would be a ghost town venture.

Digital has caused this mentality. It's always better to work out some deal where you get paid up front from the hiring party and you provide each guest with a photo. But even getting that anymore is hard to do.

Cell phones, cheap digital pocket cameras has changed the entire mentality of people
willingly shelving out money for photos at event anymore.

Misty23,
That is what I was guessing would be the case when I set up this gig. I pushed to have them pay me up front so I could provide cheep or even free pictures, but it was a no go. I did the gig knowing it would most likely be a bust (but hoped for the best) because of the advertising potential. Figure if I book one wedding off it I will be okay.

There are a lot of areas that I and the venue screwed this up, hopefully I learned enough to get some value out of it.

Yes the exposure is always great to a slew of potential new clients in other areas. I'm sure you 'll get some online sales, the percentages dictate that. We used to do many holiday and prom events but that has all dried up. Most schools now use their contracted school photography company who does their student photos to do their proms and events.

So much has changed in terms of money making ventures due to cheap digital in the event sector. The last gig I did, I actually had people asking if they could take their own photos with their cameras using MY set up.........uhhhhhh, NO............ and of course I was the meanie for not allowing them to do so.......