A review of the Boothomatic for charity auctions

By Sherry · Thursday, December 31st, 2009

I read an article from BizBash’s newsletter entitled “The Photo Booth That Can Capture the Whole Party.”

It talks about a new portable photo-booth — AKA, the Boothomatic — which rolls around the party, enabling guests to take photos wherever they might be.

After reading the short article and checking out the photo (which you can do by clicking on the links above), here are my off-the-cuff thoughts as to whether the Boothomatic would work in a benefit auction environment.

My immediate thought is that this is something for a younger crowd.

I can see as where Generation Y or Generation Z would totally get into this! But I don’t envision most of the guests at my benefit auction (age 40+) comfortably jumping in front of the booth without encouragement from an outgoing photographer.

I’m still unclear after reading the article as to whether a photographer supervises the booth. If he does — and if that photographer is a gregarious type who can comfortably corral guests for photos — this would work. But if the booth is not supervised, my crowds would ignore it.

In many hotels, the Boothmatic would work fine. But if the auction is to be held in an unusual facility — such as a historic home or even an outdoor garden — I’d consider alternative forms of entertainment.

You’ll want a venue (and a floor!) that allows the booth to roll unencumbered.

I love that photographs of the event are available for download from a website!

They also offer customized packages. My only concern is that — once again — some of my less savvy older guests won’t understand how to download photos from a site. Those same guests *would* take home a photo of themselves if it’s printed onsite, but they would be less likely to check a website in the days following the gala.

The price in New York is apparently $2500 for a 4-hour rental. I don’t know NYC rates well enough to gauge if this is in-line with other forms of photo entertainment or not.

But given that there are no printed photographs available to guests onsite, I would hope that the Boothomatic would be less in price than something, say, like portrait photography.

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