Photo Booth Equipment List

1. The Booth

This is the line that decides everything else, so buy the format your market books rather than the one that films best. A mirror booth starts at €2,359 plus VAT and fits venues that would refuse anything larger. A vintage cabinet starts at the same €2,359 plus VAT and sells to the retro market. A 360 platform starts at €2,771 plus VAT, comes in 80 cm and 100 cm, and the overhead aerial version is €3,389 plus VAT when the venue cannot give you the floor. A vending unit is €5,140 plus VAT and belongs where footfall is constant rather than in your van.

The camera and the DNP printer are quoted apart from the machine, in the same quote, so this line and the next are two decisions rather than one. If you are speccing the camera yourself, the reasoning is in the photo booth camera guide.

2. The Printer and the Media

Prints are what the client remembers paying for, so this is not the place to save. Dye sublimation is the event standard because the photo comes out dry and handles being put in a pocket. The DNP range starts at €723 plus VAT: the QW410 is the compact one at around 150 prints per roll and under 6 kg, the DS620 gives 400 prints at 4x6 and weighs around 12 kg, and the DS-RX1HS reaches up to 700 prints at 4x6 at around 14 kg. If you are comparing brands, the DNP vs Citizen comparison covers it.

Then buy media as if the event will be busier than quoted, and always carry one roll more than the maths says you need.

3. What the Guest Sees

• Backdrop. Sized for a real group rather than for one person. Materials, sizes and how to light it are in the backdrop guide.
• Props. A dozen items that work beat a crate of things nobody picks up. The shortlist is in the props guide.
• A separate light for the backdrop. The booth light does its job at the booth. Anything two metres behind it needs its own.

360 Photo Booth Equipment and Accessories

A platform adds its own short list on top of the machine. The 360 photo booth ring light is the piece that decides whether the clip is usable, because it is the only light the arm carries past the guest: a ring light for a 360 photo booth is mounted on the arm itself, so a 360 ring light photo booth lights faces evenly all the way round instead of flaring on one side. Keep a 360 photo booth ring light replacement in the crate, since it is the part that takes the knocks in transport, and read what a ring light photo booth for sale as a bundle actually contains, because it is often the arm and the light and nothing else. Add a power bank for a 360 photo booth when the venue cannot give you a socket near the platform, a phone clamp that matches your handset, and the safety barrier or rope you use to keep the queue off the rotation. The rest of the 360 photo booth accessories, a set of spare 360 photo booth templates and branded plinth covers, are cosmetic and can wait.

Two more lines nobody budgets for and everybody buys in month two: a photo booth tripod for sale at any camera shop, for the backdrop light or a second camera, and photo booth curtains for sale by the metre if you work weddings, where a curtain hides the venue behind an open air setup. Cases are the same story: a photo booth case for sale second hand does the job on a small setup, and hard photo booth cases for sale only pay for themselves once you are travelling most weekends.

4. The Software

The app is what turns hardware into a service: capture, template, print, share, and a gallery the client gets afterwards. Budget the software for photo booth business use as a running cost per event rather than as a one off purchase, because that is how it is sold. What software do you need for 360 photo booth platforms specifically? One app on the phone in the camera mount and no laptop at all, which is compared in the 360 photo booth app guide. What to demand from it is in the photo booth software guide, and the capture apps themselves are compared in the photo booth app guide. Test one on your own machine with a real print before it is on a client's date.

5. Getting It There

A vehicle that swallows the booth with the ramp and the backdrop stand still inside it, a sack truck for venues with no lift, padded covers or cases, and straps so nothing travels loose. Weight matters here more than the spec sheet suggests: the printer you carry alone several times a week is the one you will end up preferring.

6. The Box Everyone Forgets

None of this is exciting and all of it saves an event: extension leads on a reel, a surge protected power strip, gaffer tape and a cable mat, cable ties, a microfibre cloth and glass cleaner, a spare media roll, spare USB cables, a camera battery and charger, a small torch, a spirit level, a multi tool and a folding table for the printer. How it all gets used on site is in the photo booth setup guide.

Day One or Third Booking

Read the left column as the photo booth business starter equipment and the right one as everything a search for photo booth accessories for sale will try to sell you first. Professional photo booth setup equipment is not a longer list than this one, it is the same photo booth business equipment bought once in the right quality: the operators who upgrade twice in a season are the ones who started with the cheap version of the booth equipment on the left.

One habit worth keeping from day one: price the whole list before you buy the first line. Photo booth items for sale one at a time add up past the booth itself, and half of them turn out to be duplicates once the machine arrives with its own cables. What each line costs is broken down in how much a photo booth costs. Whether to own the kit at all is settled in buy or rent a photo booth, the rest of the plan is in how to start a photo booth business, and if the budget is tight, buying from a photo booth manufacturer instead of a reseller usually buys you support rather than a discount.