Our Photo Booth is specifically designed for the UK Rental Market, we designed it ourselves, got the booth fabricated (more of that later!) and now operate it.
Where did we get the design? Well we looked at all the Photo Booths available for rent all over the World, this meant many hours on Google! In the UK, at the time we started our design process there were about 25 Photo Booth Hire companies, of these around 6 or 7 were using the same Booth, some were using Booths that can be bought from manufacturers (another 6 or 7) and others had made their own Booths (like we decided to do). In America there are hundreds of Photo Booth Rental Companies with Booths of many shapes/sizes/designs, also there are several companies in Australia that we looked at.
We decided on these design features :- a) The Booth must look contemporary, we wanted it to stand out. b) The Booth must be easily transportable. c) The Booth must be able to fit through doors, in lifts, in Marquees etc. d) It must have the ability to be 'branded' for Corporate Events. e) It must be of a size that 3 to 6 people can fit into the Booth easily. f) It must be a sit down Booth, not an 'open Booth'
Looking at the Booths at use in the UK for Hire we could see that they either were of a 'box' structure or a similar construction to 'exhibition stands' - we took the immediate decision that our Booth must be different to get noticed. We thought that some kind of circular design, with a circle around the seat and a circle around the camera would work. We made some quick drawings and this was the start.
Initially we envisaged the Booth being manufactured out of perspex so we contacted around 25 perspex fabricators around the UK. By this stage we had done more detailed drawings and actually had the 'workings' of the Booth functional, so all we wanted from the fabricators was in effect the shell of the Booth. We then visited around 5 of these fabricators had had many hours of discussion, but always the constraint was the 'ease of transport' - the fabricators could easily make the 'shell' as 1 or 2 units but this would require a box van to transport and a fork lift truck to lift! So we hit a stop.
At this point we even went to look at a manufactured Booth that is being operated by a company out of Bournemouth, you'll see a link to them on our links page (when we get around to putting one up!), that we could have imported from the US, but it did not tick all our boxes.
Then by pure chance, one of the perspex fabricators we had talked to phoned to say that one his clients a metal fabricator (Gary) up in Manchester was interested in our project. Metal fabricator . . . .not what we had thought about at all . .. . . . . .We gave Gary a ring, immediately his enthusiasm for the Photo Booth concept was apparent . . . . .but what about the design? We sent him the drawings and talked through the brief, he didn't promise but indicated that anything was possible.
After about 3weeks we found ourselves up in a very wet South Manchester factory discussing the Booth face to face, we bounced some ideas around about the Photo Booth design, but still the transportation of the Booth was a restraint. Then we left into the rain and a traffic jam on the M60.
Sat in this traffic jam was where the eureka moment arrived in the design - why not incorporate what I had learnt from the perspex people with what Gary had told us about metal fabrication.
The next day we made more drawings and immediately scanned them and emailed them up to Gary - he agreed the design was possible and gave a price for the fabrication. We then finalised all the details and work commenced.
5weeks later (Xmas is inconvenient sometimes!) we returned to Manchester with our internal elements for the Booth, so the Booth could be fitted around these, already the Booth looked exactly like we had imagined. A week later we went to pick up the Booth.
This is the key design element that will amaze any readers who have gotten this far - we went up to Manchester to pick up the Booth in a Volvo car - not a Volvo lorry!! Those wondering why the exclamation marks, please take a look at the photos of the booth again - we had designed this to fit into a Volvo.
Back at Base we did all the 'finishing' touches like the Curtains, posters, blank panels etc, then we were off. All this was keyed up to attend our first Wedding Show. This proved a great success as we got 3 bookings on that day alone.
FlashBoxUK Photo Booth Rental had arrived !!
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