Digital Photo Booth vs. Traditional Photo Booth: Which One Is Better?

Capturing moments during the events is the key. Why? The memories you create in those moments are what your attendees will remember for long. With so many photo booths being used in almost every event, it’s hard to imagine one without it. The engaging vibe and the interactive element it brings can take any event to the next level. Otherwise, it will always confuse you as a marketer when to choose what. So, to clear up all your doubts, we have come up with this article to help you understand the key differences between digital vs traditional photo booths. 

So, without further ado, let’s get started: 

What is a Traditional Photo Booth

A traditional photo booth is a one stop solution to attract event attendees in since long time. Guests step inside the enclosed photo booth, strike poses, and get prints of their photographs. Traditional photo booths even include fun props, visuals, and customizable options for capturing great photos. These timeless classic photo booths are a fun and unique way for guests to create memorable moments and keep them interacting throughout the event.

What is a Digital Photo Booth

Modern photo booths have been growing significantly over the years. The digital photo booth allows you to capture engaging photos, including funny props and elements, virtually. You can even share these pictures on social media, creating your own hashtag and creating personalized experiences. These photo booths can encourage engagement by turning attendees into active participants. It is also a great way to connect your audiences with each other, help enhance the event’s visibility, and boost your branding.

Key Differences Between Digital and Traditional Photo Booths

Let us help you to break down the key differences between digital and traditional photo booths:

Experiences

Traditional photo booths are great for providing a timeless and vintage look and feel to your users. They spark nostalgia into your audience experience and provide them a closed space to capture great photographs. The charm of taking the physical prints of the photos to their home gives attendees a memorable experience. 

Digital photo booths offer modern and sleek aesthetics to users with amazing virtual backdrops. They have the latest technology and give high-resolution photos to their users, enhancing their experience. The users must be tech-savvy to immerse themselves in the digital photobooth experience. Digital photo booths are a bit complex but typically have touchscreen interfaces for easy interaction and feature selection. 

Verdict: Overall, digital photo booths have been proven to give the best experience as compared to traditional ones, because of their trendy, modern, and engaging aesthetics and appearance.

Photo Output

Traditional photobooths usually give printed photos to their users instantly, which serves as a tangible memory they take with them. These photo booths also include physical props and elements to create a more engaging photoshoot atmosphere.

Digital photobooths offer both digital and physical photo print options. Attendees can even share their photos directly on social media and other channels to help create buzz. 

Verdict: Out of the two, digital signages are great in giving the outputs, as attendees can share their photos on social media while taking physical photos at their home for memories. 

Customization and Features

Traditional photo booths offer limited customization options and features mainly comprised of physical props. They only focus on branding rather than personalization and have more inclination towards providing a classic, vintage feel. 

Digital photo booths offer room for creativity and personalization and are highly customizable with various props, filters, and backdrop elements. They also include advanced green screen and GIF creation features to get more real-time engagement and fun.

Verdict: Digital photo booths are better in providing customization options and great features that one can track and create personalized experiences. 

Space and Setup 

The vintage photo booth requires more space due to its physical setup and enclosed design. They need greater space management and to focus more on the place that attracts the most audience, such as at the entrance. 

Digital photobooths are more adaptable when it comes to space and have open-air designs, making them flexible. It does not require much space but requires high technical setups to avoid glitches. 

Verdict: Digital photo booths are flexible when it comes to space and setup because they have open-air designs. 

Role Of Social Walls In Photo Booths

Whether you are hosting an in-person, hybrid, or virtual event, Social Walls is one of the best digital signage software that gives you an interactive event photo booth like never before. Social Walls offers a complete solution for your photo booths by offering great features and allows you to feature your user-generated content and create social media walls to engage audience, drive interaction, and enhance the overall event experience. 

Here are the top features of Social Walls that help elevate your photo-booth experience:

SnapUp for UGC Collection

It will all start with the SnapUp feature by Social Walls. Here’s how. The SnapUp feature allows you to collect all the photos the attendees took in the photo booth directly without any social media sharing. With the help of the SnapUp QR code, you can collect all this content and showcase it on the big screen during your event. More and more users will participate as it will eliminate the need to upload the content manually, thus saving time. Once your content is collected, you can easily curate an interactive feed of this UGC and showcase them on your digital signage as a Social Media Wall. 

AI Powered Content Moderation 

Social Walls comprises the most powerful content moderation with AI-driven technology so that you can maintain the content relevancy on the photo wall. The AI-driven content moderation system allows you to hide and remove the irrelevant content from the feed using the autopilot feature. This helps showcase the most relevant content to your attendees at the event and helps eliminate the discrepancies in the content between the events. 

Real-Time Reactions

Let’s suppose you display your photo-booth images and videos on large screens during the event. The “Reactions” feature by SociaWalls helps you capture the attention of your event attendees by letting them react to their favorite photos. This helps you know your audience’s reactions in real time and instantly boost event interaction. You can even highlight the photo with the maximum reactions and encourage others to participate in the event’s photo booth. Whether you’ve implemented a corporate photo booth or a graduation photo booth, with “Reactions,” you can ask the attendees to engage by liking the photo taken over there. 

Studio Feature 

The Studio Feature by Social Walls gives you more than just event interaction. With its powerful and engaging components, you can gamify your event interaction once you have collected photos of attendees taken from the photo booth. How? Studio features comprise gamification features such as polls, quizzes, leaderboards, and more. This helps you host challenges and grab audience engagement like never before. By integrating these components, you can create memorable experiences for your attendees. 

Spotlight Feature

Once your feed is created, you can spotlight the most engaging content from your feed using this feature. For instance, you host a challenge during the event and ask your attendees to share their content using a specific hashtag. The best content will be highlighted throughout the event. Additionally, throwing a spotlight on their content will make them feel valued, and they’ll remember your brand for a long time. 

Multiple Themes and Layouts 

Not only this, Social Walls comprises engaging themes and layouts to make your feed look aesthetically pleasing. You can easily customize your themes and background CTAs using Social Walls, ensuring your feed looks fresh and fabulous on that big screen. 

Advanced Analytics

With the advanced features comes data-driven analytics to help you monitor your feed during the event and optimize it accordingly. Social Walls comes with the most advanced analytics ever, such as engagement rate, views, impressions, sentiment analysis, Word Cloud, and more. This helps you know your attendees’ preferences and refine your strategy accordingly.

Conclusion

A photo booth, be it digital or traditional, encourages interaction and helps foster memories and build relationships. However, digital photo booths are in demand due to their advanced technology, powerful social sharing capabilities, and ability to boost event engagement. We hope this blog has helped you understand the difference between traditional and digital photo booths. If you are looking to set up these photo booths for your next event, then Social Walls is the one-stop solution for all your needs. From AI-driven features to powerful analytics, we serve you every step of the way. Try it and take your event engagement to the next level.