Preparing Your Photo Booth For Events After Covid-19 Shutdowns

Heed Your State & County Guidelines

Each county’s health department should have information, guidelines, and documentation regarding COVID-19 and how to proceed during these times. Remember that each county is different. Make sure to also check the county that your event is in and not just the county where you hold your business license. In addition to that, be sure to check your county health code because your business insurance coverage is likely reliant on whether you are in compliance with your county health code and/or the county health code where your event takes place. The last thing you want is to not be covered by your business insurance because you are not in compliance. 

Pack The Right Supplies

Keep a good supply of masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, cleaning supplies, and disinfectants on hand. Be sure to keep your masks and hand sanitizer with your booth for both your attendant and guests to use. It is important to ask your attendant to frequently sanitize their hands.

We love Art Naturals for their hand sanitizer, you can buy in bulk or in small packs that are conveniently sized for events. They also smell good and ship quickly.

Pack more than one mask for your attendant. Having an extra set of masks for your attendant is a good idea especially if one gets soiled.

We love SONOS wipes. They are medical grade and guaranteed to kill H1N1 and Coronavirus. They can be a little hard to get but you can find them here or here. 

SONOS also started making hand sanitizers and we love them!!

Set Expectations With Your Attendants

Before you begin events again, it is important to communicate with your photo booth attendants to discuss what safety precautions you expect them to perform. For example, attendants should be frequently sanitizing not just their hands, but also any props that you have available for use. Attendants should wear masks at all times. You make sure to inform your employees of the county health code. Make sure to make clear to attendants that what they do makes your company liable and that it is their responsibility to perform to your standards.

Enforce Social Distancing When Possible

Make sure to strongly suggest and enforce that your attendant adopts the recommended 6-feet minimum distance with guests.

We recommend using social distance floor mats while guests are in line to ensure that they keep to a 6-feet minimum. You can also mark spots where guests should wait with gaffers tape. You don’t want to use anything that could damage the floor as that could hold you or your client liable for damages to the venue.

Figure Out Your Photo Booth Configuration Set-Up

Remember to make sure that there is a 6-foot radius surrounding your photo booth so that no one is walking, sitting, or standing too close to your booth.

Be sure to consider the flow of guests through your photo booth area. Should you move your table of props to make sure that guests remain 6-feet apart?

You can also add on stanchions and ropes to make sure that you can maintain the 6-feet minimum. You can even offer this to your client as an upsell.

Clean Your Equipment and Props Frequently

Inform your attendant that they should frequently wipe down and disinfect the photo booth, cases, photobooth surfaces, monitors, high touch areas, and printers. If you have props available, be sure to disinfect after each group. You can use rubbing alcohol to clean your photo booth.

Invest in Automatic Hand Sanitizer Stations

You can provide automatic hand sanitizer stations next to your photo booth. This can also be a great upsell! It can even remain a handy upsell for events in the future.

Invest in a UV wand

We are using UV wands to sanitize our props in our office and at events. While the CDC says that the chance of surface transmission seems to be small, we are not taking chances, and visibly sanitizing props at events will only help make clients and their guests feel safer and trust your company more.

You can use this special link to receive a code for $25 off if you're spending $100+ 

Invest Floor Mats or Social Distancing Signs

Consider purchasing social distancing floor mats or having social distancing signs around your booth to encourage guests to stay 6-feet away from each other. Encourage them to only take photos with people from their own household.

Be sure to use floor mats instead of floor stickers so that you don’t have difficulty removing the stickers once your event is done.

Check-in With Attendants and Employees

It’s important to get in touch with attendants and employees before their gigs to ensure that they are doing their part to stay safe. Your attendants represent your brand and you must consider their health and safety and how they affect guests at your events. Here are some basic questions you can ask them:

• Have you been around anyone that has had a fever?
• Have you been exposed to anyone with Covid-19?
• Have you experienced any symptoms in the past 14 days?
• Do you know anyone that has been experiencing symptoms?
• Have you been quarantining?

Attendants should stay home if they feel sick or if they have been around a family member or friend who has been sick and/or is not feeling well.

This tip is absolutely crucial. If they are not feeling well or have been around someone that is not feeling well, do not take risks. Plan to refer to the CDC guidance for how to conduct a risk assessment of your potential exposure to the community.

Go Contactless with your Photo Booth

Consider changing your photo booth over to contactless booths. Our favorite photo booth software: Breeze Booth is offering a way to have a completely contactless booth. Guests can sign up for a QR code which then can be used to activate the photo booth without touching the photo booth. The same QR code can also be used to email or text the photos to your guests. Pretty amazing right? Check it out here.

Consider Not Providing Props Or Ask Your Clients

To reduce surface transmission, you can consider not supplying props at all. Or you can also ask your clients if they would prefer to use props or to avoid props.

Offer Digital Props

If your software is capable, switch to digital props. Guests can still have fun with props without using anything physical. This reduces surface transmission tremendously.

You can even add digital props as an upsell or go an extra step and have themed digital props or custom digital props!

Breeze, our favorite iPad photo booth software makes it easy to enable and customize digital props. You can learn more about that here. 

Provide Your Client with a Gallery Link for the Event Before and After the Event

Create a gallery for your client before the event and send your clients the link. Encourage them to send the gallery link to all their guests both before and after the event. This way, clients will be able to find their photos if you are not doing prints. Clients will also be able to skip entering their cell phone or email information into your software which means that you are decreasing surface transmission.

Consider Doing a Drop Off Booth

If you already offer drop off booths, this would be a good time to start pushing them. This decreases your liability greatly since it places the social distance policing responsibility on your clients. Drop off the booth without props to reduce surface transmission. Be sure to sanitize your booth before and after the event.

Put Up a COVID Policy on your Website

Really simple, but informative! Be sure to put your COVID policy on your website. This way, clients know what your standard practices are even before they book you. This also increases trust and value.

Inform your Clients and Vendors

Once you have a COVID policy in place and on your website, be sure to email your clients and vendors before their event so that they can be well informed about your standard practices.

Call the Venue and Event Coordinator

Once you have your policy in place, be sure to call and inform the venue and the event coordinator so you can walk through your policies with them and be on the same page. Frequently, venues will have their own policies as well, so this is a good time to communicate both your needs and the venue’s needs to ensure that the client has a fun and safe event.

They will appreciate that you are reaching out to them and this makes you look way more prepared and professional.

This is also a good time to ask the venue representative how you can be on the venue’s recommended list of vendors. Bonus!

Have your attendants wear masks

While masks are not required in every state or county, we are making sure that our attendants wear a mask to decrease transmission as well as liability.

Make Sure Your Attendant is the Only One Touching the Booth and Printer

We will be strictly enforcing this rule! Only our attendants will be allowed to touch the photo booth and take the prints out of the printer. This will reduce surface transmission.

Update Your Contracts

This is the most important thing to do! Make sure that you update your contracts to include a force majure clause, a non-refundable retainer clause, what your event cancellation or reschedule policies are, and what your COVID safety policies are. You can purchase our photo booth contract template here. If your clients have already signed a contract, consider having them sign a COVID liability waiver so that they acknowledge what your policies and responsibilities are. This also informs clients what their responsibilities are. Make sure to sit down with a business attorney and cover your contract to ensure that it is legally binding and compliant with your county health code and state law.