I already own a body I can dedicate to it and a laptop that is fine. The decision is roughly between a tablet based booth that sends digital files and a camera plus dye sublimation printer setup that hands people a print. Events would be weddings and company parties, so mostly evening work with a queue.
The line items people forget are the boring ones: the stand and the case, the lighting, the backdrop and its frame, the software licence which is usually a yearly subscription rather than a purchase, spare batteries, a long extension and a surge strip, and consumables. Dye sub media is sold as ribbon plus paper in matched kits with a fixed number of prints, so your cost per print is knowable to the penny before you quote, which is the good news. The bad news is the printer plus the first few boxes of media is normally the largest single number in the build.
Not much, but buy a spare kit and treat it as part of the build. Running out at hour two of a wedding is the worst version of this business.
Being able to price per print exactly is more reassuring than I expected. Does the media price move much between events?
Do not build a digital only booth for weddings. I did, it was cheaper, the software was slicker, and the guest experience is a queue of people photographing a screen and then never looking at the gallery. The print is the product, it goes on a fridge, and the mother of the bride will talk about it. If budget forces a choice, cut the fancy backdrop, not the printer.
Cutting the backdrop before the printer is a clear rule I can budget against. The digital only version was the cheaper build and I can see why it stayed cheap.
First event I used a consumer inkjet because it was in the cupboard. It jammed twice, took about a minute a photo, the queue reached the bar, and the prints were still damp when people held them. Dye sub prints in seconds, comes out dry and does not smudge, and that is the entire reason it exists.
Camera plus dye sub, budget for a spare media kit, and price the software subscription as an annual cost not a purchase. Everything else is styling.
@yaml_yeoman · 6mo ago
I rent instead and have not regretted it. At six to eight events a year, the rental cost per event is a line I pass through to the client, my capital is not sitting in a case for ten months, and when the printer fails it is the rental company driving across town at 8pm. Owning starts making sense somewhere around two events a month, which is a different business to the one you are describing.
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