Corporate Parties and Community Events: A Tour of the Tucson Rooms We've Worked

A room-by-room tour of the corporate parties, holiday parties, birthdays, quinceañeras, and community events we ran across Tucson — Intuit, Dave & Buster's, the Tucson Museum of Art, Loews Ventana Canyon, the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain, and the JCC's 100-year celebration.

Point at a room in Tucson and there is a decent chance we have had a photo booth in it.

A corporate office four days before Christmas. A resort ballroom in Marana. A museum plaza at golden hour. A racetrack. A country club down in Green Valley. A community center with a bounce house in the corner and more than 370 pictures coming out of the booth in under two hours.

Across 2016 and 2017 we wrote up nearly every one of those nights as its own little recap. This is all of them in one place, grouped by the kind of party rather than by the calendar. (If you want the current lineup instead of the highlight reel, that lives on our Tucson photo booth rental page.)

Corporate Parties: From a Cubicle Farm to a Ritz-Carlton Ballroom

Corporate work in Tucson is not one thing. In a single season it is a software company's own building, a multi-day conference at a five-star resort, and a concert with three thousand people in it.

Intuit's annual site celebration, hosted right at their Tucson corporate office in December 2016, was a first for us: our very first Boomerang GIF booth event, and it went flawlessly. (Once you have watched a room full of ugly Christmas sweaters loop back and forth on a screen, still photos are a hard sell.)

The other end of the spectrum: March 9 through 15, 2017 at the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain in Marana, running the booth for Securities America's Masters Forum. Breathtaking sunset views, an amazing catering staff, and a setup that had to look as sharp on day five as it did on day one.

Then the Tucson Expo Center in March 2017: a concert with around 3,000 people, against our usual crowd of 300 or fewer. When the music is loud enough that you cannot hear yourself talk, the job becomes mime — and going by the smiles, high fives, and shouts of joy coming back at us, we got good at it fast.

If your event lives in that world, start on the corporate event page.

Holiday Parties: The Season Tucson Books First

Realty Executives took over the Lodge at Ventana Canyon on December 17, 2016 for their group holiday party, courtesy of their sponsor, Summit Funding, Inc. The food was great, the people were great, and the photo strips were the kind that end up on a fridge.

Dave & Buster's ran a Holiday Party Showcase on September 14, 2017 — because holiday season really starts in September if you want the good dates. We built them a custom animated GIF template just for that night. Holiday props, themed templates, instant social sharing: a hit the whole company will love.

Halloween counts as a holiday party around here, too. We ran Sunrise Drive's annual Spiders & Cider event in October 2016 (spooooky fun, as the original recap put it), and the Schmitz family's annual Halloween bash in October 2017, which produced some of the funniest frames in the archive.

Birthdays, Sweet Sixteens, and Quinceañeras: The Milestone Rooms

Milestone parties are where the classic photo booth earns its keep. Nobody needs convincing — they just get in line.

Lexy's Sweet 16 in October 2016 had food trucks, a chocolate fountain, candy galore, and a booth. It also had a bit of drama, in the form of an almost-broken ankle. Thankfully it was just a sprain, and everyone partied on.

Jehnna's quinceañera at El Mezquite followed in December 2016 — which, as we pointed out at the time, is not a Mexican food restaurant.

Antionette's 50 Shades of Grey masquerade party closed that stretch out in November 2017 — exactly the kind of theme a booth was built for.

Community Events and Fundraisers: When the Whole City Shows Up

This is the category we are proudest of.

"Lights, camera, Camp J!" was the theme when the Tucson Jewish Community Center combined their camp celebration with the JCCA's 100-year birthday party. Great tunes, an indoor bounce house (a genuinely inspired way to beat the heat), and arts and crafts. The kids set a new record for us that day: more than 370 pictures in under two hours. We also, consistently, fit sixteen of them inside the booth at once.

The Tucson Museum of Art had us out twice. Free First Thursdays — Surf's Up! in July 2017 opened all six feature exhibitions to the public for free, with live music, cornhole and volleyball out in the TMA Plaza, and the American Flying Buffalo food truck outside. The Crush Party followed on November 10.

At the 2017 All Souls Procession we ran alongside the Southern Arizona Dream Center, with a gold sequin backdrop, a print station going nonstop, and a live slideshow of every photo taken.

The 3rd Annual Lucky Derby Party at the Rillito Racetrack mixed Cinco de Mayo, Derby weekend, and a casino theme to raise funds for GAP Ministries. The best detail: guests upstairs were entertained watching the downstairs booth photos land live on the big-screen projector. A huge shout out to host James from Peoples Mortgage Company, who put the whole thing together.

In April 2017 the Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona packed the Tucson Convention Center for their annual luncheon, honoring 2017 Honoree Wanda F. Moore and Laura Penny Community Impact Awardee Cheryl Horvath. In November we were out at the Rancho Sahuarita Veterans Celebration. And back in 2016, the Lazydays RV Big Toy Event off I-10 Exit 264 — free pictures at the booth, free downloads afterward.

Running something for a cause? Community and non-profit events are a big part of what we do — start on our corporate and brand events page.

Networking Nights and Campus Traditions: The Tucson Regulars

Thursday Therapy is the monthly gathering for the coolest wedding professionals in town, and its second anniversary landed at Loews Ventana Canyon on April 20, 2017, hosted by the wonderful Kim McFate, catering manager there. A mix-your-own-mimosa bar. Invitation and signage by Nicole Crawford-Mackey of True Bliss. Tunes from Andy at Satyr Entertainment. Torey Hayden Salyer of Torey Photo as host photographer and certified photo booth addict (our designation, and we stand by it).

Ignite520 was the Tucson Young Professionals' party for adults at the Tucson Children's Museum on April 1, 2017, capping a weekend of downtown scavenger hunts and professional development sessions. Three Wells Distilling Company poured tastings, El Charro catered, and we printed the co-branded strips.

A few more from those two years:

• Vib'n at Union Public House, August 2017 — the one-year anniversary of Hector and Paul's lifestyle brand, with the venue and the food handled by Union's own Grant and Steve, and the booth sponsored by Roxanne and Josue Lopez of Nova Home Loans.
• UA College of Medicine Match Day at Banner Medical Center on March 17, 2017 — St. Patrick's Day and Match Day at once, which made everyone who stepped in the booth a little bit luckier.
• Alpha Chi Omega Bid Day, August 2017 — cheers, candy-themed props, and glitter in quantities we are not exaggerating about. To the Omni staff who cleaned up after us: our heart goes out to you.
• The 2nd annual Firefighters Ball at Quail Creek Country Club in Green Valley, our second year on it, where the party kept going for over five hours.

And the one where we went full period piece: Tap Dance Tucson 2017 at the Savoy Opera House in Trail Dust Town, sponsored by Visit Tucson, with guests in from all over the country. A prohibition theme and flapper dancers meant an ordinary booth was never going to cut it — so we dialed the vintage booth to sepia, set up the umbrella flash, and sent everyone home with a keepsake to remember Tucson by.

Every Room on This Page: The One Thing That Never Changed

The venue changes. The guest list changes. The props change. The moment does not: somebody grabs a hat, somebody yells for one more, and four people walk away holding a strip they still have in a drawer years later.

Back in 2016 we published a post that was nothing but a thank you to the customers and guests who made the year a great one. That still stands, for every room on this page — and you can read what hosts have said since on our reviews page.