Quite the Big Shot!
Snapshot 2 Excitement at LAI As Studio & Portable Join Its Photo Booth Team
In recent years, LAI Games has become an active member of the photo booth manufacturing community. Now their Snapshot 2 (which won the coveted AMOA Innovator Award in 2015) has been joined by two more booths, the Snapshot 2 Studio and the Snapshot 2 Portable. All were on stage at last month’s Amusement Expo in Las Vegas.
Proud? You bet! LAI’s Ted Parsons, Allison Timberlake and Chris Brady with the AMOA Innovator Award the product earned at last year’s Amusement Expo.
“With Snapshot 2 Portable and Snapshot 2 Studio joining our original model, there’s now a Snapshot unit that suits everyone,” advised Mindy Rosenfelder, LAI’s R&D Video Games Team Lead. “We’ve engineered the software to support all units, so every Snapshot has the same user-friendly interface, operator-friendly back end, receives free software updates, and supports the Snapshot Companion app,” Mindy added.
The Snapshot 2 Studio model is their super-sized booth accommodating up to 8 people. “This unit makes a great signature attraction for larger locations. And the stunning 8” x 12” prints are highly desirable and command a premium price. The huge prints have extra longevity at home, where they’ll be put somewhere visible and remind players how much fun they had on their trip to the FEC,” advised Mindy.
The other new model, the Snapshot 2 Portable, is a collapsible booth designed for events and smaller locations. Easy to transport and set up, this booth is also great for party rentals.
From their very first photo booth, LAI Games never required that the “media” (photo paper and ink) be bought from them, although they do offer it for sale. “Our customers can buy photo media from their preferred retailer rather than through us,” said LAI’s Marketing Manager Allison Timberlake. “Snapshot 2 media should cost no more than 16 cents per-vend for 4” x 6” prints, the lowest consumable cost for any commercial-quality photo booth. If you want to buy it through us, that’s fine too. The choice is yours,” Allison declared.
From the get-go, LAI has sold photo paper and ink to operators of its Snapshot photo booths, but has never required that it be bought exclusively from them. They assert that this flexibility offers their customers the chance to always shop for and get the best pricing.
Being free to buy the print media from any reliable source, and being able to get it at 16 cents a print, Allison said the cost savings when compared to a 50 cents per-print media would be over $6 thousand a year for a machine doing an average of 50 prints a day. For a busy machine doing 100 a day, that would be over $12 thousand per annum. “An operator could save the purchase price of the booth in one year at 75 prints a day based purely on media cost savings. This is over and above the profit made from operating the photo booth,” she declared.
Versatility
“Today’s players have high expectations when it comes to their photos,” Allison continued. “They don’t want to be limited to old-fashioned, cartoonish backgrounds. This is the Instagram generation. They expect chic filters, modern stamps and hashtags, and Snapshot 2 delivers. With the simple touchscreen interface, players decorate their photos with cool artwork and trendy themes,” she advised. “With three unique decorating modes to choose from, players can decide how creative they want to get with their photos. And, players can choose between two cameras – a selfie-style camera at the perfect angle for selfies, or a classic camera,” she emphasized.
With Snapshot 2, LAI leveraged the power of mobile devices to make photo booths an extension of a player’s social media arsenal. Players interact with the booth via a mobile app called the Snapshot Companion, available on iOS and Android. A quick scan of a QR code, and within seconds, the player will have the app up and running on their phone.
This Snapshot Companion links players and the booth, by not only automatically uploading photos taken in the booth to their phone for sharing with friends on unlimited social networks, but it also lets them download any photos from their phone into the booth. Then they can utilize all of Snapshot 2’s photo editing features and filters on those photos and print them out, or share the decorated photos with their friends.
When the player visits a Snapshot 2 again, they can link up their phone and every photo ever taken in the booth is instantly available for re-decorating, re-printing, or re-sharing. Players can also use Snapshot Companion to locate the closest Snapshot 2 to their location, thanks to the app’s integration with Google Maps and Apple Maps.
“Old school players” who aren’t interested in the app can still utilize all the features of the booth, including emailing a digital copy of their photos to themselves.
“Operator Mike Abecassis, CEO of GameTime called the Snapshot 2 Studio is a ‘stellar piece’,” Allison said. “He called it one of the unsung heroes in his game room,” she added.
All three Snapshot 2 models feature LAI’s proprietary on-screen menu that guides operators through all setup procedures. The booths receive program updates and free seasonal assets automatically when connected to the internet. Locations can customize the footer of the photos with their logo or message, and photos taken in the booth can be captured on a flash drive. Upsell features offer guests additional prints and maximize earnings.
“The lowest operating costs, exciting content, and an app that connects players to your booth and each other – Snapshot 2 is the whole package,” Allison declared.
To see full range in detail, visit www.snapshot2photobooth.com.
Sidebar:
All in the Helix Leisure Family
LAI Games, alongside Embed and The Locker Network, is part of the Helix Leisure Group supplying out-of-home entertainment via technology-driven products and services. As such, Helix offers a full portfolio of revenue management systems, point of sales solutions, debit cards, ticketing solutions, business intelligence reporting, party planners, redemption counter solutions, mobile services, electronic locker systems, and amusement and arcade games. “Operators don’t need to take on operational complexity and risk dealing with a patchwork of individual suppliers and service providers,” the company advises.
“We’ve built our reputation over the course of more than 55 years in the business as part of the Leisure & Allied Industries (LAI) group, and pair our innovative products and services with unparalleled industry know-how and a reputation for integrity with our partners,” they add.
Among the Helix divisions that’s quite familiar to FEC operators is Embed, the worldwide supplier of swipe card-based revenue management systems. Embed delivers a suite of applications designed to manage all areas of any entertainment facility through the use of data capture, cashless payment systems, value-added packages, and guest loyalty programs.
With its background in operations Embed continues to maintain a prominent position in game management technology and cashless payment solutions. With more than 1,000 operating systems in the major markets across the globe, Embed is a worldwide force in cashless operations, maintaining full service offices in the United States, Australia, United Kingdom and Middle East.
