Perth to PBX: Photo Booth Expo 2018

Guest Blogger Colin Richardson – Adept Photo Booths

 

Adept Photo Booths recently celebrated our second birthday. It was St Patrick’s Day 2018 and I was still in Las Vegas post PBX which prompted a moment of reflection, over a Guinness of course. 

My photo booth business has certainly come a long way since our inception in 2016, however the one thing has remained consistent is my thirst for knowledge and desire to keep improving every day.

After attending the first two Australian BoothCon events in Brisbane and Sydney respectively, I decided to take the plunge and attend the world’s largest Photo Booth Expo (PBX) to see what all the fuss was about. PBX certainly was a massive event with 4,000 attended and over 300 companies promoting their wares on the tradeshow floor.

The equipment, software and support services on offer at PBX were certainly impressive. If you want to learn more about the innovations and products that feature out of PBX you can check out my blog, Thinking Outside the Photo Booth, but from an educational and personal growth perspective I thought that I would share the top three personal learnings from my PBX experience.

 

Learning from your mistakes is essential. Learn from others mistakes is a free kick.

 I could not find a more apt quote to sum up the lessons that I took way from PBX 2018 than the words of the late Alfred Sheinwold:

 

“Learn all you can from mistakes of others. You wont have time to make them all yourselves.”

 

This is the feeling that I got from many seminars as experts in their fields shared personal stories of triumph and failures that helped to shape the successful businesses that they run today. The willingness to share and lay bare many floors in what are now successful businesses allowed me to recognise similarities in my journey and guide decisions that may have set my business back without reconsidering my approach.

Chatting to other photo booth operators, large and small, from all over the world was another eye opening experience. Despite some quirky differences in our markets, the day to day issues that we face in business are quite similar. Learning how others apply various strategies for their businesses was fascinating to me and talking at length over lunch, between seminars or over a beer in the evening provided some really engaging dialogue.

I have made a number of changes to my business mindset, processes and marketing strategy following these seminars and conversations with fellow Boother’s from all over the world. The energy present over the week was certainly infections, leaving all present with a renewed motivation to tackle their own individual business problems that had either been ignored or simply overlooked for some time.

 

Australia Punches Above Its Weight in The Photo Booth World

Whilst the PBX experience was certainly valuable, a notable take out of the trip for me was just how advanced Australia is in the photo booth world. The strength of Australian photo booth innovation was perhaps best demonstrated by the mix of PBX 2018 attendees from Australian with 5 exhibitors and 5 attendees.

We are certainly spoilt for choice when it comes to talent down under with one of the best presenters (according to a number of attendees that I spoke to) being none other than Brisbane based Steve Bliesner from The Wilkes Booth Co.

Australian innovation was on display with The Wilkes Booth Co. maintaining their status as industry leaders with the first retail GIF Booth to feature a beauty dish rather than a ring light. The Latest Gif Booth technology to challenge the big players in the ipad app development space was Melbourne based Hula Booth who have a number of developments in the pipeline that I will certainly be keeping a close eye on.

Justin Jowett was also a valuable contributor to PBX as a presenter and also represented Photobooth Finder and Australia’s own photo booth expo, BoothCon, on the trade show floor. Whilst it is hard to top the scale of the PBX tradeshow, the calibre of talent that Justin is able to assemble for BoothCon honestly rivals that of PBX from an educational perspective with the likes of The Wilkes Booth Co., Red Robot Industries and Social Play Ground to name a few industry leaders all based in our own backyard.

If you haven’t signed up to attend Boothcon 2019 in Melbourne yet then do yourself a favour and check out boothcon.com.au - your business will thank you. You can read more about my own personal BoothCon experience here.

PBX is the Launch Pad for Innovation

It has become clear that PBX is THE place to launch new and innovative products to the photo booth world. The anticipation leading up to the event in various Facebook groups and at PBX itself before the tradeshow started certainly build suspense and a buzz of excitement.

Photo booth businesses were queuing up for the latest products and cheapest deals on the market the moment that the trade show doors opened. The sheer volume of exhibitors provided the opportunity to test and play with equipment from all of the big manufacturers (and may of the smaller ones) that is impossible to do from Australia, or any other country for that matter.

If you are a photo booth operator and want to be a leader in the technology space in your market, PBX is a must to give yourself the first bite at the latest products.

So what did I learn at PBX 2018? I guess I have learnt that I still have a lot to learn. I still consider myself one of the new kids in the industry as I enter my third year in business. However the one thing that has remained consistent throughout my career is that to moment you stop learning and striving to get better at what you do is the moment that you lose control of your destiny.

 

Disclaimer: While every caution has been taken to provide readers with most accurate information and honest analysis, please use your discretion before taking any decisions based on the information in this blog. Author will not compensate you in any way whatsoever if you ever happen to suffer a loss/inconvenience/damage because of/while making use of information in this blog.

 

(Photo Booth Guest Blogger: Colin Richardson)