Photo Booths A-Z with Chuck Eckert
As one of the pioneers in the Photo Booth business, Chuck Eckert (with over a dozen years in the Photo Booth Biz) has a treasure trove of tricks and tips to share that can help you turn “Boothing” into a fun and exciting full or part-time income. Chuck’s talk will take you through running a Photo Booth business from beginning to end. You’ll learn how to start up your Photo Booth business, how to develop a following of satisfied customers and how to maximize profitability from this growing industry.
About Chuck: Chuck Eckert, from Buffalo, NY has been a filmmaker, photographer, DJ, auctioneer and a photo booth owner for many years. Active in the community, planning events for service organizations, corporations or maybe a family re-union, the excitement is still there. In business for over 20 years and still learning ways to grow the business.
Join The latinX Photo Booth Community Mixer
Monday, February 19th, 6 to 8 pm at South Point
Timothy Connolly, (a.k.a. Sonny Calzone) To Bring Music and Inspiration to PBX2024
Those who attend PBX & MEX annually know it’s about a lot more than Photo Booths and DJ Gear. Entertainment is the core focus and because this is Las Vegas, you never know who might show up on show floor unannounced and unexpected.
This time we’re letting one of the cats out of the bag early— and that cat is Timothy Connolly, a.k.a The Ukulele Hero, a.k.a Sonny Calzone.
Like many entertainers, Tim finds joy by bringing joy to others, and he does that primarily through music. “My greatest gift is my determination to help keep great music from the 20th century alive here in the 21st century. There’s so much music and so little time.” But there’s more to Tim than music. The guy is a real survivor with a quite an inspiring back story.
His birth home was in Long Beach, NY, also known for being the location of the Corleone family compound in “The Godfather.” Timothy’s nickname “Sonny Calzone” came from his similarity to Sonny Corleone—and his love for calzones.
One day in 1974, at the age of three, his life changed dramatically. Kids like to play on stairs and he was finding it quite fun to leap Calvin & Hobbes style into a pile of pillows at the bottom of a stairwell. This was in an older building which still had cast iron radiators (you can probably guess where this is going). On one particular jump, he missed the pillows and went head first into one of those old radiators. The result was a traumatic head injury that cost him his hearing. “I was born with healthy hearing,” he explains, “Approximately ten percent remains and I have no recollection of what it was like. I mostly ‘feel’ sound instead of ‘hear’ sound.”
His connection to music and performing was inherited from his parents. His father played guitar and piano and his mom enjoyed singing karaoke.
Tim joined his first band in 1991 at age 20 on Long Island. “We were very much a ‘garage band’ at first, but it wouldn’t be long before we became a proper rock-and-roll outfit. I later became a founding member of the award-winning ‘Suck It Easy’ band in 2002. That visionary groundbreaking band had two squads… one squad was our cover band that focused on music from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and the other squad was our freeform improvisational band that performed ‘concept concerts’ and recorded studio albums—three albums of which exist on compact disc in more than 20 countries.”.
Tim left New York in January 2018 for new adventures in the great American west (and also to escape from crazed fans and stalkers in New York.) Even though he no longer drinks or gambles, he has found Las Vegas to be a perfect location. “On weekdays,” he says, “I am the mild-mannered Clark Kent of the logistics industry (working for Scan Global Logistics. www.scangl.com) By night and on weekends, I am both the Ukulele Hero and the Qigong Coach that this city so richly deserves.”
In 2008, a friend gifted him a ukulele and over the next fifteen years went from playing campfire songs to developing a repertoire of one thousand songs or more.
In a recent interview published in “Vegas 411”, Timothy a.k.a. “The Ukulele Hero” said, “Being both a Qigong coach and a mediation coach allows me to help others become more grateful, mindful, and peaceful. To become their real selves, have better mobility, reconnect with breath, utilize breathing patterns for certain results, and so on. I’m a fun coach, too, with many years of experience. A specialty of mine is helping beginners to discover both Qigong and mediation for the first time.”
PBX Show Producer, Rob Savickis, caught up with Timothy last summer in Las Vegas and invited him to come and share his music, his story and his philosophies on life at MEX/PBX 2024. You’ll get a chance to meet him as you enter the PBX Seminar room—and be sure to stop his booth on the show floor. “When attendees visit my booth, they can meet me and hear me strumming a Fender tenor ukulele. Visitors can also book me in-person, to perform at their corporate events, private parties, weddings and lots more. PBX/MEX will be an incredible experience and I am thrilled to be a part of it with all of you.”
Below: Tim fronts Suck It Easy
It’s Only A Photo Booth – What could possibly go wrong? – Bill Vahrenkamp
Photo Booth Expo Hall Of Fame Member Bill Vahrenkamp returns to PBX 2024 with more great tips and tricks for Photo Booth professionals. With his many of years of experience, there is not a Photo Booth issue that is foreign to Bill so this is your opportunity to get answers and solutions to anything you are running into.
About Bill:
Bill is the co-owner with his wife,Tanya, of Albertex Photography providing wedding, portrait and event photography and photo booth services in the Dallas/Fort Worth and surrounding areas. In addition to his photography business, Bill is also Director of Technical Operations at Imaging Spectrum where he helps customers design and build the best printing systems to meet their needs and then provides training and technical support. He holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Photography from Sam Houston State University and is a Photographic Craftsman and a Certified Professional Photographer in PPA. He is also a DallasPPA Fellowship recipient and current President. With over forty years of photography experience, he enjoys sharing his knowledge by teaching and speaking on photography and making the industry better and to continue to thrive.
How to rank your photo booth website on the first page of Google. – Arif Rampuri
Google uses ove
r 200+ factors in their algorithm including social signals, user-interaction and trust.
The reality is you will never be able to hit all 200 right away. I don’t use everything. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible.
I’ve figured out a handful of tactics that move the needle for my photo booth hire company in London and I will be sharing these techniques with you, so you can implement on your website.
Being in the top three positions of Google organic search should be a target for all photo booth companies to competitively compete for events in their local area.
About Arif: Arif Rampuri is the owner of Showtime Photo Booth in London, UK. Since May 2013, he has been building his photo booth hire company to become leaders in experiential & brand activations, corporate events and private parties. With a fleet of over 30 photo booths, 550+ Google reviews and a blue chip clientele, Showtime Photo Booth aren’t new to the photo booth hire scene.