Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Webber.
Hi Andrew, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been in the live events world for about 20 years. I started out doing AV and lighting for concerts, weddings, and corporate events all over DFW. If there was a stage, a dance floor, or a CEO giving a speech to 500 people who’d rather be at the bar, I was probably the guy behind the truss making sure the lights hit right, tweaking the sound coming from the stage, and barely staying awake at the final stretch of a multi-day run of events. I eventually moved into logistics management at an event rentals company and helped them scale from a small to mid-sized operation before deciding I didn’t want to build someone else’s dream forever.
My first photo booth was literally handed to me by my boss and mentor, Chris Patel. I owe that man more than I could ever put into words. He noticed that most operators just stood next to the machine like a bored security guard and tapped the screen, and apparently I was different in how I engaged with guests. Chris saw a future for me that I couldn’t see for myself at the time, and he bet on it. I thought he was just trying to get rid of old equipment. Turns out he was handing me the keys to my entire career, and I will never forget that.
At the time I was running MIGHTY Event Lighting, and selling standalone lighting was getting harder by the month since DJs had started bundling uplights for free. Felt like selling umbrellas in a drought. The photo booth was supposed to be a side hustle. Instead, it became the thing that changed everything. For the first time I wasn’t behind the scenes, I was combining every skill I’d picked up over two decades, and I was actually having fun. The early days were almost comically easy. You just had to tell someone you owned a photo booth and you’d be booked at a backyard birthday party by sundown.
The real shift happened when I got curious. I started tinkering with features, studying how light affected photo quality, and pushing way past what a “normal” photo booth company was doing. I liked the business at first. When I realized how much genuine joy I was creating for people, I fell in love with it. It also brought me the love of my life. My son Aidyn, who’s now 16, was out helping me work a photo booth the night I met my fiancée Vivian. So technically he found her first. Our youngest son Adrian came along for the ride not long after. Vivian is the backbone of MIGHTY today, and our family often pitches in when it’s all hands on deck. This company gave me a career, a family, and a reason to keep pushing, so it’s personal in every sense of the word.
Then I got bored again. Because apparently that’s my cycle. The standard open-air photo booth at every wedding and gala started to feel like the same song on repeat, so I started chasing a different reaction: “wait, how did that just happen?” That became the mission. We’ve built AI “sketch” experiences, branded bobble-heads, trading card activations, 360 platforms, roaming paparazzi photography with on-the-spot print delivery, and so much more. I’m constantly cooking up something new, often building custom activations for clients even when it’s not in their budget just because the idea is too good to leave on the whiteboard.
Nearly a decade later, MIGHTY Photo Booths has over 80 photo and video activations (that number will be outdated by the time you read this). We’ve partnered with brands like Adobe, Pizza Hut, the Dallas Mavs, and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. Everything is fully white-label so the client’s brand is always the headliner, not ours. What surprises most people is that the photo booth isn’t just entertainment anymore. Our clients use our activations to capture leads, generate content for their social channels, run contests, and measure real event data. It’s still a blast for guests, but behind the scenes it’s doing serious work.
As for what’s next, I’m not slowing down. I’m deep into AI, automation, and finding new ways to merge technology with live experiences that haven’t been done before. The photo booth industry is still young and most people underestimate what it’s capable of. I plan on being the one who keeps proving that. Same curiosity I had on day one, just a lot more tools to play with now.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth? Not even close. The demand was there early on, but standing out in this market was a completely different fight. Photo booths are one of the most saturated corners of the event industry. Everyone’s first instinct is that all providers offer the exact same thing, and when people think that, they shop on price. Period. You could show up with a holographic time machine and someone would still ask if you can match the quote they got from a guy on Facebook Marketplace.
The hardest part of this business has been educating prospective clients. You’re trying to explain to someone that this thing they see as a party toy is actually a professional marketing tool that can help them hit their event goals, improve ROI for their sponsors, and generate content and data that lasts well beyond the night. That’s a tough sell when the person on the other end of the email is Googling “cheapest photo booth near me.”
The other challenge is that photo booths are almost always the last thing anyone thinks about when planning an event. Venue, catering, DJ, flowers, napkin colors, the cousin’s girlfriend who “does photography.” Then two days before the event someone goes “oh wait, should we get a photo booth?” and calls us in a panic. At that point there’s no time to do what we do best. Our best clients are the ones who bring us in more than two weeks out and actually participate in our process. Once that happens, something clicks. They start to see what’s possible, and we shift from vendor to collaborator. We go back and forth customizing branded overlays, digital screens, and galleries until every detail is dialed into their exact vision.
That’s when the magic happens, and that’s when their event becomes something people actually talk about afterward.
There’s also a massive misconception about this industry that I think is worth addressing. The photo booth business is constantly sold online as a dream: buy a booth, show up to parties, and make six figures in your first year. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Taking photos is less than 10% of what I actually do. On any given day I’m a graphic designer, a software configurator, a salesperson, a logistics coordinator, a customer service rep, a marketing strategist, a lighting technician, a printer troubleshooter, a social media manager, and occasionally the guy loading a van at midnight.
The education never stops either. I’m constantly investing in certifications, marketing courses, industry memberships, software subscriptions, and tools just to stay competitive. I study photography techniques, test new AI models, and figure out how to make technology do things it wasn’t designed to do. Technology in this space moves incredibly fast, and the product lifecycle for any single activation can be surprisingly short. What blows people’s minds today becomes expected tomorrow and boring next month. If you’re not constantly developing new products and experimenting with what’s next, you’re already falling behind. You always have to have something in the lab. The people who buy a booth expecting easy money are usually selling it on Facebook Marketplace within six months. The ones who stick around are the ones who realize this is a real business that demands real work, constant reinvention, and an obsession with getting better.
I can remember long stretches with zero events on the calendar and spending money on paid leads that went nowhere. The leads we did get only cared about price. It felt like shouting into a void because nobody understood or cared why we were different. That was frustrating, but it forced me to get sharper. I got better at communicating our capabilities, better at showing instead of telling. More importantly, I learned who to sell to and why those clients benefit the most from what we do. Once I figured that out, things started working in our favor and never really stopped.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about MIGHTY Photo Booths ?
MIGHTY Photo Booths is a photo and video experience company based in Fort Worth, serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area and anywhere in the country that needs us. I say “experience company” because calling us a photo booth company at this point is like calling a Swiss Army knife a bottle opener. Technically accurate, massively underselling it.
We specialize in corporate events, brand activations, galas, and weddings where the client actually cares about the outcome and not just filling a corner of the room with a backdrop and some props. Our sweet spot is working with marketing teams, event planners, and organizations that want their guests to walk away talking about what they just experienced. We bring the same energy whether it’s a 2,000-person conference in another state or a 50-person dinner down the street. We can have our equipment shipped anywhere in the continental US on the same day, including backup gear, so distance is never a dealbreaker.
What sets us apart is that we never show up with the same setup twice unless a client specifically asks for it. Every activation is custom designed for that event, that brand, that audience. We have over 80 photo and video experiences in our catalog, from AI fashion sketches and personalized trading cards to 360 video, slow-motion capture, and roaming paparazzi with on-the-spot print delivery. If a client comes to us with a concept we’ve never built before, even better. That’s when things get really fun.
We also don’t subcontract. Ever. When you hire MIGHTY, you get our team, our equipment, and our process. We don’t farm events out to other operators or rent gear that isn’t ours. That might sound like a small thing, but in this industry it’s surprisingly rare. We believe the trust a client puts in us is worth more than the profit from any single event.
What I’m most proud of honestly isn’t a specific event or a big name on the client list. It’s the fact that we’ve built a reputation where people trust us to figure it out. A client will call and say “I have this wild idea” and instead of hearing “that’s not possible,” they hear “give me 48 hours.” That trust took years to earn, and it’s the thing no competitor can copy. You can buy the same equipment we use. You can’t buy the obsession with making every single event feel like it was built from scratch, because it was.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
What I love most about Dallas and the greater DFW metroplex is that it’s the party capital of the world and I will die on that hill. The sheer volume of events happening here on any given weekend is staggering. In a single month I might be at a corporate gala in downtown Dallas, a fundraiser in Southlake, a music festival in Deep Ellum, and a quinceañera in Grand Prairie. The culture here is incredibly rich and every event teaches me something new about a community I didn’t know enough about before.
On top of that, the growth and opportunity in this area is unlike anywhere else in the country. Companies are relocating here constantly, new venues are opening, and the demand for live experiences keeps climbing. For a business like mine, there’s no better place to be.
What I like least is the cost of living squeeze that’s hitting so many families right now. DFW is growing fast, which is great for business, but it’s pricing a lot of people out of the neighborhoods they grew up in. Dallas just ranked as one of the most financially distressed cities in the country, and Fort Worth isn’t far behind. When working families are stretched thin, that ripples through everything, including the events and celebrations that bring communities together. I’d love to see this region’s growth translate into stability for everyone, not just the people at the top.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.MIGHTYphotobooths.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mightyphotobooth
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mightyphotobooth
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/companies/mightyphotobooths
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MIGHTYphotobooths
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mighty-photo-booths-fort-worth
