How Cheers Photo Co. Photographed 256 ALSAC Employees in Just 6 Hours
A corporate headshot event case study: how a custom booking system and a two-station setup turned a 6-hour window into 256 directory-ready headshots with an 89% pre-event booking rate.
The Client
ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, brought Cheers Photo Co. in to provide two Headshot Booths at a recent National Training Meeting at the Renasant Convention Center in Memphis, TN. The event planner had two goals: give attendees an updated personal headshot as a takeaway from the event, and capture a standardized, consistent headshot for every employee to use in the company directory.
The Challenge
The training meeting's schedule left only 6 total hours, split across two days, for headshots. And our client’s goal was to photograph 360 employees. There was also no plan yet for how guests would actually get in front of the camera. The default approach was first-come, first-served: no schedule, no way to predict turnout, and a high risk of long lines, chaos, and employees leaving without a photo.
The Strategy: Solving the Problem Before It Existed
Once we mapped the available time against the schedule of events, the math was clear: 6 hours, split as Day 1 from 7–9am and 12–2pm, and Day 2 from 7–9am. It meant we needed two photographers running two identical setups on roughly 2-minute intervals to have any chance of hitting the goal.
The bigger risk, though, wasn't throughput, it was turnout. Rather than leave attendance to chance, we proposed and built a branded booking portal that ALSAC distributed to attendees two weeks before the event. Guests picked their own appointment time, received automatic confirmations and reminders, and we intentionally left buffer capacity in the schedule to absorb walk-ins and no-shows. We built the fix before the first-come, first-served approach ever had a chance to become a problem.
Key Results
280 appointment slots created
250 reserved
89% of capacity booked before the event even started
80% show-up rate among reserved appointments (about 200 people)
The remaining 56 of the 256 total came from walk-ins, concentrated in the 8–9am hour
Heaviest no-show window: 7–8am, on both event days
2 photographers, 2 identical setups, 2-minute appointment intervals
256 employees photographed inside the 6-hour window
Photos delivered instantly on-site, no post-event wait
How We Did It
We sent an FAQ and a Getting Ready guide to all registrants one week ahead of the event, followed by reminders at 24 hours, 1 hour, and 10 minutes before each guest's scheduled time. Attendees are busy and have a lot on their plate. Sending reminders kept their headshot reservation top of mind, and decreased the likelihood of a no-show.
Both photography setups used matched lighting, backdrops, camera equipment, and settings, so a headshot taken at Station A looked indistinguishable from one taken at Station B.
Every guest's image was processed instantly and made available at a staffed Sharing Station, where they emailed the photos to themselves on the spot using their company email address. This made it easy for ALSAC to match each image to the right employee for the directory.
The Results
256 employees were photographed inside the exact 6-hour window that had originally looked like the project's biggest constraint. The booking portal filled 89% of available appointments before the event even began, replacing the uncertainty of first-come, first-served with a predictable, organized schedule. The one soft spot we saw was lower turnout in the 7–8am slots on both days.
Because every image came out of a matched, standardized setup, ALSAC walked away with directory-ready headshots for the whole group, with a consistent look no matter which station or photographer took the shot.
What Attendees Said
Feedback from attendees and organizers was consistent: guests described the experience as highly organized and efficient, and a noticeable improvement over a headshot events in previous years. Several also specifically called out the quality of their images. Here’s how ALSAC employee S.J. described it:
“Cheers Photo Co has a great process from start to finish, with excellent preparation guidance. Brian Jones and SJ Smith were supportive the whole way. You’ll end up with a finished picture you’re proud of.”
Why This Matters for Your Next Event
Most of the risk in a large-scale corporate headshot event isn't the photography, it's everything around it: whether people show up, whether the schedule holds, and whether 250+ images end up looking like they came from one photographer instead of two. Those are logistics and planning problems, and they're solvable before the event starts, not during it. These things are the difference between a headshot activation that runs smoothly and one that turns into chaos.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you photograph hundreds of employees in a single day?
By pairing multiple photographer setups with a scheduling system that spaces appointments in tight, predictable intervals. We can photograph as rapidly as 2 minutes per person, but we generally recommend allocating 5 mintues per person to capture genuine reactions.
How do you keep headshots consistent across multiple photographers or setups?
Every station uses matched lighting, backdrops, camera bodies, and settings, so an image taken at one station is indistinguishable from one taken at another once it's in the directory.
What happens if someone misses their scheduled appointment?
Built-in buffer slots and open walk-in capacity absorb no-shows without pushing the schedule back or creating a backup for the next group of guests. We create an open environment where everyone is welcome and no one is an inconvenience. If they didn’t sign up in advance, we’re quick to share options.
How quickly do attendees receive their photos?
Instantly. Guests get their images on-site at a staffed Sharing Station and can email them straight to their own inbox before they leave.
How does the client receive all the images?
We provide our corporate clients with one-click download links that allow them to batch-download all event images. For this particular experience, we also shared a spreadsheet which linked email addresses to photos, enabling our client to match photos to employees.
Can this approach scale to larger or smaller groups?
The model is built around ratios (photographers to guests, appointment intervals, buffer capacity) rather than a fixed formula, so it can be resized. The right ratios for a given event still depend on the specific group size and time window available.
Within what service radius do you provide corporate headshot experiences?
We provide service within 25 minutes of our studio at 950 Mt. Moriah Road in Memphis, TN. Events beyond that radius are available with a customized travel fee. We’re happy to build a personalize quote for you, no matter how far away you are.
Ready to Solve This for Your Team?
If your company is planning a training meeting, conference, or all-hands event that needs employee headshots done right, we've already solved the hard parts.