Face Place Photo Studio Deluxe Wows Crowds At Pinstack Fun Center

PLANO, TX -- The first production unit of Apple Industries' Face Place Photo Studio Deluxe is now on location at the flagship Pinstack family entertainment center here. According to Apple, the new photobooth quickly has established itself as "an unprecedented moneymaker."

Pinstack is a 50,000-sq.-ft. facility featuring 28 bowling lanes with lane-side food and beverage service, a two-level laser tag arena, a rock-climbing wall and a high-ropes course suspended above 100 contemporary videogames. Apple reports that its Photo Studio Deluxe had lines of customers waiting to patronize it on a recent Saturday night, validating the manufacturer's projection that, in a high-traffic location, the unit can earn thousands of dollars per week.

Photo Studio Deluxe is designed to resemble "studio on location" that can entertain seven or eight customers at a time for group stills and videos. It measures a 90" x 70" x 66" and operators can charge (and get) $10 per vend for the experience. When everyone in a group orders extra prints and uploads for themselves, a single "group customer" can easily generate $30, $40, $50 or even more per use.

At a $5 to $10 per vend price plus $5 or $10 per upsell, Photo Studio Deluxe needs just 75 to 150 customer uses a week (10 to 25 transactions a day) to generate thousands of dollars per week, Apple claims.

Pinstack's initial cashbox proves that these numbers are realistic, according to the manufacturer. After four days of earnings, Photo Studio Deluxe ranked No. 5 against a full week's earnings by every other machine on site.

Apple said this remarkable performance was no surprise to Pinstack's vice-president of operations, Brian Cohen. "The first time I saw Face Place Photo Studio Deluxe at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Show last year, I said: 'This amazing machine is going to be a major attraction for my locations,'" Cohen recalled. "Not only will it earn commanding revenues in its own right; it will drive more customer traffic to my location. It will definitely create a buzz, an atmosphere, which makes people excited to be here. Now that we've installed the 'Studio' on our floor, I am delighted to say it is meeting and even exceeding those expectations.

STAR ATTRACTION:New Apple Face Place Photo Studio Deluxe is an imposing presence in Plano, TX's Pinstack family entertainment center. Above, two young patrons explore their options with the photobooth's touchscreen user interface.

The Face Place Photo Studio Deluxe builds on Apple's long experience in applying digital image processing techniques to photobooth design for the 21st century. Its large size and eye-catching light show powered by more than 5,000 LEDs attracts attention from across the room. It features retro-reflective technology that enables large groups of people to enjoy more than 20 video-guided interactive fun scenes, while allowing one or many to appear in custom "One-Step" (step and repeat) views. Touchscreen navigation speeds and simplifies the patron's choice of options.

The new Face Place photobooth makes full use of Apple's "Green Screen" chroma key compositing capability, which permits theme artwork or the client's logotype to be seamlessly integrated into a picture. Among many other things, this enables a mascot or a guest of honor to be "digitally inserted" into the booth when an exposure is made. A wide range of fun scenes and borders is available.

The Photo Studio Deluxe can produce standard 4x6" (4R) prints, 6x9" enlargements and color or black-and-white photo strips, using a Mitsubishi dye-sublimation printer. Its output capacity is 270 vends per roll of print stock.

The photobooth also provides full social media integration, encouraging patrons to email their pictures and post them of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A remote-control auditing system provides real-time information about the machine's performance and status.

The Photo Studio Deluxe and other Face Place photoboos will be in booth No. 813 at the Amusement Expo this week.