Two Experiences, One Team: A Corporate Holiday Celebration for McKinsey

Last December, Pop Life Photo partnered with a corporate event planner to bring two photo experiences to McKinsey’s annual holiday celebration. The gathering brought together hundreds of employees, partners, and guests across a City Hall in San Francisco, CA.

The plan was simple to describe and harder to pull off well. Give guests something memorable to do, keep every line moving, and make sure both experiences looked like they belonged at the same event.

We answered with two services running side by side. A portrait photography station and a classic photo booth, placed in different areas of the floor, sharing one design and one dedicated team.

Holiday celebrations are a natural fit for more than one experience. Guests have time to move around, and a second station gives the evening a rhythm instead of a single line everyone waits in.

Scaling an Experience for Hundreds of Guests

A large corporate celebration has a lot of moving parts. Hundreds of guests arrive in waves, timelines are tight, and the venue has its own rules for load-in and breakdown.

At this size, the real question for a planner is confidence: whether the lines will move, whether the photos will look great, and whether both experiences will hold up from the first guest to the last.

That confidence comes from tested systems and a team that adapts as the room fills. When the setup is dialed in and the crew knows the plan, the experience supports the celebration instead of adding another thing to manage.

This is why preparation matters as much as the experience itself. Every station was tested before the event, and the team arrived with a clear plan for staffing, flow, and backup so the evening stayed on schedule.

Two Services, Two Levels of Experience

The celebration used two formats that each did something different for guests.

Portrait photography is one of the most requested services for holiday celebrations, and the appeal is easy to understand. A dedicated photographer guides each guest, so the moment feels personal while producing a polished, timeless keepsake.

It suits events where guests want to feel celebrated. Each portrait came with on-site printing and a matted frame to take home, along with a digital version to share.

The classic photo booth brought a faster, more social energy to a different part of the floor. Guests gathered friends and colleagues, showed off their looks for the night, and walked away with branded prints in seconds, all guided by an on-site attendant.

It is a format that keeps people entertained across a long evening. Groups come back to it more than once, and it gives the room a natural gathering point.

Together, the two services covered different moods without competing for the same guests. One produced refined portraits with editorial lighting and direction. The other delivered quick, fun group shots that kept the energy high through the night.

Getting the Details Right Before the Event

Two experiences at one event only feel effortless when the planning behind them is tight. Both stations were built from a single creative direction and a single production plan.

That meant one conversation about the theme, one set of branded outputs to approve, and one team accountable for how everything looked on the night. The planner did not have to reconcile two different visions into one event.

Placement That Kept the Room Moving

We set the two stations in separate areas of the event floor. That kept guests from bottlenecking in a single spot and gave people a reason to move between areas.

Movement matters more than it looks at a large event. Spreading guests out shortens waits, keeps both stations busy, and helps the whole floor feel active rather than crowded in one corner.

It also gives guests a small sense of discovery. Finding a second experience across the room adds to the evening instead of repeating what they already did.

One Consistent Design Across Both Stations

Both experiences shared the same design treatment. The branded prints, the styling, and the guest-facing details matched, so the two stations read as one connected part of the celebration.

That consistency is easy to overlook and quick to notice when it is missing. When outputs match, the whole event feels intentional, and the client’s brand stays front and center in every photo guests take home.

Why One Partner Handled Both Experiences

Running two experiences through a single team changed how the event came together, from planning through the final hour.

One team, multiple experiences. Instead of coordinating two separate crews with two points of contact, the planner worked with one team that ran the entire show. One schedule, one setup, one group to rely on when the night got busy.

A consistent brand experience. Design quality often varies when different companies handle different parts of an event. With one partner, the look and feel stayed consistent across both stations, so everything on the floor felt connected.

For a brand like McKinsey, that consistency protects how the company shows up in every image. Each print and digital file carried the same considered design.

Centralized communication. More partners usually means more messages, more scheduling, and more to track. Working with one team meant the planner confirmed location, load-in, timing, and creative details once instead of repeating them across vendors.

For a planner managing dozens of moving pieces, that simplicity is worth as much as the experiences themselves. One relationship, one thread, one team accountable for the outcome.

Instant sharing and printed keepsakes. Guests left with printed photos to frame at home and digital versions they could share right away. The printed keepsake lasts, and the digital file travels, often onto social feeds that extend the reach of the event.

That combination gives guests something in the moment and something to keep. It also gives the client content that keeps working after the last guest leaves.

The Results

The two stations ran for five hours of continuous coverage. Across the evening, the team delivered 390 portraits and 332 photo booth sessions, all under one consistent design.

More telling than any single number was the flow. Guests moved between both experiences throughout the night, lines stayed manageable, and the celebration held its energy from the first guest to the last.

By the numbers

• 390 portraits captured
• 332 photo booth sessions
• 5 hours of continuous coverage from a single team.

Planning a Large Corporate Celebration

Enterprise events and holiday celebrations run better when the experiences on the floor are handled by a team built to scale with them. One design, one crew, and outputs guests want to keep.

If you are planning a corporate holiday celebration or a large brand event, we would love to help you design it. You can also see how we brought AI Trading Cards to Salesforce TDX for another large-scale corporate activation.

Start a conversation and we will help you build an experience your guests remember.