Station math, plainly
How many guests can a headshot station actually shoot?
Vendors love printing a hard number, "up to 35 guests," "up to 75." I used to print one too. The honest answer is arithmetic: live hours divided by minutes per guest. And the minutes-per-guest part is a choice about what you want your guests to experience, not a spec on my gear.
The whole formula
A half-day station is 3 live hours, 180 minutes. A full day is 6, 360. Divide by the time each guest gets, and that's your capacity. There is nothing else in the formula. Here's what the choice looks like:
| Minutes per guest | Half day (3 live hrs) | Full day (6 live hrs) | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~3 minutes | ≈ 60 guests | ≈ 120 guests | A conveyor. Step in, one adjustment, two or three frames, next. Everyone gets a photo; almost nobody gets a favorite. |
| ~5 minutes | ≈ 36 guests | ≈ 72 guests | The sweet spot. The guest settles, we adjust posture and expression, shoot a couple of looks, and they walk away having picked a frame they actually like. |
| ~10 minutes | ≈ 18 guests | ≈ 36 guests | A mini-session. Multiple looks, real direction, time to relax on camera. Right for leadership teams and small groups where every photo matters. |
Why I plan around five minutes
Under five minutes is absolutely possible, I've run stations at conveyor pace when a client needed every last person through, and the station delivered. But there's a difference between "everyone got photographed" and "everyone uses their photo." The deliverable that matters is the second one: a headshot the guest actually puts on LinkedIn, the company actually puts on the team page. That takes a beat of direction and a real choice between frames, and that takes about five minutes.
So when I plan your station, I start from the guest experience and work backwards to the schedule, not from a capacity claim and work backwards to an excuse. If the list is bigger than the hours, the fix is more hours or a second station with a second photographer (+$2,500), which doubles throughput without touching the pace.
The rest of the math
Pricing for the stations is published and fixed: half day $2,500, full day $4,500, multi-station trade show builds from $8,000. The headshot calculator applies it to your case, add-ons included. And if you're weighing a station against sending everyone to a photographer one by one, that comparison is worked out here.
Put your guest list against the table
Tell me the list size and the event, and I'll tell you which package fits at the pace your guests deserve, with a fixed price on it.
Run the calculator Ask me directly