“What is a Glambot?” is a question you may have asked yourself if you are an event organizer, wedding planner, or photo booth rental company in search of the newest way to captivate event guests and create memorable experiences. Glambots have fused robotics and photography in a way that is poised to redefine the way videos are captured at events. If you’re looking to get up to speed on this year’s newest event trend, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll dive into what you need to know about Glambots, how they work, why they are in demand right now, and what their role is in modern events.
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What Is a Glambot?
A Glambot is an experience-enhancing robotic arm equipped with a high-frame-rate video camera designed to capture slow-motion footage of guests at events. This new event technology creates breathtaking videos while offering an immersive and engaging experience for event attendees. What makes Glambots unique is their ability to quickly move through intricate movements while filming without creating shaky footage. They produce high-quality videos that are perfect for sharing on social media platforms.
How Does a Glambot Work?
Glambots are a marvel of engineering, combining creative videography and robotic precision. A Glambot’s high-speed robotic arm can be programmed to move in specific patterns, creating unique videos tailored to an event theme or guest’s preference. Cameras used with Glambots shoot at high frame rates, which are essential for creating the captivating slow-motion footage that has become synonymous with Glambots.
How Much Does a Glambot Cost?
Whether you’re looking to rent a Glambot for an event or purchase one for your photo booth business, the cost of a Glambot varies significantly based on the type and sophistication of the robot arm you choose.
Cinematic Glambots, like the ones used in high-end events and by professionals like Cole Walliser, come with a substantial cost that reflects the quality of the footage they can produce. They use cameras that cost tens of thousands of dollars, equipment that can weigh in at more than a ton, and a team of professional videographers and technicians to dial it all in.
Recently, more affordable options, such as the Glambot offered by OrcaVue, have been introduced, making this event technology more accessible to a broader range of event organizers and photo booth companies. These less expensive “Photo Booth Glambots” use lighter cameras, such as a GoPro, but still deliver scroll-stopping slow-motion videos that can enhance any event. This class of Glambots is purpose-built for working in the photo booth industry. As such, they typically have the extended reach of cinematic Glambots and the ability to be packed away and easily moved between events.
A third class of Glambots repurposes shorter robotic arms created for industrial uses such as packaging or lab automation. These robots typically have much shorter arms, and because they are almost always made in China, they tend to be cheaper, but they often lack the smooth operation, features, and integration that are important to the photo booth industry.
Who Invented the Glambot?
Glambots were pioneered and made popular by Cole Walliser after he identified an opportunity to enhance red-carpet event coverage. Walliser had an extensive background in directing music and skateboard videos, as well as experience in working with and handling celebrities. His innovation elevated the standard for award-show events and redirected the future of the event content creation landscape.
Is There a Glambot App?
As the Glambot hardware has become more approachable, so has the software that supports them. Several photo booth software solutions now offer connectivity to photo booth Glambots, which ensures that the stunning visuals captured can be edited and shared quickly, amplifying the reach of any event.
Glambot app software providers include:
What Cameras Are Used With Glambots?
Camera selection for Glambots is dependent upon the type of Glambot being used.
Cinematic Glambots, like those seen at the E! Hollywood red carpet events that made Glambots famous, use expensive, heavy-duty cameras that offer unparalleled video quality. Using these types of cameras with a Glambot requires a team of on-site camera technicians to calibrate the system and ensure that each shot taken comes out correctly focused and captured.
The more approachable photo booth Glambots tend to use action cameras like GoPros and iPhones. These cameras balance quality and cost, offering unparalleled auto-focus and anti-shake capabilities. Glambots using these cameras can be operated by a single attendant, drastically reducing the cost of having a Glambot at an event for event organizers.
DSLR and mirrorless cameras are usually not recommended for use with photo booth Glambots because their internal auto-focus (and possibly stabilization) systems struggle to keep up with the quick arm movements that often create the most captivating footage.
Conclusion: Glambots Are the Future of the Event Photo Booth Industry
Recent engineering innovations have made the long-sought-after Glambot a more approachable event option for brand activations for smaller-scale events.
When choosing the right Glambot for your event or photo booth company, it’s important to consider your needs, like the speed of content creation, the quality of the slow-motion videos, and the ease of setup and use.
Glambots are the current face of cutting-edge event videography, offering an unparalleled blend of technical sophistication and creative expression. With this technology becoming more accessible, you are sure to see more Glambots at events in the coming years, promising to transform the way event videos are captured and how guests remember their most significant event memories.
To learn more about Glambots and how they work, be sure to read our complete Glambot guide article.