Capturing over 3000 people at Paris Airshow with Archer Aviation
Laurent Siroën, CTO at Xangle.
Hey that’s me!
At the 2025 Paris Air Show, we ran a 7-day photobooth for Archer Aviation (at le Bourget airport), produced by Infinity Marketing. The challenge: deliver a high-end photo experience for thousands of guests, efficiently and flawlessly.
This time, we stepped away from our usual multi-camera array. Instead, I worked with a single camera, hand held, manually choosing the best angle for every frame. Slower in theory, but far more intentional in practice. It allowed each shot to feel considered, crafted, and personal.
Over the week, I photographed more than 3,000 individuals. That’s 5,000 portraits or group shots. Fast-paced, yet precise.
Under the hood, we powered the booth with Xangle Camera Server. It handled the photo sessions, rendering, and live previews. But the real innovation came from our QR sharing system. Unlike conventional setups, the images weren't uploaded automatically. They remained local, secure and offline, until the moment a participant scanned their personal QR code. That scan instantly triggered a direct upload and transfer to the guest’s phone with a transit to a secured cloud service. No apps. No public Wi-Fi. No friction.
Clean. Reliable. Invisible.
Some Challenges We Faced During the Event:
Groups requesting multiple shots: Many families and groups wanted several images, often scanning individual QR codes to retrieve up to 10 photos. This quickly became inefficient. We need to implement multi-select functionality directly on the sharing tablet.
Rapidly changing light conditions: The LED backdrop played looping videos, with scenes that ranged from extremely bright to very dark. I had to constantly adjust my camera settings on the fly.
Difficult skin tone management: Due to the unpredictable lighting, properly exposing for skin tones often meant sacrificing the background.
USB tethering issues: Not ideal. I ended up damaging the USB port on my Canon R5. Fortunately, I had a backup body. For future setups, I’ll likely switch to Ethernet (available through the Wi-Fi grip). I did test Wi-Fi, but the transfer speed wasn’t fast enough for live event use.
Unreliable internet: Our QR code sharing system depends on an active connection. When the internet dropped, the system couldn’t function. While we had an offline email fallback, it wasn’t optimal for user experience.
