Meet John & Heidi Velez, owners of Old City Photo Booth serving the Philadelphia area for over 10 years.
Tell Us About Your Business
Old City Photo Booth began long before we purchased our first photo booth — it started with music. John bought his first two turntables and a mixer at age 18, and lived in England, Spokane, and Philadelphia, among other places. Heidi worked for a mobile DJ company while she was in college in Missouri. Together, we started as DJs, performing at weddings, parties, clubs, and all types of events.
As our events grew, we saw how much guests loved interactive experiences. That’s when we started researching photo booths before finally buying our first booth at a DJ convention. The connection between music, energy, and memorable photos just made sense. From there, Old City Photo Booth was born in 2015.
What Makes You Different?
What sets us apart is our team. Our customers describe us as professional, friendly, reliable, and easy to work with. We pride ourselves on offering upscale, high-quality experiences that our guests love. We bring backup equipment, extra supplies, and an elevated setup to every single event to ensure everything looks polished and runs smoothly.
Tell Us About an Event You're Proud Of
There are two events we would call our proudest moments.
First is Shyamaween; an annual Halloween-season event hosted by the M. Night Shyamalan Foundation (MNSF), and we’ve been honored to take part in their celebrations. It’s a wonderful organization, and guests always have an incredible time arriving in full costume. The event is held at various venues, and several of the years we’ve participated, it has taken place at the amazing Fabrika.
PAX Unplugged is held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where we’ve created a fun and engaging photo experience for fans of Frosthaven and Gloomhaven from Cephalofair Games. Their booth features a cosplay actor, giving guests the chance to pose and capture memorable photos with the character—always a highlight of the event.
How do You Participate in the Photo Booth Community?
We’ve had the opportunity to bring our photo booth experiences to events across Philadelphia, Montreal, Nashville, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Florida. Some standout moments include attending PBPI, PBX, and Texas School — and building a strong local and national network in the industry at networking events like N.A.C.E.
How Has Working with Imaging Spectrum & Darkroom Software Impacted Your Business?
Working with Imaging Spectrum and Darkroom Software has been a huge part of our growth. Their reliability, consistency, support, and product quality keep our business running smoothly. Darkroom Booth software and the DNP DS-RX1HS and DNP DS620A printers have been essential to delivering fast, high-quality prints at every printing event.
What Else Would You Like Readers to Know?
We’ve spent 10 years building our company from the ground up — starting with music, moving into photo booths, and now becoming one of the go-to choices for upscale events. We love what we do, we love our clients, and we always aim to deliver an unforgettable experience.
The secret to our success? We find out what’s most important to our clients about their photo experience, and personalize the event for them. We ensure we have confirmed logistics ahead of time to ensure a smooth and timely setup and implementation of the events.
