Maybelline on Secret Island: the branded Magic Mirror X at FM4 Frequency 2024

Gold foil on the ceiling and walls, magenta carpet on the floor, artificial turf outside – and in the middle of it a mirror photo booth you do not recognise as a device at first glance. That was the Maybelline New York space at the FM4 Frequency Festival 2024 in St. Pölten, Austria. Our Magic Mirror X stood in it not as equipment, but as part of the set.

A container that does not look like an exhibition booth

The space was a converted shipping container in the container village on the festival site, not far from the large Secret Island lettering. From the outside: dark corrugated steel, a strip of artificial turf, director's chairs at a counter. From the inside, the break: ceiling and back wall fully lined with crinkled gold foil, the floor in strong magenta, large-format campaign visuals and a neon lip sign.

The effect is deliberate. Anyone stepping in from the dusty grounds lands in a room that has nothing to do with the rest of the festival. That is exactly why spaces like this get photographed: on a phone they look like something you discovered.

The mirror photo booth as a piece of furniture

For this room we did not simply place the Magic Mirror X somewhere – we built it into the design. The device sat inside a white arched frame in the campaign look, wordmark and visual on the front. Next to it stood the print pedestal, also white, with the output slot at hand height. What guests saw was a mirror in a frame, not a photo booth.

Underneath it is the same device as always: 202 centimetres tall, 75 wide and only 27 deep, with a 70-inch portrait mirror surface, a Canon DSLR and two built-in flash units. The slim build was the decisive point here. In a container, depth is the scarcest dimension: every centimetre a device sticks into the room is a centimetre guests do not have for posing.

The flash units did the second half of the work. Gold foil throws light back in every direction, the floor sends magenta upwards, and full sun comes in through the open container front. Without its own light source every photo would have carried a different colour cast. With two flashes the white balance sits the same in every frame – and that is the difference between an activation whose pictures get shared and one whose pictures stay on the phone.

Two print formats, one design

Printing ran in two variants of the same layout: one landscape with three shots side by side, one portrait with three shots plus campaign artwork. Both carried the Maybelline wordmark, the Instagram handles and a QR code that delivered the image to the phone as well.

Some of the prints never left the container – they ended up taped to the wall. That happens regularly at activations and it is a good sign: over the course of the day the space fills with the guests' own pictures and becomes decoration in its own right. Anyone walking in later sees immediately what is on offer, better than any signage.

Running without an attendant

As in the following year, no on-site attendant from us was booked in 2024. The Maybelline promotion team was in the container throughout anyway, and an extra promoter at the device would only have cost space.

That works under one condition: the device has to explain itself. The start screen walks people through the sequence without text, the layout is fixed, there is no choice that can go wrong. During setup the team on site gets a short briefing – reload paper, restart, phone number – and after that the station simply runs.

What separates a festival from a company party

At a company party you know the headcount, the run sheet and the room. At a festival you know none of it. Groups come instead of couples, the rush spreads unpredictably across the day, and the light changes hour by hour.

So preparation decides the outcome: layout finished in advance, consumables calculated generously, our own internet brought along, the device placed so that the queue and the walkway do not collide. Sort that out beforehand and nobody has to intervene during the event.

A year later we were back at Frequency for Maybelline – in a differently designed container and with a good deal more heat. That story is in Magic Mirror X at FM4 Frequency Festival.

Devices that suit branded activations

The Magic Mirror X belongs to our Classic Line. When the roof is low, the Magic iMirror at 180 centimetres fits better; when the device should look more formal, the Magic Mirror Retro in its gold frame is the alternative. For high throughput in tight spaces the Photo Booth Classic stays the pragmatic choice. And when guests should not just be photographed but transformed by AI, the same mirror is available as an AI mirror photo booth.

A photo station for your brand space

Planning an activation at a festival, a trade fair or an open-air site, and you want the device to look like your brand rather than like equipment? Tell us the floor space, the dates and the look – we will tell you which device fits, what can be clad and what it needs on site. We work all over Austria.