Home › Blog › How to use FanCam at events
How to use FanCam
at events.
Everyone at your event has a decent camera in their pocket. FanCam puts all of those cameras to work — crowd photos uploading in real time, playing on screens, and staying in a gallery long after the night is over.
When I built FanCam, I was trying to solve something specific. At every gig Billy played, people were taking photos on their phones — brilliant, candid, real moments. And then those photos disappeared into individual camera rolls and were never seen again. Maybe they'd end up on someone's Instagram story. Maybe they wouldn't. Either way, the collective memory of the night just evaporated.
FanCam fixes that. It's a shared, live photo feed where anyone at your event can upload a photo from their phone. No app. No account. Just scan a QR code, take a shot, upload. The photo appears on screen within seconds — and the whole gallery lives on at a permanent URL after the night.
Here's how to get the most out of it.
Setting up FanCam for your event
Like everything in Playlistr, FanCam runs entirely in the browser. Head to fancam.playlistr.co.uk, create a gallery for your event, and you'll get a QR code and a shareable link.
The single biggest factor in participation rate is how visible the QR code is and whether someone with a mic explicitly mentions it. One announcement at the start of the night doubles the number of uploads.
What kind of events does FanCam work for
Genuinely, most events with more than about 20 people. But here are the ones where it really shines:
Weddings
Replace the disposable camera on every table. Get candid shots from every angle, every table, every moment — automatically collected in one place.
Live gig nights
Artists get a crowd-sourced gallery of their performance. Venues get content. Fans get to see themselves on screen mid-gig.
Birthday parties
The birthday person ends up with a gallery from every guest's perspective. Far better than a single photographer who can't be everywhere at once.
Corporate events
End-of-year parties, team events, product launches. The gallery becomes a piece of internal comms content that actually captures the atmosphere.
Festivals & fairs
Multiple stages, spread-out audience. FanCam captures the whole event from every corner — something a hired photographer physically can't do.
Pub quiz & social nights
Even low-key events benefit. Regular punters seeing themselves on the pub screen become regulars for life.
Getting your crowd to actually participate
The technology side is easy. Getting people to use it is the bit that requires a bit of thought. Here's what works:
Make the QR code impossible to miss
One QR code on a poster in the corner won't do it. Put it on every table if it's a seated event. On the bar. On the stage. On a screen behind the band. Anywhere eyes naturally go. The more times someone sees it, the more likely they are to scan it.
Give people a reason to upload
The fact that their photo appears on the big screen is usually enough — people love seeing themselves projected. Mention it explicitly: "Scan the QR code and your photo goes straight up on screen." That's a compelling reason that doesn't need any further selling.
Seed it early
Get a few photos in before doors properly open. An empty gallery is less inviting than one with a few photos already in it. Staff, the band doing soundcheck, arrival shots — anything to populate it before the crowd arrives.
Remind people mid-event
A second mention halfway through the night catches people who missed the first one and re-engages people who scanned but forgot about it. "The FanCam is still running — get your photos in" between sets works well.
For weddings specifically: put the QR code on the table cards or order of service. Guests will have it in their hands before they even arrive at the reception. Participation rates at weddings where it's on the printed materials are significantly higher than events where it's only on a screen.
Getting the most from the live screen display
The screen display is what makes FanCam feel like an event rather than just a photo sharing app. A few things worth knowing:
Position matters
The screen needs to be somewhere the crowd naturally looks — behind the stage, above the bar, at the front of the room. A screen tucked in a corner that people have to turn round to see will get noticed a lot less than one in the natural sightline.
You don't need a fancy setup
A laptop plugged into a venue TV via HDMI is all it takes. Open the gallery in full-screen mode, hide the cursor, and leave it. FanCam refreshes automatically as photos come in — you don't need to babysit it.
Moderation
You're in control of what appears. If a photo comes in that you don't want on screen, you can remove it from your dashboard. It's worth keeping an eye on it, especially early in the night, though in practice most crowds are perfectly sensible about what they upload.
After the event — what to do with the gallery
This is where a lot of people leave value on the table. The gallery doesn't disappear when the event ends — it lives on at a permanent URL. Here's how to use it:
Share it with attendees
Send the gallery link to everyone who came. For weddings, include it in the thank-you message. For venues, post it on social media with a tag to the artist. People love reliving a good night, and they'll share the link further — which means more eyes on your venue or event.
Use it for social media content
You've got a gallery of real, candid, atmospheric photos from a real event. That's better content than any staged shoot. Download the best ones and use them for Instagram, Facebook, your website — anywhere you want to show what your events actually feel like.
For artists — your profile and booking pitch
A FanCam gallery on your Playlistr Connect profile is proof of atmosphere. Not "here's a photo someone took of us playing" — but "here's what the crowd looked like, here's how many people were engaged, here's the energy in the room." That's a far stronger booking pitch than a staged press shot.
For venues — show it to future clients
If someone is deciding whether to hold their event at your venue, showing them a FanCam gallery from a previous event tells the story better than any brochure. Real people, real atmosphere, real night.
Pairing FanCam with Playlistr LIVE
FanCam and Playlistr LIVE are designed to work together. LIVE handles the sound — real-time song requests and setlist voting. FanCam handles the visuals — crowd photos on screen in real time.
Together they create something that's hard to describe until you've been in a room where both are running. The crowd is voting on what gets played next and watching their own photos appear on screen. The band is responding to live data. The whole room feels connected in a way that a standard gig simply doesn't.
For venues, running both at a regular live music night is a genuine differentiator. Most pubs and bars are offering the same thing — a band, some drinks, a stage. A night where the crowd shapes the setlist and sees themselves on screen is a different kind of offer. People talk about it. They come back. They bring mates.
The short version
Create your gallery before the event. Print the QR code — don't rely on a screen. Tell people about it explicitly, more than once. Seed it with a few early photos. Let the screen display run automatically. After the event, share the gallery link and use the photos for content.
The tech does the hard work. Your job is just to make sure people know it's there.
Ready to try it? Set up your first FanCam gallery — free, no app required, takes about five minutes.