On May 9, 2025, the Best Buddies Canada Friendship Walk took place at Gibbons Park in London, Ontario. Booth Empire sponsored a digital photo booth at the walk at no cost to the organization, and the activation produced 51 photos for participants over the course of the day.
This was a sponsored activation, not a paid rental. The Booth Empire sponsorship program exists to support organizations doing meaningful community work, and Best Buddies Canada’s Friendship Walk is exactly the kind of event the program was built for. The booth was delivered, set up, operated, and torn down by Booth Empire at no cost to Best Buddies.
About Best Buddies Canada
Best Buddies Canada is a nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Friendship Walk is one of the organization’s signature community events, bringing together participants, families, volunteers, and supporters to celebrate friendship, inclusion, and community participation.
That mission shaped the activation. The booth at Gibbons Park was not a brand experience - it was a community photo experience, designed to give participants and their friends and family a tangible record of being part of the walk.
The Brief: A Photo Experience for the Friendship Walk
The objective for the activation was straightforward: celebrate friendship, inclusion, and community participation at the Best Buddies Friendship Walk by giving participants a photo experience they could engage with as part of the day. The Booth Empire sponsorship covered the full setup, so Best Buddies did not have to allocate event budget to the booth.
The Spero Team was involved as a possible booking partner in the communication chain, which is normal for community event activations where multiple organizations coordinate to bring the program together.
An Outdoor Activation at Gibbons Park
Gibbons Park is a public park in London, Ontario, and the Friendship Walk ran outdoors. That changed how the activation needed to be scoped. Outdoor photo booth activations require planning that indoor events do not: weather, lighting, power, and surface all factor into whether the booth runs cleanly for the duration of the event.
The setup was scoped for the venue, not the other way around. Booth Empire delivered a digital photo booth that could run on-site at Gibbons Park for the duration of the Friendship Walk, and the activation ran smoothly from setup through teardown. Post-event reporting confirmed that the team arrived successfully and the activation ran without issues.
51 Photos Across the Walk
The activation produced 51 photos over the course of the Friendship Walk. That is the right volume for a community walk of this scale: enough to give every participant group a chance to engage with the booth, without distorting the rhythm of the walk itself.
For a Friendship Walk audience, the photo output matters in a specific way. The walk is about celebrating friendship and inclusion, and a photo of friends, family, or buddies together at the event is a small physical artifact of that celebration. Each of the 51 photos produced is a piece of the day that participant or group carries with them after the walk ends.
Digital Delivery for Sharing
Photos were delivered digitally rather than as physical prints, which fit the Friendship Walk context. A community event at a public park runs on phones: participants want to share what they did at the walk on social channels, with family, and with their buddy networks. Digital delivery matched that rhythm, and the 51 photos produced went straight into the channels where Best Buddies’ audience already shares.
What the Booth Empire Sponsorship Covered
Booth Empire’s sponsorship covered the full digital photo booth activation for the Friendship Walk at no cost to Best Buddies Canada. That included:
- Delivery and setup at Gibbons Park
- On-site operation for the duration of the walk
- Digital photo capture for every participant group
- Branded photo output for the event
- Teardown and post-event reporting
For nonprofit events, this is what the sponsorship program is built to do: take the photo booth activation off the organization’s budget so they can focus their resources on their mission.
Activation by the Numbers
- 51 photos delivered to participants
- Sponsored at no cost to Best Buddies Canada
- Gibbons Park venue in London, Ontario
- Outdoor activation scoped for the Friendship Walk setting
- Smooth on-site delivery from setup through teardown
How the Sponsorship Program Works
Booth Empire sponsors photo booth activations for qualifying nonprofit events, charity fundraisers, community walks, and galas with a philanthropic component. Approved events receive a photo booth experience at no cost in exchange for brand visibility, including logo placement and marketing rights. Partial sponsorships at 25%, 50%, or 75% off are available for events that do not qualify for full coverage.
The Best Buddies Friendship Walk is an example of the program working as designed: a community organization received a fully sponsored digital photo booth for their signature event, and Booth Empire covered the production cost because the cause warranted it.
Apply for a Similar Sponsorship
Booth Empire provides digital photo booth rentals in London, Ontario and across Canada and the United States for nonprofit events, charity galas, and community gatherings. The sponsorship program covers select events at no cost; standard rentals are available for everything else. Apply for a sponsorship, contact Booth Empire to discuss your event, or browse the full case study library.
