Gaming audiences understand cards. Player cards, character cards, collectible cards - the format is native to the culture. So when Zynga and Take-Two Interactive activated at the Level Up student gaming event on April 7, 2026, Booth Empire built the experience around it: a custom trading card photo booth in Toronto that transformed attendees at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel into the subjects of their own player-style cards. Over six hours, the activation produced more than 400 custom trading cards.
What Zynga Needed
The program required a repeatable branded experience suitable for a high-volume student gaming event - one that would feel at home in that audience rather than imported from a corporate playbook. The output needed to be physical, personalized and produced on-site throughout the day.
Designing the Custom Trading Card Photo Booth
Booth Empire supplied a custom-wrapped photo booth paired with a custom branded backdrop, so the activation carried the campaign identity from every angle.
The creative workflow gave guests a decision to make, which matters at a gaming event where personalization is the point. A background-removal workflow isolated each participant, and guests selected from multiple digital background designs - choosing the visual style that suited them. Their portrait was then composited into custom card artwork, and the finished output transformed each participant into a player-style, gaming-inspired trading card.
The physical card format connected naturally with gaming culture. Attendees were not simply photographed at an event; they were rendered as the kind of collectible they already recognize.
Built for High-Volume Production
Producing more than 400 physical cards in six hours means sustaining a rate of well over one card per minute, hour after hour, with no drop in output quality. The workflow was structured for exactly that: capture, background selection, background removal, compositing and printing ran as a continuous pipeline rather than a series of one-off productions.
The combination of a custom-fabricated booth, a digital selection step and on-site printing is where activations of this type either hold up or fall apart. At Level Up, the pipeline held for the full six-hour window.
Key Results
- More than 400 custom trading cards produced
- Six hours of continuous operation
- Multiple selectable background designs offered to every guest
- Custom-wrapped booth and branded backdrop on-site at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
For a single-day student event, more than 400 finished physical outputs represents sustained, high-throughput engagement - and every one of those cards left the venue carrying the campaign.
What Made It Click
The format spoke the audience’s language. Player-style cards are a natural fit for a gaming crowd in a way a standard photo strip is not.
Guest choice added ownership. Selecting a background design made each card feel authored by the participant, not assembled for them.
On-site production kept momentum. Guests received a physical card during the event, closing the loop between participation and reward while energy was still high.
Fabrication and software worked as one system. The custom booth wrap, backdrop, background-removal workflow and printing pipeline were designed together, which is what allowed the volume without sacrificing finish quality.
Take It to Your Gaming Event
Booth Empire produces custom trading card photo booth activations in Toronto and across Canada and the United States for gaming events, product launches and student marketing programs. The experience can be tailored with custom card artwork, selectable digital backgrounds, background removal and high-volume on-site printing.
Contact Booth Empire to build a gaming event activation your audience will recognize instantly.
