If you've been in the photo booth industry long enough, you already know the feeling. You go to the big conference in Vegas, you walk sixty booths in three days, and you leave with a bag full of swag and no real plan for what to do when you get home.

That's the gap Illuminate was built to close.

Illuminate is a new creative retreat for six and seven figure photo booth founders, hosted by Catalina Bloch of Photo Booth Mastery alongside industry veterans Lisa Oler and Meir Israel. It's happening in Miami from October 11 through 14, 2026, and it's application only, capped at a hundred attendees.

Key Takeaways:

• Illuminate is an application-only retreat for six and seven figure photo booth founders, capped at 100 seats
• The keynote speaker, Julius Solaris, is one of the most recognized voices in the global events industry
• Sessions cover legal, AI, team communication, and exit strategy, topics most photo booth conferences skip entirely
• Breeze CEO Steve Bleszner is the event's title sponsor

Why Three Founders Built This Retreat Themselves

Catalina, Lisa, and Meir aren't consultants who studied the photo booth industry from the outside. All three have built and run six and seven figure photo booth businesses themselves.

Lisa Oler has been in the industry for sixteen years. She built Smile Lounge Photo Booth into a seven figure business before selling its assets and being acquired by LA Photo Party in 2018. After the pandemic, she moved into an independent contractor role with NUNA Marketing, running their US-based activations.

Meir Israel co-founded South Beach Photobooth Company in 2008 as a side project to a photography studio, officially launching in 2009. What started as event photography evolved into a full photo booth and activation business, later expanding into gaming rentals and experiences that took off significantly during the pandemic.

Catalina built her own business from a side hustle into a seven figure brand over twelve years, with an eight figure target on the horizon.

"There's no one way to build a business," Catalina says. "But the baseline of good advice applies to everyone. We wanted to introduce founders to the things we had to go through so they don't have to poke their way through blind."

All three Illuminate founders are still active operators in the photo booth industry, not consultants speaking from the sidelines.

Meet the Illuminate Keynote Speaker: Julius Solaris

The team is opening Illuminate with Julius Solaris, widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in the corporate events industry. Solaris has reviewed thousands of industry events and maintains a mailing list of hundreds of thousands of event professionals.

He was already booked as the keynote speaker for IMEX, one of the largest destination management conferences in the world, happening the day before Illuminate. The team had to negotiate around that scheduling conflict to bring him on board.

"In order to scale your business past a certain amount, you have to go into corporate," Catalina explains. "Weddings can get you a certain way. You can expand into other cities. But corporate has an infinite ceiling."

Why a Corporate Events Futurist Matters to Photo Booth Founders

Solaris isn't a photo booth industry insider. That's the point. He works across trade shows, experiential marketing, and large-scale corporate events, giving him a vantage point most photo booth founders never get. Meir describes him as someone who "sees things from an over-management kind of scenario," the kind of perspective shift that tends to unlock the biggest leaps in a founder's business.

The Legal Session Founders Don't Know They Need

Attorney Erin Stark will lead a session on the legal side of running a service-based creative business, a topic Lisa says gets overlooked constantly.

"So many of us are not business professionals," Lisa says. "We know how to manage our websites or set up our photo booths, but we miss that part of the business."

Topics on deck include data security, insurance requirements for high-profile events, contract negotiation, and NDA handling for celebrity or high-profile clients. As Meir puts it, these are the issues that come with having "graduated to a different level."

Team Communication and the "Burden of Knowledge"

One of the sessions Catalina is most excited about addresses something almost every founder has thought but rarely says out loud: "My employees just don't get it."

The speaker works on communication frameworks that help founders translate what they know into language their team, contractors, or white-label partners can actually act on.

"The burden of knowledge is real," Meir says. "You've been at this game too long to keep going like this. You need a different lane of communication."

Using AI to Scale Without Losing Yourself in It

Gemma Bunham Carter will lead the AI-focused session at Illuminate, a topic Catalina says has completely changed how she runs her own team and content operation across three brands.

"We're not talking about making AI so you can fire all your employees," Catalina clarifies. "We're talking about how you use AI to amplify and streamline what you're already doing."

What Comes After Seven Figures: The Exit Strategy Conversation

Adrian Salomunovic, a serial entrepreneur who built CanvasPop and sold it for multiple eight figures, will speak on exit strategy, a subject almost never discussed openly in the photo booth space.

Salomunovic has a unique vantage point on Catalina's own business specifically. He's her cousin and has advised her informally since she started.

"How many people have sold their business for basically twenty five percent of their equipment cost because they didn't know what else to do?" Catalina asks. "Their business just wasn't built to be sold."

Lisa, reflecting on her own journey from founder to logistics manager and back to founder, said she wishes this conversation had existed for her years earlier. "I needed this conference eight years ago. I needed it so bad."

Meet the Illuminate Title Sponsor: Breeze

Steve Bleszner, owner of Breeze, is Illuminate's title sponsor. Breeze software will be woven throughout the retreat's activations and experiences.

"Ninety percent of the pros doing the really creative stuff out there are using Breeze," Catalina says. "They just don't talk about it."

Additional sponsors include Booth Active, handling event branding, and Imaging Spectrum alongside Epson, bringing exclusive first-look printer technology to the US market for the first time at Illuminate.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Illuminate? Illuminate is an application-only creative retreat for six and seven figure photo booth founders, hosted by Catalina Bloch, Lisa Oler, and Meir Israel in Miami from October 11 through 14, 2026.

Who can apply to Illuminate? The retreat is designed for six and seven figure photo booth business founders. Applications are reviewed individually to confirm fit.

How many people can attend Illuminate? Attendance is capped at 100 people due to venue capacity.

Who is the Illuminate keynote speaker? Julius Solaris, a widely recognized voice in the global corporate events industry, will open the retreat as keynote speaker.

What topics does Illuminate cover? Sessions include corporate events strategy, legal and business structure, team communication, AI implementation, and exit strategy planning.

Is the hotel included in the ticket price? The hotel room itself is not included, but attendees have access to a discounted room rate at the retreat venue in downtown Miami.

How do I apply? Applications are open now at https://www.illuminatecreative.live/