Understanding Sessions

A session is one complete guest visit to the booth — every photo they took, the template that was applied, the effect that was run, and the share state that came out of it. Sessions are how ALIVE organizes everything that happens at your event.

What Is a Session?

A session represents one round of capture — one guest (or group) walks up, takes their photos, and gets a result. Everything that happened during that round is bundled together as a session:

• All the photos that were captured
• The template that was used
• The effect that was applied (AI, ALIVE Effect, camera, GIF, green screen, etc.)
• The final, processed output (photo, video, GIF, animation)
• The share state (has it been printed? shared by SMS? downloaded?)

Sessions are created the moment a capture cycle completes — whether that's a standard booth capture, a roaming capture, or a 360 spin.

Event vs Session vs Gallery Item

It's easy to mix these up. Here's the hierarchy:

An event contains many sessions. A session contains one or more gallery items (the captured photos, the processed result, the video, etc.).

Where to Find Sessions

Sessions appear in three places inside the app:

• Sessions tab — A scrollable list of every session from the event, newest first
• Gallery — Sessions grouped with their output media
• Session detail modal — Tap any session to see all its photos, the applied effect, and the action buttons

[screenshot: Sessions tab with session cards]

What You Can Do With a Session

Open a session and you can:

• View every captured photo and the processed result
• Re-print the session (with the same template, or a different one)
• Re-share — generate a fresh QR code, send a new SMS or email
• Re-run an effect — apply a different AI effect, green screen background, GIF treatment, or ALIVE Effect to the same source photos
• Delete the session if it was a test or you don't want it on file

[screenshot: Session detail modal with action buttons]

Re-Running Effects From a Session

One of the most powerful things about sessions is that the source photos stay available, so you can apply a different effect at any time — even after the guest has left.

You can re-run:

• AI photo effects — Try a different style on the same photos
• AI video effects — Generate an AI-powered video from the session
• ALIVE Effect — Produce an AR-enabled animated version
• Camera effect — The clean, untouched photo output
• GIF effect — Turn the session's photos into an animated GIF
• Green screen effect — Composite the guest onto a different background

This is useful when:

• A guest asks for a different look after the fact
• You want to create a highlight reel for your portfolio in a new style
• An AI effect didn't come out great the first time — just re-run it
• You want to offer add-on deliverables after the event

Sessions From Different Capture Modes

All capture modes produce the same kind of session, so they look and behave identically in the Sessions list:

• Standard booth capture — Created when the countdown completes
• Roaming mode — Created when the operator confirms their photo selection (see Roaming Mode)
• 360 capture — Created when the spin completes
• DSLR capture — Same flow, just sourced from an external camera

Whatever path the photos took to get into ALIVE, they end up as a session you can manage the same way.

Sharing a Session With Guests

Every session has its own shareable URL, built from your event's gallery link (and your branded share URL if you've set one). Guests can reach their session by:

• Scanning the QR code from the booth screen
• Opening a session-specific link in an SMS or email
• Browsing the event gallery and finding their session by session ID

Tips

• Check sessions after an event — Scroll the Sessions tab to make sure every session processed successfully. Anything stuck uploading will show up here.
• Use re-run for post-event upsells — Offer a "different style" package. One click, one extra effect run, one happy client.
• Delete test sessions — Before going live, clear out any test captures so the gallery is clean for guests.
• Sessions survive network issues — Captures taken offline stay on the device as pending sessions and upload when the network is back.

What's Next?

• Gallery Overview — How the event gallery is organized
• Managing and Deleting Gallery Items — Bulk cleanup
• Roaming Mode — How roaming sessions are created
• Branded Share URLs — Customize the links on session shares

Updated on: 04/12/2026