The bells at your house.
Every house after.
This page is for whoever is hosting the bells, whether that is a flat in Leith with the windows open for the castle fireworks, a farmhouse in Perthshire where half the glen will first foot through the door by two in the morning, or a Scots family in Toronto or Dunedin keeping it up a long way from home. You spend the last hour of the year filling glasses and hunting for the shortbread, the countdown happens, everyone crosses arms for Auld Lang Syne, and then the party walks out of your door to first foot the neighbours, taking its phones and its photos with it. One QR code goes with them, so the tall dark stranger with the lump of coal, the ceilidh in the kitchen and the steak pie on Ne'erday all come back to the same gallery.
One-time. No account needed to buy — about a minute.
The moments guests actually photograph at Hogmanay parties
Why Hogmanay parties work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
One code for the whole night, from your door to the fourth house
First footing means the party moves, and the photos move with it. Guests who leave at half past midnight to visit the neighbours are still uploading to your gallery at three in the morning from someone else's kitchen, so the host who stayed home with the dishes sees where the night went.
Scots abroad hear the bells with you
Midnight in Scotland is early evening in Halifax and late morning in Sydney, and the sister or grandson who could not get home wants the countdown, not a clip the next day. Live Broadcast puts your living room on a private link with sound, so they sing Auld Lang Syne along with the room at the moment it happens.
A toast for the new year, in everyone's own voice
Ask each guest to record a wish for the year ahead as a voice note of up to 60 seconds, before the bells while they can still speak. A year on, the gallery replays the room full of hopes, which is a better record of a Hogmanay than any photo of the fireworks.
No app. No account. One scan.
Guests point their camera at a QR code and are uploading in seconds. Nobody installs anything, nobody creates a login, and the grandparents can do it as easily as the teenagers.
unlimited photo and video uploads
Every guest can send as much as they like: phone photos, iPhone HEICs, short videos, up to a fair-use bound of 25 GB per event. Originals are kept at full resolution.
Broadcast it to the people who couldn't come
A private live broadcast is included with the Event Pass: stream up to 90 minutes to 100 viewers on a private link, with sound, and keep the recording afterwards.
Voice messages
Guests record up to 60 seconds of audio right from the upload page: a blessing, a toast, a story. It is saved next to the photos in the same gallery.
Live photo wall on any screen
Open the slideshow on a TV, projector or laptop and new uploads appear as they arrive. Grid and collage layouts, transition presets, and a phone remote to control it from across the room.
Full-resolution downloads
Download any photo, or the whole event as one archive, at original quality. What guests uploaded is what you keep — no compression, no watermark on paid events.
How it works
Set up in a minute. Collect for the whole event.
Create the event to run from Hogmanay evening through Ne'erday, so the bells, the first footing and the steak pie lunch all land under one code.
Print the QR code for the drinks table and the door, and send the link in the group with the address, so guests arriving from other houses already have it.
Guests upload through the countdown and take the code with them when they go first footing. Start Live Broadcast before the bells for the family abroad.
On the second of January, download the originals and send the gallery link to everyone who came through the door, in whatever state.
Try uploading as a guest.
Scan this with your phone the way a guest at your event would. Choose a sample photo and upload it from your browser, then open the demo gallery to see it land. Photos pass a quick AI check first; videos wait for a person.
- Scan the code with your phone camera — it opens straight in the browser.
- Upload a sample photo. Look for the upload confirmation so you know it reached the host.
Use a sample you are comfortable sharing with Picsui. Please keep personal or sensitive photos out of the demo.
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This is the same kind of code your guests scan at your event.
Getting the most from Hogmanay parties
Get the code out well before the bells, because the last hour of the year is when every phone in the house is already out and pointed at the room. Put a card by the drinks, another by the door where the first foot will arrive, and send the link in the group in the afternoon along with the address and what to bring. If you have a television on, run the slideshow with photos of the year gone by while people arrive; guests who see themselves on the screen scan the code without being asked and start adding to it before you have said a word.
Plan for the party to leave. Once the bells have gone and Auld Lang Syne has been sung, half your guests will pull on coats and head out to first foot the neighbours, and the best photos of the night are taken in other people's kitchens between one and four in the morning. Because the code lives on their phones, everything they take on the rounds still comes back to your gallery, so remind them once as they go out the door. The dark-haired guest carrying the coal and shortbread is the photo everyone wants, so make sure someone gets it at each doorstep, not just yours.
If family are abroad, work out the time difference and tell them exactly when your bells will be, not just 'midnight'. Start Live Broadcast a quarter of an hour before, with the phone on a stand where it can see the room and the television, and leave it running through the countdown, the song and the first ten minutes of hugging and shouting, which is what they miss most. Then ask everyone to record a voice note wishing the person abroad a good new year, so when they wake up on Ne'erday there is a queue of familiar voices waiting for them in the gallery.
Common questions about Hogmanay parties
The party runs past midnight into the first. Does the event cover both days?
Yes. Set the event to begin on Hogmanay evening and end on the second of January, and everything from the first guest arriving to the last one leaving after the Ne'erday steak pie goes into one gallery under one code. Nothing resets at midnight. If you would rather keep the bells and the next day's lunch apart, add Ne'erday as a sub-event and the gallery shows each in its own section while the code stays the same.
We are going to the Edinburgh street party and will get separated. Will it still work?
That is exactly the situation it suits. Everyone in your group has the code before you leave the flat, and wherever they end up along Princes Street or in the gardens, each photo of the fireworks and the crowd uploads to the same gallery over the phone's own connection. You find each other's photos the next morning even if you never found each other on the night. The gallery is private to your group, so the strangers around you are not in it unless someone in your party uploads them.
My mother is in Canada and wants the bells. Can she watch live?
Yes. Live Broadcast is included with the Event Pass and streams up to 90 minutes with sound to as many as 100 viewers on a private link, and she only needs a browser. Midnight in Scotland is around seven in the evening in Ontario, so she will be awake and waiting. Send her the link a few days ahead with the exact time, start the stream before the countdown, and keep it going through the singing and the first footing at your door.
Can we keep the singing of Auld Lang Syne, not just photos of it?
Ask two or three guests to film it as a video clip, which uploads at full quality within the 30 second limit, and you will have it from a few angles with the whole room in voice. For the toasts and the wishes for the new year, the voice guestbook lets each guest record up to 60 seconds in their own voice, which is the part people go back to. Both come down with the full-resolution download along with the photos.
There will be photos nobody wants seen by Ne'erday. Who can look at the gallery?
Only people with the link or the code. The gallery is private by default, is never listed publicly and is blocked from search engines and AI crawlers. Turn on host review and every upload waits for you to approve it before anyone else sees it, which you can do over coffee on the first. You can remove any photo, close uploads once the first footing is over, and keep the gallery open for the rest of the family to browse.
What does it cost for one Hogmanay?
An Event Pass is $29, paid once for the event, no subscription. It includes unlimited uploads from any number of guests, host review, the voice guestbook, Live Broadcast for the family abroad, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting, which takes you well past Burns Night. There is no charge per guest, so the flat with ten people and the village hall ceilidh with two hundred pay the same.
Every photo from Hogmanay parties, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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