Seven nights, seven principles.
One gallery for the week.
You are the family or the community organization hosting Kwanzaa, which means from December twenty-sixth to New Year's Day you are lighting the kinara each evening, speaking the principle of the night, and on the sixth night hosting the karamu. Seven nights in different rooms, sometimes different buildings, with the same people and the same mkeka, is exactly the kind of celebration that ends up scattered across phones. One QR code holds the week together.
The moments guests actually photograph at Kwanzaa celebrations
Why Kwanzaa celebrations work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
Umoja to Imani under one code
Each night of Kwanzaa has its own candle and its own principle, and a community celebration often moves between homes, a church hall and a cultural center across the week. Sub-events keep each night grouped under the same QR code, so the family sees the kinara filling up night by night in one gallery rather than seven.
The principle of the night, in the speaker's own voice
Kwanzaa is spoken as much as it is seen. Each evening someone explains the principle, an elder pours libation, a child recites. Guests record a voice message up to 60 seconds from the upload page, so the words of the week are saved with the photos, in the voice of the person who said them.
A community record, not one household's
For an organization, Kwanzaa is a week of public programs with different families each night. One gallery collects all of them, host review lets the organizers approve what goes out, and the finished archive is what the community shares in January and returns to when planning the following December.
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.
Several days, one gallery
Multi-day celebrations get sub-events under one code, so the rehearsal, the ceremony and the brunch stay organised but reachable from a single link.
Voice messages
Guests record up to 60 seconds of audio right from the upload page — a blessing, a toast, a story — saved next to the photos in the same gallery.
You approve before anyone sees
Turn on host review and every upload waits in your queue until you approve it. AI screening flags anything questionable so you are not scrolling through hundreds of photos at midnight.
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 before December twenty-sixth, with a sub-event for each of the seven nights so Umoja through Imani stay in order.
Put the QR code beside the kinara, where every guest gathers for the lighting, and on the program for a community celebration.
Families upload each night's lighting and, on the sixth night, the karamu. Elders and children record the principle in their own voice.
After Imani, download the originals and send the gallery to every family and member who took part in the week.
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.
- 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 Kwanzaa celebrations
Put the code beside the kinara and nowhere else. Every night the whole room gathers there for the lighting, and it is the one moment everyone is standing in the same place with a phone in a pocket. Ask whoever is lighting the candle to invite people to scan before the principle is spoken. For a community celebration that moves between venues, print the code on the program for the week, so the families who come only on the night of Ujamaa or Kuumba still upload their night to the same gallery as the rest, and nobody is asked to find a new link.
Use the voice messages for the principle each night. Ask the person presenting the Nguzo Saba that evening to record a short explanation on the upload page afterwards, and ask a child who recited to record it again for the gallery. By the end of the week you have all seven principles in the voices of the people who spoke them, which is something photographs cannot give you. For the karamu on the sixth night, ask one person to record the libation statement and the toast before the feast begins, while the room is still quiet enough to hear it.
The karamu is the night with the most people and the most photos, so turn on the slideshow on a screen in the hall while the meal is served, and the week's earlier nights play back for the families who missed them. Keep host review on for a community celebration, since some families would rather approve images of their children before they are shared. Send the finished gallery on the first of January, after the zawadi, as the organization's record of the year, and keep the link for the planning meeting next fall.
Common questions about Kwanzaa celebrations
Can one event cover all seven nights?
Yes. Create the event once and add a sub-event for each night, Umoja through Imani. Every sub-event shares the same QR code and link, uploads are grouped into the right night, and the family or organization has one gallery of the whole week at the end. An Event Pass keeps it live for 365 days, so the karamu photos and the zawadi from the last night have plenty of time to come in from every phone.
We are a community organization with different families each night. Does that work?
It is what sub-events are for. The families who come for Nia on the fifth night upload to that night, the karamu crowd on the sixth uploads to theirs, and the organizers see the week as one archive. There is no cap on the number of guests, only unlimited uploads on an Event Pass. Turn on host review so an organizer approves what goes out, and put the code on the printed program so every night's guests have it in their hands.
Can the principle of the night be recorded, not just photographed?
Yes. From the upload page a guest can record a voice message up to 60 seconds or a video message up to 30 seconds, and both are saved in the gallery beside the photos. Ask the presenter each night to record the principle after they speak it, and ask the children who recite to do the same. A longer program can be filmed on a phone and uploaded as a video, within the event's fair-use bound of 25 GB.
Who can see the gallery?
Only the people you give the link or code to. The gallery is private by default, it is not listed anywhere, and guest pages are blocked from search engines and AI crawlers. For a community celebration, host review means every upload waits for an organizer's approval before other families see it, which matters when children are in most of the photos. You can close uploads after Imani and the gallery stays online for the community to browse.
What does the week cost?
One Event Pass at $29 covers all seven nights under one event, with unlimited uploads, host review, voice and video messages, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting. There is no subscription and no per-guest or per-night fee, so a family in a living room and a cultural center with a full hall pay the same, once. An organization that celebrates every year creates a new event each December, so each year's archive stays separate and reachable.
Every photo from Kwanzaa celebrations, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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