A dark hall, a crown of candles.
Seen from every seat.
This page is for the parent who volunteered to organise the Lucia celebration, and for the Swedish church, the Scandinavian school or the Nordic club abroad that puts one on every December. The hall is dark on purpose. The doors open, the singing starts somewhere behind you, and Lucia comes in with the crown of candles, followed by the tärnor with their candles and glitter, the stjärngossar in cone hats, the tomtar and the pepparkaksgubbar bringing up the rear. Every parent stands up at once, every phone goes up, and nobody in the back rows can see their own child. The person who organised it is behind the door counting the children out and sees least of all. One QR code on the fika table afterwards puts every phone's view of the procession in one gallery, and Live Broadcast lets the grandparents in Sweden, Norway or Finland watch it as it happens.
One-time. No account needed to buy — about a minute.
The moments guests actually photograph at Lucia celebrations
Why Lucia celebrations work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
The child at the back, filmed from the front row
In a dark hall the parents near the aisle get the procession and everyone else gets the back of a head. When all of those phones upload to one gallery, the mother who stood at the back finds her stjärngosse in a clip taken by the father in the front row, and the organiser who never left the doorway finally sees the whole thing.
Streamed to Sweden, Norway and Finland in the same hour
A Lucia celebration abroad is, for most of the families in the room, a performance for grandparents who are somewhere else. Live Broadcast puts it on a private link with sound, so the singing reaches Umeå or Bergen or Vaasa while it is happening, not as a shaky forward days later.
Every photo checked before other parents see it
A school or church Lucia involves other people's children, and the organiser is answerable for what gets shared. Host review holds every upload until a committee member approves it, the gallery is private and never indexed, and uploads can be closed after the fika so nothing arrives unseen.
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.
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.
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.
Video messages, recorded on the spot
A 30-second video toast recorded in the browser, no editing, no re-uploading. The guest who would never write in a book will happily talk to a phone.
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 in early December, named for the school, church or club, and send the link in the parents' group with the rehearsal times.
Print the QR code on the programme and on a card by the lussekatter, since the fika table is where every parent stops with a phone in hand.
Parents film the procession and upload during the fika. A committee member approves the photos as they come in, and Live Broadcast carries the singing to the grandparents abroad.
Download the originals for the church's or school's record, and send the gallery link to every family, and to the ones watching from home.
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 Lucia celebrations
Say it from the front before the lights go down, and say it again at the fika. Parents are in a dark hall with their phones already out, so the moment to tell them the code exists is while they are waiting for the doors to open, not afterwards when they are queuing for lussekatter with a child in a cone hat. Put the code on the printed programme, on a card on every fika table and on a screen or poster by the door. The person on the door counting the children out cannot do any of this, so give the job to one other parent whose only task is to point at the code and ask people to upload before they leave.
Ask everyone to film short clips in the dark rather than one long recording, and to hold still. Candlelight and a moving phone produce smeared white blobs; a phone held steady against a chest for the length of one verse produces something the grandparents can watch. Clips upload within the 30 second limit at full quality, and the parent in the front row will have the entrance while the parent by the exit will have the recessional, so between them the gallery holds the whole procession. Tell the parents in the front not to stand up, because that is what ruins every other family's view and video.
For the families with grandparents in Sweden, Norway or Finland, a Lucia in the morning in the United States lands in the afternoon there, and one in the evening in Australia lands at breakfast. Agree the start time in the parents' group a week ahead and send the Live Broadcast link with it, then put the streaming phone on a stand at the end of the centre aisle facing the doors so it catches the entrance and the singing. Sound is what matters here. After the procession, keep it running through the fika for a few minutes so the grandparents see their grandchild out of costume, eating a lussekatt, waving at the phone.
Common questions about Lucia celebrations
I could not see my child over the heads. How does a gallery help with that?
Because it gives you every other parent's view. The father in the front row filmed the whole entrance, the mother by the side wall got the tärnor turning at the end of the aisle, and the teenager on the stage steps got the whole line from above. When all of it goes to one gallery through one code, your child appears in a dozen clips and photos you had no way of taking from where you stood. It is the closest thing to seeing it from every seat at once.
We are a school. What about consent and other people's children?
The gallery is private to people with the code, never listed publicly and blocked from search engines and AI crawlers. Turn on host review and nothing appears until an organiser approves it, so a photo of a child whose family has not given permission can be declined before any other parent sees it. You can close uploads after the event, remove any photo later, and download the whole set for the school's own records before deleting the event.
Can grandparents in Sweden watch the procession live?
Yes. Live Broadcast is included with the Event Pass and streams up to 90 minutes with audio to as many as 100 viewers on a private link, and they only need a browser. Send the link with the start time a few days ahead, allowing for the time difference, and put the phone where it can hear the singing. Most Lucia processions and the songs that follow fit comfortably inside the window, with time left over for a wave from the fika table.
Will phone video of candles in a dark hall look like anything?
It will if people hold still and keep clips short. Modern phones handle candlelight reasonably well when they are not moving, and a clip of one verse held steady is watchable in a way that a whole procession filmed while walking backwards is not. Because every clip uploads at original quality, the one parent with a newer phone and a good position gives the whole hall a version worth keeping. Ask for stills at the fika afterwards, in the light, for the portraits.
We do a morning Lucia at the school and an evening one at the church. One event or two?
One event with two sub-events, if the same families are at both, gives you a single gallery with each celebration in its own section under one code. Two separate events suit a school and a church that are organised by different people and want their own galleries to share with their own communities. The price is per event either way, so a family club doing both under one roof pays once for the whole day.
What does it cost a church or a Swedish club?
An Event Pass is $29, paid once for the celebration, with no subscription. It covers unlimited uploads from as many families as attend, host review for the committee, Live Broadcast for the grandparents abroad, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting. Nothing is charged per parent or per child, so a club of fifteen families and a church hall of three hundred pay the same.
Every photo from Lucia celebrations, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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