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Hiring a photo booth: consumer rightsA guide by Dotto

Settled before the curtain closes · 1 of 3

What a hired photo booth service must deliver

Three short sections of the Australian Consumer Law set what any service supplied to a consumer has to be, and the ACCC says no contract can exclude them.

A photo booth drawn from the front, its curtain hung about 24 per cent of the way across the opening, with disc 1 lit on the panel above. 123
Ring one. Before anyone sits down: what the hire has to deliver, whatever the agreement says.

Sections 60, 61 and 62 of the Australian Consumer Law guarantee that services a business supplies, in trade or commerce, to a consumer are rendered with due care and skill, are reasonably fit for any purpose the consumer made known, and are supplied within a reasonable time when the contract leaves the time open. Whether the person who paid counts as a consumer turns on the price, or on the kind of service; both tests are set out below.

General informationDotto is not an event supplier. It does not offer, hire out, supply, deliver, staff or arrange photo booths. This is general information, not advice.

The official guidance is the ACCC’s, with Consumer Affairs Victoria’s for Victoria; the pages used appear at the foot of this page. Individual complaints are managed by each state and territory’s consumer protection agency.

The three sections, in the Act’s words

Each panel gives the Act first, then the ACCC’s plainer reading of the same rule.

Section 60Due care and skill
When a consumer is supplied with services in trade or commerce, the Act’s guarantee is for services “rendered with due care and skill”.
The ACCC’s yardstick is the work a competent provider of average skill and experience would turn out.
Section 61Fit for the purpose made known
Where the consumer has made a particular purpose known, the services, and anything they produce, “will be reasonably fit for that purpose”.
The ACCC reads this as fitness for any purpose the consumer stated, reaching the results of the service as well as the service.
Section 62A reasonable time
Where the contract fixes no time, and the two sides agreed no way of setting one, the guarantee is that they will be “supplied within a reasonable time”.
In the ACCC’s shorter form, the rule bites when no time frame was agreed.

Section 62 is written for a contract that leaves the time open. What follows when a booth that was paid for never turns up is in the second guide.

Two ways of telling the supplier what the hire is for

Section 61 has two halves, and they turn on different things the consumer says.

A purpose: section 61(1)

The first half applies when the consumer tells the supplier, in words or by implication, what particular purpose the services are wanted for. The services, and any product that comes out of them, must then be reasonably fit for it.

A result: section 61(2)

The second half covers the case where the consumer makes known the result they want, to the supplier, or to whoever conducted the prior negotiations or arrangements. The services must then be such that they could reasonably be expected to bring that result about.

Section 61(3) switches both halves off where the circumstances show that the consumer placed no reliance on the supplier’s skill or judgment, or show that relying on it would have been unreasonable.

Who counts as a consumer

Section 3(3) treats a person as acquiring services as a consumer if, and only if, one of two things is true.

  • The price. The amount paid or payable did not go over the figure the Act sets, or a greater amount prescribed in its place.
  • The kind of service. The services were of a kind people ordinarily acquire for personal, domestic or household use, or for consumption.

The Act’s own text still carries an older figure, beside its room for a greater prescribed amount. The ACCC says its guide to the consumer guarantees “is intended to reflect consumer law at a point in time and does not reflect changes to the Australian Consumer Law which have occurred since initial publication.” It goes on, “These changes include:”, and names “changes to the definition of ‘consumer’”: from 1 July 2021, it says, the threshold amount rose to $100,000, applying to goods and services supplied from that date. That is the figure as the ACCC’s page stated it when it was read for this guide, as at 8 October 2026.

The Act also starts from a presumption. If anyone alleges in a proceeding that someone was a consumer, section 3(10) treats them as one unless the contrary is established.

A gift carries the same rights. The ACCC says a consumer who receives a service as a gift holds the same basic rights as someone who paid for it.

When the machine is hired too

Where a hire includes the use of a product, the rules for products come in as well. The ACCC says most of the consumer guarantees still cover a product that a consumer hires or leases instead of buying it outright. Consumer Affairs Victoria lists hiring among the ways products are supplied to consumers, alongside selling, exchanging and letting.

Ownership is the exception. Because consumers don’t own the products they hire, the ACCC says the guarantees about title, and about no hidden debts or charges, do not apply to hiring.

A guarantee is not a warranty

The ACCC keeps the two apart. It calls the guarantees automatic and says they can’t be taken away; a warranty is an extra promise a business may choose to give on top of them. Its selling guide for businesses says the guarantees cannot be excluded by contract. The cancellation terms a hire agreement may carry are the subject of the third guide.