When Five Below Called, We Had Nine Days to Make It Happen
Five Below’s Founders Day is not a small gathering. It is an annual celebration for the company’s employees, a chance to recognize how far the brand has come and get everyone fired up about where it is going. For the 2026 edition, they wanted something that felt as bold and fun as the brand itself.
The ask landed in our inbox 14 days before the event. The contract was signed 9 days out.
That is not a lot of runway for a fully custom AI trading card photo booth corporate event experience. But when the client is Five Below and the venue is Ballers in Philadelphia, you figure it out.
The Venue
Ballers in Philadelphia is not a ballroom with round tables and a buffet line. It is a multi-sport entertainment venue built around energy, competition, and a good time. Golf simulators, great sound, and a crowd that showed up ready to have fun.
It was exactly the right environment for what we brought. A traditional photo booth would have felt out of place. An AI trading card experience fit the room perfectly. The space had personality, and so did the activation. When the venue and the experience match, guests feel it.
Why the Trading Card Format Worked
Five Below is a brand built around fun. Their tagline is about being the destination for the kid in all of us. Founders Day is an internal event, but the goal is the same as any good brand moment: make people feel something and give them a reason to talk about it.
A trading card does that in a way a standard printed photo does not. It is a format people already have an emotional connection to. Everyone knows what a trading card is. Everyone has had one. Handing an employee a card with their own face on it, in Five Below gear, playing the sport they chose, taps into something nostalgic and personal at the same time.
The back of the card reinforced the brand. Five Below’s Vision, Core Values, and Key Stats were printed on every single card. It was not just a souvenir. It was a piece of internal brand communication that employees actually wanted to keep.
That combination, personal on the front and brand-forward on the back, is why the format worked so well for a corporate event of this size and purpose.
The Experience
On May 14, 2026, the Milestone team arrived at Ballers at 11:30 AM for setup, with everything ready to go by 1:00 PM. We ran two custom camera stations with white backdrops, studio lighting, and dual printers built to handle the volume. The setup was clean and intentional. No traditional booth structure, just cameras on stands with a flash and umbrella for a polished, studio-style look that fit the energy of the room.
Guests stepped in front of the camera, entered their name, and chose a sport: baseball, American football, soccer, basketball, rugby, tennis, golf, or hockey.
Then the AI went to work.
Their photo was transformed into a custom image of them playing that sport, dressed in Five Below’s branded blue athletic gear specific to each sport, with a sport-matched AI-generated background. No two cards looked exactly the same on the front.
The back of every card featured Five Below’s Vision, Core Values, and Key Stats, the same for every employee, by design. Each finished card was printed as a 5×7, folded in half, and slipped into a plastic sleeve. It looked and felt like a real trading card. Because it was.
Guests could also text themselves a digital copy directly from the microsite gallery, so they walked away with both a physical keepsake and something they could share immediately.
The Numbers
The activation ran from 4:00 to 7:00 PM, with an early window from 2:00 to 2:45 PM.
Here is what that looked like by the end of the night:
- 366 cards created
- 1,062 total shares
- 936 text messages sent
- 262,314 total impressions
- 77,526 total reach
For a three-hour activation at a private corporate event, that kind of reach is a direct result of giving people something worth sharing.
What Our Team Saw on the Floor
The Milestone team worked the full day, arriving at 11:30 AM for setup and closing out the activation at 7:00 PM. For Ryan and Rohan, it was their first trading card activation.
Ryan described it this way: “It was an awesome, lively event. Great DJ, incredible venue, and genuinely fun people. The kind of crowd that makes the work feel easy.”
Rohan added: “The guests were thrilled with how their photos came out. People kept coming over to see what was happening. It had that pull-you-in energy from the start.”
Between setup and the opening of the experience, the team got a chance to explore the venue, including a turn on the golf simulator. A long day, but a good one.
BASE STATS AND FIGURES
366
Photos Taken
1,062
Total Shares
778
Total Views
936
SMS Sent
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
Three hours. Two stations. One activation that kept going long after the last card was printed.
366
Photos Taken
744
Total Sessions
126
Downloads
778
Total Views
936
Text Messages Sent
77,526
Total Reach
262,314
Total Impressions
5
Post-Event Inquiries
Five post-event inquiries came in after Founders Day, including continued interest from World Travel, Inc. in future partnerships with Milestone.
The Client
Saunya at Five Below worked directly with Milestone on design approvals. Day-to-day communication ran through Carla and Jenine at World Travel, Inc., the event planning team behind Founders Day.
The timeline was tight, but Carla and Jenine moved fast at every step. Before the contract was even signed, Carla sent a note to our team that said:
"Your company, honestly, fantastic customer experience and we didn't 'do' anything yet!!"
That kind of feedback, before the event even happens, says a lot about how both sides showed up.
What Our Team Had to Say
"It was an awesome, lively event. Great DJ, incredible venue, and genuinely fun people. The kind of crowd that makes the work feel easy."
What Comes Next
This was Milestone’s first activation with Five Below and World Travel, Inc. It will not be the last. World Travel has expressed interest in partnering with Milestone on future events, and based on how Founders Day went, we are ready for whatever they bring next.
If you are planning a corporate event and want an experience your guests will actually talk about, we would love to show you what is possible.
Let's Create Something Unforgettable Together
Contact us today to learn more about our experiential marketing activations.
