Cobra Gallery
An auto-updating event photo system for Cobra Arcade Bar. Every event's photos hit the website within minutes, organized by venue and date, installable like an app on any phone, and built to run entirely on its own. 3,000+ photos across Phoenix and Tucson, still adding.
Cobra Arcade Bar's photographers capture thousands of event photos across its Phoenix and Tucson locations every month. Guests used to see a handful of them, posted to social media days after the fact. We designed and built a custom WordPress system that changes that completely: every event's photos now publish to the website automatically, within minutes, organized by venue and date, and optimized to look great on any phone.
The previous off-the-shelf solution failed because it streamed images directly from cloud storage and quickly hit traffic limits. Our approach was different. Cobra Gallery copies and compresses each photo onto the site itself, served through a fast content delivery network. The result is a gallery that's reliable, lightning quick, and effortless for staff.
Behind the scenes, the system checks for new photos on a schedule, compresses every image to a web-optimized format for fast mobile loading, and imports thousands of large files without ever timing out. A simple admin area lets the Cobra team set cover photos, manage galleries, and control what's visible, while the whole platform is built search-engine friendly and ready to scale.
The gallery is live with 3,000+ photos across both venues, still adding after every event, automatically. Event photography went from an afterthought to a genuine reason for guests to come back, relive the night, and share it.
"THE PROBLEM"
Cobra's photographers capture thousands of event photos across Phoenix and Tucson every month, but guests only ever saw a handful, posted to social days after the fact. The off-the-shelf gallery they tried streamed images straight from cloud storage and kept hitting traffic limits.
"HOW WE FIXED IT"
We designed and built a custom WordPress system that runs itself. Cobra Gallery copies and compresses every photo onto the site, serves it through a fast CDN, and publishes each event within minutes, organized by venue and date. Zero staff time required.
"THE WEBSITE"
Built to move.
A custom WordPress plugin, built from scratch. Photos sync automatically on a schedule, compress to web-optimized formats, and publish organized by venue, year, month, and event. Reliable, lightning quick, and effortless for staff. It runs entirely on its own.
Visit cobraarcadebar.com/photos ↗
"ON YOUR PHONE"
Installs like an app.
Guests browse by location, then drill down through year, month, and individual event. Every photo opens in a full-screen viewer with a slideshow mode and downloads to a phone in a single tap. Fans can install the gallery on their home screen like an app, iPhone or Android, for one-tap access to the latest nights out. And a built-in report option lets anyone flag a photo for quick review and removal, keeping guest comfort front and center.
"WHAT WE MADE"
- 01Custom WordPress plugin, built from scratch
- 02Automatic photo sync on a schedule
- 03Web-optimized image compression pipeline
- 04Venue, year, month + event organization
- 05Full-screen lightbox with slideshow mode
- 06One-tap photo downloads
- 07Installable app experience (PWA), iOS + Android
- 08Report-a-photo with one-click removal
- 09Self-serve admin: covers, galleries, visibility
- 10Mobile-first, SEO-optimized build
"WHAT IT DID"
- [ 01 ]3,000+ photos across both venues, still adding
- [ 02 ]Photos live on the site within minutes of every event
- [ 03 ]Installs to the home screen like an app, iOS + Android
- [ 04 ]Runs itself: syncs, compresses + publishes with zero staff time
"NEXT"