Sohra Half Marathon Case Study - 13,719 Race Photos Delivered with AI Face Search

On 4 September 2026, runners lined up in Sohra, Meghalaya, for the 5th Sohra International Half Marathon. Most of them wanted the same thing after the finish line: their own race photos, on their own phone, without scrolling through thousands of pictures.

This case study shows how those photos were delivered with MyPhotoStudio's sports and marathon photo sharing - and what the numbers looked like eight weeks later.

Quick answer: 13,719 race photos were uploaded to one MyPhotoStudio event gallery. Runners scanned a QR code, used AI face search in their phone browser and placed 2,353 free download orders, downloading 16,547 photos in total. No app, no login and no manual sorting by the event team.

Key Facts

Figures from the MyPhotoStudio event dashboard as of 30 October 2026. Published with the permission of the event organisers.

About the Event

Sohra, also known as Cherrapunji, is one of the most scenic race venues in India. The official event banner describes the half marathon as recognised by World Athletics and the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

The 2026 edition was the biggest yet. SP News Agency reported that 11,672 runners registered across all categories, from almost 24 states and abroad - up from a starting field of 750 runners - and that the course is certified by AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races).

The race had three routes. The 21K started at Laitsophliah Village, the 10K started at Umstew Village near the Wah-Kaba viewpoint, and both finished at the Mawsmai-Nohsngithiang Falls viewpoint. The 5K Run for Fun was held at Cherra Presbyterian School, Nongsawlia, Sohra. The Shillong-Sohra road was closed to traffic from 4:30 AM to 10:00 AM on race day. Categories included Elite and Open 21K, Open Meghalayan 21K, Open 10K in three age groups, and the 5K.

The Challenge

A hill-route half marathon is hard on photo delivery. The organisers had to solve four problems at once:

• Long, spread-out routes. With 11,672 registered runners, the race used three start points, kilometres of mountain road and a busy finish area. Photos from a course like this come from many cameras and many locations.
• Too many photos to sort by hand. Nearly fourteen thousand photos cannot be sorted by bib number or name by a small team in any reasonable time.
• Runners want only their photos. A runner does not want to scroll a shared Google Drive folder. They want the five or ten photos they appear in.
• Phones, not laptops. Almost every runner opens the gallery on a mobile phone, often on a mobile network. Anything that needs an app install or a login loses people.

The Solution

The event team ran photo delivery on one MyPhotoStudio event gallery, with these features switched on:

• QR code access. One event QR code and gallery link opened the gallery straight in the phone browser.
• AI face search. Runners used Live Scan with the phone camera or uploaded a selfie to see only the photos they appear in. Face matching runs on AWS Rekognition with 99.3% accuracy, including side angles and group shots.
• Free softcopy downloads. The organisers chose free downloads for every participant, so there was no payment step between a runner and their photos.
• Truly unlimited photos per event. All 13,719 photos went into a single event, in full resolution, with no photo-count cap.

How It Worked

1. Upload. The event team uploaded the race photos to the event gallery. The photos were handed over and uploaded about a day after the race.
2. AI indexing. MyPhotoStudio scanned every face in every photo automatically. No one tagged bib numbers or names.
3. Share. The QR code and gallery link were shared with runners.
4. Search. A runner opened the link, took a selfie or used Live Scan, and saw their own photos.
5. Download. The runner picked the photos they wanted and downloaded them free, in full quality.

Results

Three things stand out:

• Runners took more than one photo each time. One order is one download request, and the average order had about 7 photos. Some runners came back again and again - one runner alone placed 24 orders.
• Downloads were higher than uploads. 16,547 downloads from 13,719 photos means many photos were downloaded more than once - group shots and finish-line photos were saved by several runners.
• The gallery kept working for weeks. Runners were still placing download orders in late October 2026, more than seven weeks after race day.

How we counted: an order is one free softcopy download request in the event gallery, and one order can include several photos. All figures come from the MyPhotoStudio event dashboard on 30 October 2026.

What This Means for Marathon and Sports Event Organisers

If you organise a marathon, cyclothon, school sports day or any race with hundreds of participants, the lesson from Sohra is simple. Do not send runners a folder. Send them a QR code and let face search do the sorting.

• Free or paid - your choice. Sohra used free downloads. You can also sell softcopies and prints, with payments going straight to your own Cashfree, Razorpay or Stripe account at zero platform commission.
• No limit on photo count. Upload every photo from every photographer into one event.
• Works on any phone. No app, no account - just a browser.

See the full feature list on our sports and marathon photo sharing page, learn how AI face recognition photo delivery works, or check plans and pricing from ₹1,000 per event.

Key Takeaways

• 13,719 race photos from the 5th Sohra International Half Marathon were delivered through one MyPhotoStudio event gallery.
• Runners placed 2,353 free download orders and downloaded 16,547 photos, about 7 photos per order.
• QR code + AI face search meant no app, no login and no manual sorting for the event team.
• Runners were still downloading photos more than seven weeks after race day.