How to Do the Hotel Lobby Trend: Free, Step by Step (2026)

The Hotel Lobby trend puts two people into Quavo and Takeoff's famous orange-booth performance of "Hotel Lobby" from A COLORS SHOW. Since early September 2026 it has been everywhere on TikTok, Reels and Shorts: best friends, couples, cats, presidents and TV characters trading verses in that orange room.

Here's how to do the Hotel Lobby trend yourself, the free options, and what each method actually gives you.

Three ways to do the Hotel Lobby trend

1. An AI video generator (both faces, a new performance). You upload one photo of each person and the AI renders a brand-new video of the two of you rapping together on an orange Hotel Lobby stage, lip-synced to an AI-generated rap and beat. This is what EffectDrop does. You get two real faces performing together without filming anything. (Using Higgsfield instead? Here's how the Higgsfield Hotel Lobby method works.)

2. A CapCut template (face swap on the original clip). Templates take the original performance and swap a face onto it, keeping the real song. They're free, but you're limited to what the template supports, templates come and go, and the result is a face pasted onto someone else's body rather than a performance of your own. (Here's how to find and use the Hotel Lobby CapCut template.)

3. Filming it yourself. Two people, an orange backdrop, two mics and a lot of rehearsal. The most authentic version, and the hardest.

How to do the Hotel Lobby trend with AI, step by step

1. Pick your duo. You and a friend, you and your partner, two friends who live in different cities: the photos don't need to be taken together.
2. Take one clear photo of each person. Front-facing, well lit, no sunglasses or masks. A normal selfie works best.
3. Open the Hotel Lobby AI video maker on your phone or computer and add the two photos.
4. Hotel Lobby AI is selected by default. The current studio has no stage picker.
5. Expand Choose length to select the clip duration. There is no custom lyric topic; add names and occasions in the post caption instead.
6. Click Generate effect video. When generation is enabled, follow the progress and preview the finished clip in the studio.

Photo preparation and effect availability

• Use two separate face photos, one per person. If you only have a group photo, crop it into two individual portraits before uploading.

How to do the Hotel Lobby trend for free

• The pricing page previews plans and test checkout, with a $6.99 Single. Live billing, credits, subscriptions and automatic refunds are not connected; enabled generation can incur provider costs and is not a free service.
• CapCut: search the template library for "Hotel Lobby". Free, with the limits above.

Be careful with sites that promise "unlimited free" Hotel Lobby videos: rendering AI video costs real money, so free usually means a watermark, a queue or your photos used for something else. Read what happens to your photos before you upload them.

Tips for a better Hotel Lobby video

• Use photos with similar lighting and framing so the two of you look like you're in the same room.
• Expand Choose length to select the clip duration. There is no custom lyric topic; add names and occasions in the post caption instead.
• Post it vertically, as is. The video is already 9:16. On TikTok, tag it #hotellobby or #hotellobbytrend so people searching the trend find it.

Original song or AI song?

Viral Hotel Lobby clips usually play the original track. An AI generator like EffectDrop writes and performs an original rap instead, so the mouths match the words and there's no copyrighted song in the file. If you'd rather post with the original "Hotel Lobby" sound, you can pick it from TikTok's sound library when you post, but the lip-sync won't match the new audio.

Do it respectfully

Takeoff passed away in November 2022, a few months after the COLORS performance, and some fans have mixed feelings about seeing it turned into an AI gag. Put yourselves in the video rather than impersonating the original artists, only use photos of people who agreed to be in it, and if you're new to the song, watch the original and read its story.

Not sure who to do it with? Here are 12 Hotel Lobby duo ideas.

Upload two separate face photos, confirm Hotel Lobby AI and the clip length, then click Generate effect video. No stage or lyric topic input is needed; check the studio notice for generation availability.