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

How to do the viral Hotel Lobby trend with AI, a CapCut template or for free: step-by-step, photo tips, and what to know before you post.

Sep 28, 2026

Updated Oct 2, 2026

The short answer

The easiest way to do the Hotel Lobby trend is with an AI photo-to-video maker: add one photo of you and one of a friend, and about 3 minutes later you have both of your real faces rapping in the orange booth, each on your own mic, lip-synced to an original song. CapCut templates are free but only paste a face onto the original clip, and filming it yourself takes a booth, two mics and rehearsal. With the AI route there is no app, no editing and no subscription: you pay once per song, and a render that fails is never charged.

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 Rap Duo AI 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

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.
Take one clear photo of each person. Front-facing, well lit, no sunglasses or masks. A normal selfie works best.
Open the Hotel Lobby AI video maker on your phone or computer and add the two photos.
Keep the orange Hotel Lobby stage (it's selected by default) or pick another stage.
Optional: tell it what to rap about. "Sam's 30th birthday", "best friends since kindergarten", an inside joke. Leave it blank and the two of you rap about being the greatest duo in the game.
Tap "Make our rap video" and wait about 2–3 minutes. You get a vertical, roughly 12-second video sized for TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

Step 1 in the studio: a front-facing selfie in each of the two photo slots — Step 1: one photo of each person. Ordinary selfies work, and they don’t need to be taken together.

Step 2 in the studio: the stages, with the orange Hotel Lobby booth selected — Step 2: the orange Hotel Lobby-style booth is selected by default.

Step 4 in the studio: the topic box filled in with “Sam's 30th birthday, friends since 1st grade” above the Make our rap video button — Step 4: type names and the occasion. The lyrics are written around what you type.

How to do the Hotel Lobby trend for free

Rap Duo AI: full videos are paid, because rendering AI video costs real money. Each video is paid with credits: 10 for a standard song, one song for $9.99, or packs from $29 for 5 songs, down to about $1 per song on the bigger plans. A render that fails is never charged.
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.
Give it a topic. A birthday, an anniversary or a running joke makes the lyrics personal, and personal videos get shared.
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.

The finished video in the studio: the two people from the photos rapping on their own mics in an orange booth, with Download and Make another buttons — The result, about 3 minutes later: both people from the photos, each on a mic, ready to download.

Original song or AI song?

Viral Hotel Lobby clips usually play the original track. An AI generator like Rap Duo AI 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.

Ready? Make your Hotel Lobby AI video: two photos, one tap, ready in about 3 minutes.