building on the fine work by nite man here is something that deaks with your initial array of hall_ids too. i use @constrings here for clarity not efficiency, or memory management...

# presume dbh hunky dory
my @hall_ids = ("slumber1", "slumber2", "slumber3");
my %hall_details;

my @constrings = map { 
    "select hall_name, upload_date, uploaded_by, photo_id " .
    "from hall_details where hall_id='$_' limit 1;" 
    } @hall_ids;

map {
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare($constring[$_]);
    $sth->execute();
    $halldetails{$hallid[$_]} = $sth->fetchall_arrayref();
    $sth->finish();
} (0 .. $#hallids);
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...wufnik

-- in the world of the mules there are no rules --