A surprise extra face-painter at your event

It's weird but the three quarter of the time, when I arrive, they put me without warning with an another face-painter artist!

Fortunately, until now, they were more noob than me ;-) but tomorrow I have a new surprise partner

it stresses me in advance, especially if she's better than me

and you, that you have ever this case? How did you react?

what type of event is it? are you being paid or ppf?
Its happened twice where they told me (1 ppf/ 1 hired) that I would be with another artist. I asked the name so that we can contact each other so that we would be in sync that day. luckily for me she was not "at my level" yet (gosh that sounds snootie but you get my drift) so i asked her if she were comfy with my designs, yadda yadda.

Another time I knew I was gonna be w/ a better artist (michelle heffner) at a fair, but she was kind enough to pass along her board so that i'd be familiar with it by then, though i still had butterflies that day. eventually i (like she kept saying) adapted her faces to my style

I usually ask if there will be anyone else and that we be put far away from each other. I know most of the other pretty good painters in the area and the rest don't worry me. There are only one or two that I would be worried about having around because they paint well but charge next to nothing. Usually though, because they charge so little, they don't pay for a booth at the bigger events.

thank you for sharing your experiences... I'll try to figure out for future events how many painters are planned.

First time, i was hired and the organisator asked at one of her relatives to come (free of charge) for face painting too... It was my second gig and her his first (she has just printed the quick design on the snazaroo website)

More kids happy in the end (my job was more elaborated than her, but i was paid for it, so it was a happy end) 90% of chance i'll be hire for the same event next year

Second time, it was a ppf for a street fair in my neighbourhood . We have a stand for the clown's company of my man and i've proposed myself to face painted there and kept an eye on the video material while the clowns made twisting ballons along the streets.

The organisator didn't told us that an another stand have had the same idea!

The other face painter was in the beginning of the street, so the crowd passed first in front of her stand and next in front of mine.

I've lot of professionnal material, my designs in my head, hours of training at home before and she had only a very short palette of colors and a book.

I was disguise in a cute purple clown and she was wearing only casual clothes.

A face costed 2€ in my stand and only 1€ in her stand!!! I find 2€ was a fair price for my work, but for split the difference we have decided to charge 1,50€ (and i was very upset with this arrangement!)

During the afternoon, sometimes i've no one in my stand and she has working all the time :-( I hope i'll be never again in the same conditions!!!

Two another gig with another face painter, but it was not a surprise this time...

One in birthday party with a lovely young face painter but very gifted... She hates butterflies and i love doing them, so it was quite easy to get a good deal ;-)

And the second one, yesterday at a work party for "Saint-Nicolas" (It's like Santa Claus in Europe)
Argh it was really hard because she let kids make their choice in her books and of course they also came in my queue with those very unknown designs to me!

It was interesting to try other designs but i have painted slower that ever and made only 25 faces instead 30 i have planned to do! My brain was also exhausted ;-)

Good news of the gig, because of you my tiger was really better this time and quick ;-)

I've had it happen at every PPF event I've done(that's why I don't do PPF much). This urks me as these events takes a lot of time work & turned down paying gigs. Usually the other face painters are free or sooo cheap I just can't compete. So, unless it's just me, I won't do it.

I did do a fall festival where the art teacher showed up w/ the mine snaz pallet & helped. She had a board w/ snaz site photos & I had my word art board, so that was a little awkward. She'd picked a lot of weird, off the beat, pics & quite a few mouth designs(like a mouth frog). I hate mouth designs because they just don't last. It went well & by the end of the event the kids really wanted me.

I also did a huge Halloween event where families pay a $40 donation for their kids to come in & trick-or-treat, etc. It's a huge fundraiser & I got to work in the Seuss Salon with 4 other face painters. Two were well established clowns in our area & two were quite new to face painting. Again, my line was the longest. So, for me, it hasn't been too bad & they're getting what they paid me to do... as long as the org understands no one uses my paints but me

I would find it very awkward and difficult to arrive to a job site and find myself working alongside another painter. Regardless of the skill of each painter, you need to be able to plan ahead on which designs to offer and how to work together. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. The event coordinator has an obligation to let you know if you will be working with someone else.

PPF festivals are another matter entirely. I always ask beforehand if there are other painters, and if so, I ask to be placed in a different area so that we aren't directly competing. So far it's worked out great. I am often placed across from volunteer face painters who are painting for free, but I don't really consider them competition. If I've ever lost business due to them being there, I was too busy to notice.

I have found myself in this situation at festivals A LOT... and I am confident enough in my work and my good attitude, that I usually don't ever worry about the competition. More often than not I have better quality/pricing and I interact with the kids pretty well.
In every case that I have been put next to another painter (and I am not trying to get up on my high horse here-at all), and they find out that it is me who is painting- the request to be moved away from me!!! I feel like I have cooties! But I assume it is because they don't want my competition.... I always do well under pressure anyways!

I don't ever worry about this situation unless the other person is trying to use MY paint supplies... am a real meanie when it comes to anyone touching my stuff but me... call me OCD but that is how I have become from lessons learned!