WOW.........what a 13 hour day festival brings in.............

I just did day 1 of 4 of a festival in Windsor, Ontario. 13 hours...and I painted a whole 2 little girls for $10 each and 1 glitter tattoo for $5.
Oh yah, my food was $10 and parking was $10. So, I made $5 in 13 hours.
What should I do with all this moula?????????????????????????????????????????????

How much does that average an hour? OMG, I can;t even think about that.
Hopefully tomorrow I get a few more faces to paint.

Bummer... but on the positive you're up $5... but, not really as you have to subtract your costs...

Good luck tomorrow!

Make noise!!!!!, add some helium ballons in your tent to catch attention, I saw in other chat that someone suggested to paint some chalk foot prints that goes to your tent, and a bubble machine too!!, sometimes in the festivals there is so many tents to go that people doesn't realy pay attention at all of them, ask the adults to participate too, face paint if fun for adults too!, I hope my advice helps you, good luck tomorrow!!!!!

Offer to do a couple of randoms for free? I always bring my own kids with me to these events and I paint them right away so they become my walking advertisements

I would add some wind twirly things to draw attention with reflections in the sun. Do a few demo faces telling them to walk around as advertisements ( family or friends) and then maybe sit and paint yourself and practice designs on your arms etc?

That sucks. I just did a festival a few weekends ago and it was dead for the first 5 hours... I know how it feels like to set up and be sitting ready for hours with a whole lotta notta to do. But I did find that business creates business even if people just want to initially watch what you are doing if they have kids they always want to see what the attraction is so even if you paint a freebie or yourself it gives them something to watch and draw them in!

Hope the next days are etter for you... weekends should make up for the difference!

I hear ya...just did day one of a major festival, 14000 people, and there are only a couple of us vendors in the whole park, I am the only face and body artist of course, and I painted 9 faces Hoping tomorrow is better for me too. On the upside everyone loved what I did get to paint.

Ouch!

My last ppf I only made about $60 in 8 hours and I thought that was bad! (well, it was, but not as bad as...nope, I'm making it worse )

I do hope the rest of the weekend picks up for you - I'm sure it will - Thursdays are always the slow day before the busy time sets in! I like the idea of adding helium balloons to your tent so they can bob around and catch peoples' attention.

Best of luck, glitterfly and gamez!

Bummer, that's painful in the hip pocket. I visualise that your tent will be 10 deep for the rest of your event, cause this was obviously the calm before the storm.

maybe you forgot to take off your invisibility cloak? sending vibes your way and hope you find your siren soon!

Same with the fair my girls are at this week here. What I know of the first 3 days- one was totally washed out (canceled for rain) and the total for the other two is $120.

Thankfully we have multiple events this weekend and the others do better.

Who needs gambling when we have this?

OMG What do you think went wrong? At one fair I did, I painted 3 people in 6 hrs. I tried to point out what I needed improvements in. #1 no banner or sign #2 My menu board was cheezie #3 well I guess it was them. lol. Better luck next time.

My location sucks...I am in the front of the kids zone tent, everyone has to pass by to go for food/bathrooms...except they have a mechanical bull ride and strong man challange sort of in front of the kids zone tent. Not much i can do now...because there are only 2 of us 'small' vendors at the event, we have to be under their large event tents. I'll post pictures later...maybe it will help people in the future booking this type of event to know what to look for.

I'm sorta in the same boat. Tomorrow morning I wake up at 4am, I am driving 5 hours, working from noon to 7pm. They are providing the hotel room. I work the next day from noon - 4 then drive home. It is in a VERY small town. This will either pay off or not. I am getting paid about $600 to attend and then I charge what I want so even if I get nothing, it's not a complete waste of time. I so prefer parties and private appointments. When a festival pays off, it can pay off BIG, but it can also be a money pit...at least you know it's a done deal with the appointments. Good luck to all! Maybe if we all cross our fingers good luck will fall on all forum goers!!!!!!! Gotta run.....daycare gig!

PS. Missing participating and chatting to you all horribly!! A wonderful community like this is really hard to be away from!!

XXOO

That is so horrible! Perhaps walking around and dragging people in, I have done that at shops locally and it really helps pick it up and spread the word. Offer a couple for half off or free and see if that helps or offer to paint other vendors or chat with others. Sometimes people bring their kids (vendors) and you could do them for free - that would help a lot as those kids are usually there all day. Best of luck throughout the rest, hopefully it will pick up!

I've been there and was too broke at the end of the day to buy the T-Shirt!
laugh

Best of luck tomorrow!

I have felt your pain before, too. I did a 3 day event last yr. Had to pay a small fee to get in, drove 1 hr round trip each day and 95 degree heat. I made enough on the last day to get a sandwich,drink and yes a deep fried snickers! I figured I was already in the hole might as well go out with a bang!

They contacted me this year to be in this event and I politely told them I would gladly come if they could pay me by the hour. Never heard back.

Woah! I have my first big gig in a few weeks. I hope I see more traffic than that! I already have balloons on my list, and my signage is good. I think I'll make some coupons to have distributed randomly, if traffic is too slow. Better to have half rate than no rate at all!

Glitterfly and I are doing this one together.... it's not that no one is seeing us or anything... there just isn't anyone AT the festival. It's the first year for this one and it's turning out to be a total flop. Today is the last day and each of us has totalled about $150 for the three days so far. And todays forecast is RAIN all day. WOO HOO!! I said I would be there, so I'm going to be there. And I will take my assignment for the day to be to make everyone feel better.

We had enormous banners, chalk art all along the sidewalk, a draw for a gas card with a ticket for each $5 spent, a facebook and twitter promotion.... there really just isn't anyone there to pull in.

Bummer Perry. Maybe the rain will pass you by today. Hope you gals are having fun at least.

One things that has helped me at slower events is my phone. I always do a 4-square check in that posts to my face book page but also posts to the events info page. That way other people that check in know you're there. Doesn't bring mobs of people but brings a few.

I've been doing social media to the max... my facebook page posts have brought over a total of two people and one was another vendor. *sigh*

We're trying to keep having fun and I'm going to make it my goal today to help everyone have fun despite the fact that I really don't feel like being a clown today at all. I was very tempted to just go as a human today, but the uniform is on now, so here we go. I'll pretend that I want to be singing in the rain today.

aw man perry, how miserable for you both.

But good for you, not giving up - the show must go on and all that good stuff!

Have fun together at least and I'll be hoping for a break in the weather for you.

Good luck!

So, I finished my event, over 40 000 people there in 3 days. We sold glow products, LED light toys, face/body art and glitter tattoos. The ENTIRE fest brought in less than we made at a Canada Day festival with only about 5000 ppl. http://www.labellephoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/JPL_8640.jpg Here is a picture of the crowd from the stage...lack people was not our problem, we were in a bad location, with the karaoke machine, strong man challenge and the mechanical bull. No visibility. Next year will be better. Oh and the fesitval map was wrong and had the kids zone located on the other side of the park.

I'm so sorry that our 'group mojo' didn't work for everyone. I'm beyond grateful to say that mine went pretty well but I did get sunburn on the back of my neck and my face even tho I was in the tent. It was a scorcher, but I got to do some fun art painting in between clients. Will post them later. BUT the brite side is we have eachother and next weekend is another opportunity to spread the joy of art!! OH I will try to remember to show you the shots of my *shudder* hotel room! Didn't shower...the huge bug beetle thing in the tub scared me off!

Hope we hear a follow-up from Glitterfly soon...I'm dying to know how the weekend went.

GamezGirl, I can't believe with all those people you weren't swamped! I'll have to be more aware of location when I do big events.

D.