Do you prefer private parties or festivals?

I'm trying to start/build my business.
Did you start out doing parties, or fairs & festivals?
Which have you had more success with?
Do you have a preference, and if you do, why?
Thanks for all your advice!

start with private parties... you will have less kids at once and more time to do them. Also, festivals are a large upfront investment and a gamble.... if the weather sucks or no one shows up, you are out a lot of time and money for nothing. Festivals CAN be huge money makers, but they are risky and if you can't keep up with the demand, you won't make anything.

When you are starting out, your best bet is to have 5 - 10 kids and an hour or so to do them (just in case you need that much time, I personally think that you should be able to paint them in half that time or you shouldn't be charging, but that's another story).

I started out volunteering at our local SickKids Hospital. I began to do birthday parties and special events. I have done both private parties and festivals and fairs. It doesn't matter which I do, as long as I am being paid to do something I adore doing. Different events and age groups have different challenges and different rewards. I simply love to face paint.

I started face painting at public events, festivals and large private parties (corporate Christmas parties with 40-250 kids.) I have never worked on a pay-per-face basis.

Actually the first face painting event I ever did was 500 kids (airbrush tatts! )

Most of my work is corporate - I am paid hourly by organizations and companies to work at their private events or for them at public events. And the festivals I paint at are also paid hourly - some get sponsors to pay for my or they get funding for entertainment.

Birthday parties came out of that work with referrals and people taking my card.

I have to say I prefer my corporate work over birthday parties - fewer meltdowns, proper table and chairs, and more money as they are usually longer bookings.

I prefer private parties, but those aren't always easiest to book. Booking those private events is a snowball effect, where the more you go to, the more you book. it's booking those first few that's tough! So sometimes doing a bigger event is easier, and you will get your name out there to lots of people at once.

I started at markets and festivals...Great practise..Great way to get noticed and secure bookings by handing out your cards..I spent my first year going to every market and event I could find...Now I get alot of birthdays and coporate events because of all the exposure and hard work I did in my first year..I am only four months into my second year and I have to employ someone else because my family now need more time with me on the weekends..I love festivals very much,,but the birthdays and coporate gigs are now my staples....I would think it's hard to get birthdays if people dont know your there...unless you have really good advertising everywhere..

I'm not a big fan of birthday parties and don't go out of my way to promote them.
The birthday child is usually on a high and feeling very entitled... I seem to always be shooing their fingers away from my paint or answering odd questions.
Personally I love being my own boss, which I get from festivals and fetes. I can work fast and cope well with lines, so I usually make enough to make it worthwhile. But they are variable... it's a live and learn experience.
Corporate/retail gigs aren't bad, and to me preferable to birthday parties because you get a lot of exposure (especially in the shopping centre). The downside is you can work like crazy to get through mega lines. Still scratching my head to wonder why people will line up 25 deep just to get a quick painting. I like to remind kids to thank their parents for waiting with them... but I digress.
I find corp/retail work has the added benefit of leading to more... and the gig will be of higher value than a little birthday party.

I just had my first year anniversary and I'm more of a 3 hour corporate girl myself. I HATE driving to get to gigs so the birthday parties is a tough row to hoe for me because you invest so much in driving for such a little payoff. The clients don't act like you've just drove 45 minutes to get there...there is a sense of entitlement like you're their servant and you just appeared from the vapors to be there. However, that being said, birthday parties (when they are good) are the little gems that make face painting all worth it. When you get that mom that has really made an effort to make it special...but not to impress the neighbors but make the child happy...and the kids just light up and are appreciative and happy and every design is like a little firework that lights up the whole room...it's perfect.

I enjoy the fairs and festivals because they have given me a chance to work on designs and techniques and become a better speed painter. Now I can offer almost full face designs that really look cool and go that little step further for corporate clients when I do get hired for events. My first fair bought my tent and a lot of supplies that kept me going through the year. They are good money makers when they are good...I had to learn my lesson the hard way over and over to KNOW BEFORE YOU GO and try to find fairs that will keep you busy so it's all worth it. I just got burned again by a new event with an unproven track record.

The truth is, that for most of us, it's always going to be a mixture. Try them all out and put your marketing money toward the thing that you like.

D.

Definitely big music festivals. I can close up after a big day and go see music and go late night shopping, I can be myself (always feel like I'm on my good behaviour at paid gigs, I can be a smart naughty word at times.. ), plus the kids generally have an adult next to them, I make more money in a day and I love that people are generally in a happy festival kinda groove. Although I do much more henna than face painting at big music fests and I like it this way..

I do do kids parties but man I just don't deal with driving for a shorter gig full of sugared up unsupervised children ( I mean there are parents there but not generally monitoring their kids horrid behaviour).

I also love corporate stuff but soo over them taking forever to pay out invoices. At one point this month I was owed $4000 from various place. I've managed to claim 1/3 of that finally but still waiting waiting for some other people to pay up.

I also love markets. They are my best advertising. I figure even if I only make a few hundred bucks it is better exposure than paying out for ads in newspapers/internt listings etc and people see me work, meet me and see the quality of my work. Although I end up spending lots of what I earn as I scope out the goodies at neighbouring stalls but it means I have cool funky unique clothes and furnishings

I like birthday parties best!

Pros
- more relaxed atmosphere, no huge line-up
- more time to make designs POP!
- people are generally really friendly, offer you drinks and treats
- easier to hand out business cards at the end of the gig (one goes home with each kid in the loot bag)
- guaranteed hourly rate
- tips

Cons
- driving far for a 1-hour party
- sometimes hostess can be disorganized

I don't really enjoy festivals as much. Working for 6 hours straight, whipping out quick design after design is so exhausting. People can be impatient. Most festivals here are in the summer and outdoors, and it can get very hot. Booth fees. Unsure weather/turnout.

I love festivals! I love the atmosphere! Once I'm set up, it's just paint, paint, paint, until it's time to take everything down again. My second choice would be corporate gigs, as again, I can paint, paint, paint for a long time and really get in the groove. Birthday parties are last on my list, as I usually have to drive a long way to paint for an hour as no one here hires an entertainer for more than an hour.

Everywhere! I love to paint, period.

I enjoy being at a birthday party because I love kids and it makes me happy to be around such innocent joy....

But I hate painting at them. Very few of them have been what I would like them to be. Too much going on and the kids want to do everything... that means everyone has to give up participating in something to come and sit in my chair. So then I feel bad and tell them to just go and take their turn at the pinata or water balloon fight or the bean bag toss or the whatever... which makes me sit there with nothing to do but imagine that the birthday cake is literally whispering to me from across the room.... Unless I have back to back parties and know i have to be somewhere else immediately, I always end up staying too long (especially if I lock myself out of the car!)

I hate the set-up and tear down and mess in the car and house after a festival... but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having a booth and being my own boss in my own little "shop"....

... And, last but not least, I am very fond of the pay that comes with corporate events.

Festivals would be my least favorite. They can be uncertain as far as turn out, so many factors go into it being a success and most of it is out of your control. We just did one this last weekend, and will be my last for a while, and after expenses I made just over $100 for a ten hour day. I really enjoyed meeting so many different people, and talking with them, making kids and adults smile (it was our local Pride). But it was 100 degrees out, way too hot for people to want face painting. We did more glitter tats, but even that was slow.
The saving grace of festivals is being able to hand out a ton of business cards.

I much prefer birthdays and corporate. Birthdays so far have been good for me, and I have often book additional jobs from them.

I started out setting up at soccer fields to paint and tattoo, I would give a percentage back to the organization. I started booking parties from it and business grew from there.

Corporate, reoccurring events for sure. Just booked a concert series with my mall where I paint every Tuesday night for 8 weeks and they pay my full rate. Having reliable income and knowing that money is coming is priceless. Yes, there is usually more red tape and paperwork associated with these, but it is so worth it. Now that I'm in with them, I'll be the person they call for anything that comes up. Private parties are harder to get loyalty from than corporate. Corporate always goes with who they know did a good job and showed up on-time at their last event. The goal is to get booked up with enough that I can lay off on my never ending cold calls and relax and let the business run itself.

when i started it was all private parties that were spread by word of mouth. it was great for the first couple years... as i matured and grew up... i started looking for work like shows. (i started when i was 15). especially once i got my own car it helped a lot to do shows...

now i mostly do festivals because they are worth it to me. there are many shows that i have been doing for years now that people come looking for me at that show... saying "was hoping you would be back"... so i have filled up my year with mostly shows...

i no longer say i do private parties because i don't have the time and what free time i do have most don't want to do a party on those nights (mon to thurs). so i just stick with the festivals...

Funny to read all the comments....some love and swear by big festivals, some small parties! If you're starting out you just need to try a little bit of everything because, as you've seen here in the response, it depends on the artist!! I like both for different reasons. A good festival/fair can really make you a LOT of money. And a birthday party can make you a nice chunk of change without a lot of investment of time or equipment. I don't ever give a bid for a birthday party that isn't worth my time, so the driving isn't an issue. I simply charge a travel fee if it's more than 20-30 minutes away. And if it's really far to the point where a travel fee that's enough to make my time worth it would scare away the customer, I send another artist who lives closer to the gig. AT the same time though, everyone has had a nightmare version of one or the other...doesn't necessarily mean that ALL of those types of events are bad. They vary depending on the personalities planning the event. The only way to know what works best for you is trial and error, and trying to get recurring bookings from the clients or type of events you enjoy most.

Wow, kinda hard question hehe.
I really like festivals, being my own boss and seeing the kids out on a sunny day enjoying themselves. (it does get well over 100 here sometimes tho). I just hate the tear down, the setup isnt bad, i'm rearing to go at that point but after 8 hours in the heat i'm pooped, so at times i get in the van with AC and make my hubby do it lol.
Like the others said, birthday parties are easier to setup and tear down but they just dont seem worth it at times if they are a hour long, the two hour ones i feel much better about.
I do like corporate events too. You know you can count on that money being there and at the ones i have done they have the check waiting for me before i even set up lol. It's nice!

My very first gig ever was 4th of July last year, i hadn't even done a birthday party at that point i just closed my eyes and jumped in with both feet. I was shaking all night the night before lol. I'm so glad i did tho, after that day i feel so confident in my abilities, it transformed me greatly.
Yes festivals take money to start up but you get so much out of them. I have booked at least 2 party's at each festival i do on average. So doing all the festivals i could get my hands on last summer got me at least 2 party's a month through the winter months. Well worth it in my opinion.

Good luck!