UKers - how much do you charge??

Hi all!

Well, I did the charity event yesterday and, baptism by fire that it was, it was both successful and incredible fun! Just for the possibilities of the future, though, I'm curious about something. I was hoping some UK face painters could help me out here, by letting me know how much you charge for face painting at parties and events? I've seen prices bandied about for US and Canadian businesses, but don't recall seeing any information about going rates in the UK.

I'd be very grateful if any of you felt you could let me know how much your usual charges are.

Thanks in advance!

Kammy x

I don't have an answer for you exactly, but you could try asking my friend, Celine. She is a lot closer to you than most of us I think. Here is her website http://www.ticklesandtrouble.co.uk/about.html

Thanks for the link, Perry - I may contact her and ask. :-) I know there are other, more local forums, but frankly FPF is by far my favourite and the people here have been so welcoming. x

Tickles is a sweetheart and an awesome clown! It never hurts to make local contacts in the biz

Hello Kammy,

Did you have any luck finding out what the usual to charge is?

Im also from the UK and not sure at all how much to charge for parties.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Nicola

Hiya!
I'm from Nottingham UK and charge quite reasonable prices I would think!
My first piece of advice would be to get yourself on google or yell.com and find local face painters near you, pretend you're a customer, phone them up and ask for some quotes for parties. It's a little bit cheeky but at least you can see what the going rate is. I did that and got a woman who charges £60 per hour.. I was hoping that the paints were made of gold.

I charge for around £35 for 1.5 hours and don't do any less than that. I also charge around £1 per mile for travelling too.

Hope this helps x

LOL, Perry I love how you have clown friends at the other end of the ocean!

I have clown/FP/ballooning friends all over the world... gotta love the internet!! (and Moose Camp)

Kammy, where abouts are you in the UK? There are LOADS of painters who I'm sure would be happy to have a chat to you

Sorry Sam, but I don't agree with your suggestion - it has been done before and to be honest it tends to put people offside if they find out I would suggest that you do a search and find a few who are local to you. Introduce yourself, and perhaps get to one of the regular Jam sessions that go on They are a very welcoming bunch, and I'm sure they would be happy to help

I'm in Aus, so can't help in the $$ department - but I do know many painters in the UK, so if you get stuck feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do

I did the cheeky thing of phoning around to see what the going rates were. But they were so varied! One was £25.00 per and one for £40.00!
Then there were a company who done it by face for £2.00.

I personally would rather have a rate per hour, at least that way you know how much your going to get for that gig. Once I get started on kids parties etc. I will be charging more at the £25.00 end - I don't think my skill level is high enough to charge any more than that.

I dont know if it is down to the area, but when I did my first booking, a Halloween party (I did for free to practice), the mum told me that she had a face painter for her daughter's birthday party and paid £35 for the hour and thought she was too cheap and should charge more. Another mum told me she would expect to pay £60 to £75.

According to their advices I decided to go for £50 to start with (im very sceptical about it) but when I got a booking the other day, and told the mum my price she was like "oh ok, nice!" With that kinda very happy face in the style of "I got a bargain"

I live in Surrey.

Im new, in the UK and have no idea what to charge. I've read countless articles online that say you should be charging a min £50 for 2 hours work for a party of 25-30 kids. Roughly works out at 2.50 a face with 5 mins painting time?

As i say, im new, i have friends that want to book me for their kids parties, but don't want them to feel i'm taking the .... if i ask for this or more depending on travel etc