how to position for festivals

This is my first year doing festivals. I don't know how anyone does it. If you are doing a 60,000 festival, do you hire, divide cost with another face painter? Do they bring their own board? How do you interview for another face painter? should they have different designs? Please help me....I have always done it alone but I see there is a limit to what I can make. I think I do it pretty fast, they still wait in line (hate that) so I am thinking that I should have other face painters in my booth but I don't know where to get them, what to offer them in pay, I want to make sure they are good face painters...Anyone have experience in this?
Thanks for any help
Ramona
facepaintnmama.com

I too was overwhelmed at large events and now I have a person who helps me paint. I asked the (artistically inclined) mother of one of my daughter's best friends. We share the cost of the vendor fee. We use my menu boards, signs, and business cards (includes her name/number). She has learned my designs and keeps a cheat sheet beside her on designs she has to refer to. I don't pay her anything. She keeps any money & tips that she makes. When I am busy and can't cover a party, she takes it. So far, it's working out really well. We've had some slow events where one person COULD have handled it. We just enjoy the fact we are able to go potty or take a break when needed. When there is only one, that's pretty hard to do. We have one line and the next person goes to the next available seat.

When she first started painting with me, I did not ask her to pay any of the vendor fee.  She made what she painted, and that was an incentive to paint better and paint faster.   She also did the glitter tattoos and received most of what was made for them (I asked for a re-stocking fee).   NOW, as far as birthday parties, when she first started, I went with her and painted the majority of the kids, and paid her a portion of the party fee.   I knew she could paint when I asked her to help me.   She showed me that she could paint my designs, (painting on a practice head and also herself and any kids she could find).  Her main problem was speed.  She is still not as fast as I am, but she is a help, she is making enough money to satisfy her at events, she is covering birthday parties alone now, and all is ok, lol.

Also, she uses a small kit I put together for her. Some may not agree with how we handle it, but it works for us. She's not trying to steal my clients. I have a full-time job and work 2 weekends out of each month. I needed someone ON MY SIDE who could cover those weekends and still have my name out there.

I work sometimes with another painter. We do festivals together where we know the crowd will sustain having both of us together. We split the vendor fee, both set up our boards, and bring a cheat book of our own designs to give each other. I am faster and better, but she is really pretty good, and can do amazing cheek art, which I HATE. We each keep whatever we make, both for painting and tips.
Every time we have worked together, we have used her booth and both of our design boards. When I have a festival where I need her to work with me, I will only use my boards and have her paint my designs. I don't like some of hers and they are the ones I inevitably have to do. Boo. Besides, I'm faster with my own tried-and-true designs.

I actually have a apprentice. She wears a shirt that says Apprentice FacePainter and I let her pay 1/3 of the vendor fee and she also pays 1/3 of the line control manager fee if I have to have one. She uses my board and I print her out a cheat sheet of my sample board. By having apprentice on her shirt parents are aware she's learning. Some choose to come to me and others are happy going to her. If she feels like she didn't do a good job I give her the option of not taking payment or discounting. Over all she is doing good, with more practice she will be great. She is already doing birthday parties for family and friends of the family. I let her keep what she makes and her tips.

I started sharing my county fair booth with my mom some days, once I had kids, so my hubby wouldn't have to take the entire week off. She paints my designs. What we do is I'll pay for the booth, and we both keep what we make. Then at the end of the fair we calculate what percentage of the total we each made. Then we each pay that same percentage of the booth fees. Sometimes I'll pay the whole booth fee and she'll reimburse me. Other years we've split the booth costs and then just adjusted our fees at the end...usually I'll end up owing her a little since I paint more there. It has worked out great for us. The hard part though is finding someone you trust 100% to report accurately how much they bring in.

I only have one festival that I can't do by myself because it is very busy. In the beginning I asked a friend that is very sweet, great with children and we get along great, if she would like to learn to face paint for this event. She jumped in and learned and is great to work with. Then we realized it was still too busy for the 2 of us and we now have a young lady that I trained working with us (she is also engaged to my son. We divide the vendor fee, I pay a bit more because my advertising is on the booth. We evenly divide the line manager payment.

This has worked very well and like someone said earlier, when one of us can't do an event or party, we just pass it to the next person.

I think the best part of having these lovely ladies as helpers is the fun we have together and the fact that if we need a break, we can actually take it! Yay!