Breach of contract

For those of you with exclusivity clauses in your contract how would you handle a breach situation?

For instance, let's say you're booked for a 4th of July Festival, you're supposed to be the only face painter and the organization has signed your contract. When you get there you find one or two other face painters. Upon reminding the organization of your agreement, they could care less because they have face painters, but now you've lost money because you could have been doing another 4th gig where there was easy money?

I hope my question is clear enough, I'm not always good at communicating things like this in writing.

I don't do this type f event--but I would think that if it is in your contract, & they signed & you paid, I would ask for a refund OR small claims for a refund & damages (lost income if you ended up not staying busy because of the additional painters). I think it would depend a little on the circumstances of the mix-up, their attitude & if you want to be there next time. If they are really nice, maybe they could just promo you in exclusively next time. (And get it in writing...;0)

I have a clause in my contract stating that ANY breach will incur an extra 35% fee, at my discretion. At that point, they either pay it or it goes to collections. The only breaches I've really dealt with are NSF and no payments, but the same principal would apply to me in your situation

I would guess you could take them to small claims, but you’d probably have to prove that their breach caused you to suffer damages (loss of income). It couldn’t hurt to send them a letter, with a copy of the contract they signed (area breached highlighted) and demand a refund of the vendor fee you paid. That totally sucks though - sorry you’re having to deal with it.

I'm not having to deal with Evie, but thanks for your concern. I'm preparing on how to deal with it in the event that I need to

Oh good! I did have a situation where someone was offering FREE face paint at their booth. Organizer asked them to stop but once she was out of site, they started again. Since I had agreed to pay a percentage of my income I sent her a nice little letter (which included pics of them with a line of kids) with my check telling her that it would have been higher if she had taken care of the situation. I didn't do the event the year after that and now they have a new organizer. I told her upfront that she needs to make sure it does not happen again.

If I was being paid to be there, I would demand one of two things happen.

1. You boot the other face painters, and I get to work.
2. If you don't, I leave and you still have to pay me in full, as it's in my contract that YOU signed.

The choice is yours.

If it were a gig where I was doing pay per face.

1. I would demand that the other face painters be shut down as it's a breech of contract.
2. I would threaten to sue them for a beech of contract and lost earnings.

I have detailed earnings records showing how much I can make and any given event, so based on the number of people attending I would sue for the amount I could have made.

Though before it gets into any of that, I would really get on their naughty word about booting the other artists, and only bring up legal action if they refused.

I've had to do this before, and the other artists got shut down before I even had to mention legal action for breech of contract.

Thank you FF! Sound advice as always.