PPF event at a school boutique

My old elementary school (sorta, didn't graduate from there, but decently fond memories) is having a fundraiser/holiday boutique next Sunday and I bought a table. It's a vendor fair and normally I'm a glass painter, but this year I'll also be painting faces. I'm the only facepainter. It's a 5 hour event. TONS of kids (many of the families here have 5-10 kids, and all 10 kids might go with mom to the boutique). The school is getting their funds by charging the vendors $45 instead of charging the parents/community an enterance fee.

I've seen the event advertised semi-decently throughout my old neighborhood.

Here's the question: how much do I charge? The economy hit HARD here. Things haven't really bounced back well for many of my neighbors...and those are the people who are going to be at the boutique.

I've never charged before. Never had a paying gig before (just volunteered/did birthday parties were my friends covered the cost of supplies only). I've got a semi-decent repitoire of cheek art and forehead art that I can do in 3-5 minutes -dolphins, snakes, flowers, roses, vines, hearts, stars, cheek butterflies (although my mask butterfly looks like something my 2 year old came up with), rainbows, forhead crowns, spiders/spiderwebs, etc.

My goal at the boutique is to get exposure. Most people only know me as the 'glass painter'. My goal is also to get more experience painting faces. Am I undercutting myself horribly if I charge $2 a face for cheek art?

I think that considering the economy, that is a pretty good price for cheek art. For the larger designs, though, I would definitely charge more.
Oh, and make sure you get it in writing that you are going to be the only face painter there. Too many of us have been promised that only to find out that it wasn't true and lose money because of it.

I had a similar dilemma recently at a school fun day that I was asked to paint at. The kids were coming with pocket money basically, and they also wanted to buy junk to eat too. I ended up charging a quarter of my normal price and I didn't get up for 4 hours!!!!!!!!! I managed to change my water once! I can't even tell you how many cards I gave out and how many birthday's were lined up too.
Go low, don't feel bad, make sure you don't do any big designs and it'll be worth it!

If they are charging you instead of the parents then I would be careful not to sell yourself too short. Can you do enough faces in the allotted time to make the booth fee at that price? at $2 a face you have to do 23 of them to make your booth fee back.

I agree, be careful.

$3 is a great starting price, to me, depending on area and how things might go. Just make sure that you doing faces that are $3, don't give away a $10 for a $3.

Like my $3 designs don't involve more than one color than a white and a black. Or like a tribal dragon or scorpion, only black and white! They look awesome though and it works.

I hope it turns out really, really well! If nothing else, a fun time will be had, connections will be made and learning will go up! Seems like every time I do something, I do learn something.

<3

I personally wouldnt go lower than 3$ a design, but then i find cheek art soo much harder than say a butterfly eye design lol. We have some large families here and to make it economical and possible for all in one family to be painted i offer a family discount. Its the going price for the first 2 kids and half that for all kids after. So if i was charging 5$ a face i would make 10 on the first 2 kids and 2.50$ for the rest of the kids in a family. even in tough times id shell out a few bucks for my kids cool face painting(if i didnt paint now lol) and the lower price for large families makes it possible for everyone to get it done. but i dont advertise the family deal or everyone and thier dog would 'pretend' to be related lol i wait to see the families approach me... not as complicated as im making it out here lol good luck though i am sure you'll have a deep long line regardless let us know how it goes

Well, it's over! I ended up doing $3 and $5 faces. The weather did NOT cooperate and I painted just 18 kids.
But I got to advertise my business, I made back the price of the booth, and I managed to make a butterfly in 4 minutes! Whomever said the butterfly was the most popular...you were SOOO right! I still need to work on the rainbow butterfly, but a pink butterfly was my most requested item. I ended up making something that looks like this (but in pink, see below) a couple hundred times.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f64/16/34/16/67/211.jpg

tamarielpaints wrote:Well, it's over! I ended up doing $3 and $5 faces. The weather did NOT cooperate and I painted just 18 kids.
But I got to advertise my business, I made back the price of the booth, and I managed to make a butterfly in 4 minutes! Whomever said the butterfly was the most popular...you were SOOO right! I still need to work on the rainbow butterfly, but a pink butterfly was my most requested item. I ended up making something that looks like this (but in pink, see below) a couple hundred times.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f64/16/34/16/67/211.jpg

Most importantly you were able to, advertise your business and make back the price for your booth. And getting plenty of practice too.