questions about fairs--face painting, glitter tattoos, and balloons

I am planning on doing several fairs this year. This is my first year going as a vendor instead of doing charity work. My husband does balloon animals. The two fairs I am looking at are county fairs and they charge between $150 and $200 for a 10x10 space for five days. My hubby and I would share the space and charge per face or per balloon. Our oldest daughter and son would help us and perhaps do glitter tattoos. Do you think it would be worth it to do these fairs? How would I figure out how many balloons, paint, glitter, etc. to buy? We still have to buy an EZ Up, tables, an chairs. Do you think we would at least be able to break even?

Have any of you ever sold balloon creations at venues like this? Have you done well? Have you gotten angry customers because their balloons popped, and what did you do about it?

I wish I could offer you hard and fast answers but with these types of things, especially in our fest heavy area, there are many variables as to what makes them profitable and successful (weather, traffic, location placement, competition, etc.)

I do a lot of the county fairs not far from you. We're based on the west side of Rochester area and work from West Syracuse to Buffalo and into the Southerntier (Ithaca, Watkins Glen side of it) doing fairs and festivals.

I don't know what the East side/Northern areas will support as far as balloons, because we don't do them, but there are a few things to keep in mind for body art.

County fairs can be WONDERFUL (or else we wouldn't do them) but they don't offer exclusivity, and many state that right in their contracts. If it's a small fair (I'm assuming it is from the price) and there are other painters there, it is hard to make cost. You need to research and see if there are other painters allowed in prior to submitting your app. If you want PM me which ones you are looking at and I can let you know if we're there or have done it, or know anyone who has.

On top of this is traffic volume. You need to find out what the event volume is per day. If you are just going to be sitting around 3 of the 5 days because it isn't busy, then it isn't worth it. If the thru-the-gate traffic can support the amount of painters there, then try.

Along with this would be where you are placed. Many offer first come, first serve on placement. Applying late might mean that you aren't in the most ideal placement for your target traffic to see you. Ask where you will be, even the general idea of the area, and where the other painters will be. This will help you assess traffic.

Many of the ones I do pay a clown to perform and do balloon animals for free, so you will want to check into that as well.

I'm not sure if you already have it, but county fairs also require insurance. It wasn't on your list of expenditures, so I wanted to mention it just in case.
Also several state in their contracts that they require professionally made signs only, nothing hand painted, etc. Plus you will need to have lights for your booth for the night of the fairs. Those are sneaky expenditures that you might not have thought of outside of the structure.

As for the amount of supplies, again it's hard to gauge because with volume/traffic, placement, other painters and weather it can vary hugely. Too hot/humid and business drops just as much as if we get too much rain.

I will say, though, that I have never gone out to buy the supplies or the structure based on one or two events. I break down the cost over the course of how many events per year I will use them at, or in the case of tents, over the course of events over years that I will use it. I never expect to break even on everything from one event.

As I said I wish I had hard and fast answers but there are too many variables. All I can offer is do your research, figure out ALL costs, how much you would have to make per day to get it back and then once you've crunched the numbers, see if it works for you.

Good luck!

Thanks, Lynnie. I am in the Broome and Tioga Counties area. I am planning on getting insurance. I just forgot to list that.

I was contacted to perform at Broome a couple years ago and I offered a discount on performance if we could put the booth there. They did warn me that someone else was there. It ended up that we didn't do the fair but definitely check with them and see.

Good luck!!! One other suggestion if you do these, keep a fan in the booth. It gets hot!

Are you saying that you weren't going to pay for a booth like a vendor, but they were going to pay you to come? They told me they don't have a facepainter for this year. That kind of made me nervous because I thought that maybe their previous painter didn't feel it was worth it.

We do sideshow and circus performances, so we get paid to come in and do those things. Sometimes we offer discounts on our performances if we can put in a booth, so it works out better for both parties.

For all I know the previous face painters were there for charity instead of paid vendors. I wouldn't want to make any assumptions to how or what they did. We didn't go because we had events closer to home offered to us.

Do they offer tent rentals by any chance? A couple of the fairs up here offer tent rentals for $80 for the week. That might help you out.

Great ideas and things to think about! Thank you so much for your help.

I would say the fee for 5 days isn't bad. Many people pay that for one day.

Let us know how you make out.

-Metina

My pleasure Lori!

Hopefully I'll see you down the line somewhere since we're so close!

I regularly pay $80 per day for a festival... anything more then that it starts becoming nonviable.... I have paid $130 before, and probably will again.

I would suggest explaining to them that you really arn't a vendor.
What you do is paid entertainment and having you there will make the festival ... well a festival, as festivals aren't festivals without face painting and balloons.
Explain your takings for the day will be limited by the amount you can actually paint... so if there is a huge rush of people you can't suddenly sell all of your stuff and make a killing.... that puts you in a different catagory.

Usually after I have explained this they offer me their "charity rate" which is substantially less then what a Vendor pays.
Here it's usually split into - Food Vendor, being most expensive, general, not for profit or community, and sponsored.
It's pretty hard for us to fit into those molds so I always end up doing a back and forth personally with events organizers to get the price I want and exclusivity ( if at all possible).
Remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so speak up and see what you can get out of them.

With the balloon thing I would put up a sign that says -
" Our balloons are echo friendly and fully bio-degradable - which means they de-grade in the sun so as not to become an enviromental issue.
Exposure to the sun will lead to the balloon art popping.
We do our best to ensure you get the most out of your balloon art but appreciate your understanding in that once you have left our tent with your balloon we can no-longer offer you a replacement."

Or something to that effect..... that was just off the top of my head.
I have only done two day events, so the idea of a week or two makes me exhausted just thinking about it!

I have some new questions now. One of the fairs has changed their pricing. They are giving me a choice--indoors is $60 for the week with 2 free hours of painting/balloons on kids' day and we can charge what we want the rest of the time OR outdoors is 10% of our sales and 2 free hours of painting/balloons on kids' day. I asked if we would be placed by the rides area if we are outdoors, and she said yes. She also said there is a kids area indoors that we would be placed next to if we were there.

My husband feels that if we are outdoors just paying the vendor fee of $150 might be better than the 10% deal. He feels that going indoors is the best deal of the two. I think that indoors may mean a lot less traffic and business, so outdoors would be better. However, we don't have a tent yet. Would buying a tent off-set the benefit of being outdoors? I'm still thinking outdoors would have much higher traffic, though if it rains it could backfire...I don't know.

Hubby and I are not fighting or in a disagreement over it, just discussing the pros and cons without any real experience with fairs.

Having no tent and little fair experience would tip the direction in the favour of inside to me especially if there is air conditioning - you'd have the dual advantage of no rain/sun, and less heat/cold generally giving you the chance to try it out.

I like percentage deals (10% sounds great to me for a fair compared to some I've done) because if it *does* rain or is otherwise quiet, you have no direct cost outlay more than you've made.... it's less risk - to get to the point of needing to pay them $150 you'd have to bring in $1500 - figure out how many faces that is for you, and how many you can do an hour (if the lines are long) - that will give you a better idea if it is more worth it to pay the flat rate.

hmmm I worked a festival where I had to paint for free for three hours for the sponsor and the rst of the time was mine.... change over was a disaster!
People followed me in a big line from my stall to the sponsors tent ... when I got there and set up the line was over 1 hour long wait!...
Then they all followed me back.
And the difficulty of explaining between this time and this time is free but the rest of the time it's $5 or whatever.... I hope they have planned something out for you so it works smoothly.