A public festival has a never-ending line for as long as you are open, so cities plan around a budget, maximum service efficiency, and volunteers closing the line at the end.
You have a date, a park, and an attendance figure somebody estimated last year. What you do not have is a guest list, because anybody can walk up off the street and they will keep walking up for as long as the booth is open. So what decides how the day goes is how many artists are working at once, who closes the line at the end, and whether your department’s paperwork is finished before any of it is booked.
How many guests get a turn comes down to how many artists are working at once, because at a public event the line does not really end on its own. The line refills for as long as you are open, so the thing that changes how many people get served is how many artists are working at the same time.
Doubling up on the number of artists per entertainment service vs. doubling the entertainment options is usually your best bet. We are always happy to help direct you on the best number of artists per entertainment service you land on. If you plan to hire caricatures, we caution against hiring anything less than two artists. Two artists is a reasonable start for a small community event, and most cities book more than that.
At a city event, two families reaching a caricature artist at once can be eight to ten faces, and a stroller, two big kids, and a grandparent is one arrival and four turns. Picture your line as groups rather than as a count of individuals, because that is how it shows up. That is why getting more artists per entertainment should be based on who the target crowd will be. Caricatures are guaranteed to be favored by whole families, while balloon twisting may be limited by the city to kids only, so hiring more caricature artists than balloon twisters would make the most sense in that case. Being clear with the crowd and to the team on who the service is meant for can help with crowd control. Be clear about your goals as a city when you book so we can best help guide you in the direction that will lead to the smoothest event possible.
At a city festival, we narrow the menu to the designs that hold up at a faster pace, which lifts our face painters and balloon twisters to 25 designs an hour, guaranteed, rather than the 20 we guarantee at a party (which means an extra 20 kids per artist at a 4-hour event). Every service we offer has a sliding scale between speed and detail, and clean work sits at both ends of it — a face painting with clean lines is a good face painting whether the design is simple or detailed, and the same goes for a two-balloon design next to a six-balloon one. More time buys more detail, so when the line does thin out, your artists take the extra minutes, and the designs can get grander. Usually, city events want the scale tipped in favor of quantity, so we default to quick-paced, efficient work regardless of which service is hired.
A volunteer standing with the line is worth about another five guests an hour, per artist, at any event with a line and more than one artist working it. At a festival, they have a second job that matters just as much. Around twenty minutes before the end is a good moment to check in — your artists will look up, read the line against the team they are working with, and tell your volunteer how many more guests they can take in the time left. Anybody past that number is told not to stand in the line, so people are not left standing twenty minutes for a turn that was not going to come. The parents that aren't told will make themselves known.
There is no set cut-off time, because a long line with four artists on it is a different answer than a short one with two. Asking the artists is what gets your volunteer a number they can actually hold the line to, and it keeps your artist facing the chair rather than the back of the line.
Teens at a city event tend to arrive in their own group rather than with a parent, so they are the part of your crowd most likely to walk straight past a booth that has nothing in it for them— face painting, balloon twisting, glitter tattoos. Henna, on the other hand, is a teenager's must-have, and our artists stick to the simple options at large events so they can finish at least 15-20 tattoos an hour depending on the size of the design.
Henna is considered more of a teen and older service for a few reasons. It is a staining of the skin, not just something put on top of it, and in order to stain it, it has to sit wet on your skin for hours, meaning enough patience not to scratch it off before it is ready to flake off on its own. The only way for this service to live up to the longevity and cleanliness of the awesome temporary tattoos it is is with care and patience. In short, kids will smear this all over their skin and clothes pretty much as soon as they leave the table.
City events tend to be the most organized ones we work. Stanchions, canopies, equipment and a sign for each vendor, crowd-control volunteers, vendor parking, power nearby, and staff who have done this before. So, while you are still drawing the site map, please remember to consider lighting. A festival that opens in the afternoon and closes after dark leaves your artists working in the dark for the last hour of it, and a face painting or a caricature has to be seen to be done well. There is more on who provides what in What you need from us, and what we need from you.
The hardest part of a city booking is the department-requirement hoops to jump through. Cities may each ask for something a little different, but we have yet to meet a requirement we could not satisfy. Purchase orders, ACH, and business checks are all routine here, and however many artists and services you book, it stays one vendor, one invoice, and one payment for your finance department to process.
General liability insurance up to $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, and naming the city and its elected officials, officers, employees, agents, and volunteers as additional insured on a separate endorsement page are all covered and sent over within 24 hours of receiving the required verbiage. And every artist we send is covered under our basic policy and, on their own, carries auto insurance.
Travel fees are usually $25–$35+ per artist, depending on artist availability in your area. City events tend to book longer hours, so regardless of the usual travel fee, the artists waive them for longer bookings. City clients' loyalty matters to us, so we deliver our best possible customized large-order discount packages to all of our returning city clients and are always open to establishing new ones.
Some of the cities we work with charge their attendees a nominal amount for each service, a couple of dollars, and it does two jobs at once. It lets the department hire more artists than the entertainment budget alone would cover, and it keeps the line manageable, which at a large public event is often a necessity rather than a nicety. What you are offering is still not a service a family could buy anywhere near that price. It is a heavily subsidized one rather than a free one, and we think it is a good way of doing it.
The one thing it asks of you is somebody to take the money. We are hired for the day rather than paid per face, so our artists do not handle any payment at the event itself. Your line workers or volunteers collect it, which is one more reason to have somebody standing with the line.
Handprint painting and kids' fancy nails are most suited for private events like birthday parties. We caution against both at a public event for the same reasons: they need to dry, and they take more time. A handprint painting comes off the table wet, so your guest either carries it until the inevitable smear, or comes back for it later, and at a public event there is no real way to track that. Kids' fancy nails takes the longest of all services, and patience is not how I would describe city patrons. At a birthday party, there is somewhere to set a painting down, and the same children are there the whole time, with not nearly as many people to bump into. At a festival, a family is at your booth for five minutes, and then they are gone. So we suggest saving these two services for another day.
Face Painting20 designs an hour, guaranteed. By Disneyland-trained artists.More →
Balloon Twisting20 designs an hour, guaranteed. Twisting up all kinds of balloon creations!More →
CaricaturesBlack & white to detailed color, treat your guests to the perfect party favors!More →
Glitter Tattoos15-20 an hour. Waterproof — great for pool parties.More →
Henna Tattoos10-15 tattoos an hour, depending on the size of the design. All-natural henna.More →Built for big crowds. With a roster of more than 60 artists across Southern California we can send as many as needed to any single event. It is why we work with so many cities regularly. Need more than four artists? Send in a booking/inquiry form and we will build you a custom package quote that includes your deserved discounts.
Every price on this site is a real price you can see without filling anything out. When you are ready, send in a booking/inquiry form and we will confirm your date and your pricing by email.
Confirm pricing or check availability →