Well down from the previous year.

Last year we did $1500 at this one day event. This year we only hit $1100. Still good, but definately down. That pattern seems to be consistent across all the events that we do. Probably the recession.

Fortunately, since then we have added our retail line to what we sell, so we finished up higher overall (just under three thousand for the day).

If you don't have some kind of retail line that you sell along with your "face painting" consider adding one. We do teen fashion jewelry and accessories, but really anything will work. Consider princess or hair -- we started out with princess stuff ourselves.

Here is our current retail set-up. It's a lot, but my wife woks that while my daughter and I do makeup.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a41/Chris_texas/005.jpg

Speaking of princess stuff, that's actually what we sold when we first added retail. Here's a picture of our very first retail display.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a41/Chris_texas/253.jpg

Thank you so much for sharing Smacky, I'm impressed.
I never thought about adding retail to my clowning. I've always wanted to open a shop and now I see how they could work together.
Definately something to think about in the future.

Does mixing the retail and service aspects make it difficult for you to negotiate vendor space?

Does mixing the retail and service aspects make it difficult for you to negotiate vendor space?

Not really. Or not so far anyway. At very crowded events we sometimes need to drop our retail down to a single booth -- did that last weekend actually. But overall no.

Thank you so much for sharing Smacky, I'm impressed.
I never thought about adding retail to my clowning. I've always wanted to open a shop and now I see how they could work together.
Definately something to think about in the future.

If you are face painting you should DEFINATELY add some retail products, if nothing else as add on sales. For example, adding a halo to your most expensive designs adds a dollar cost to you and five bucks to the price you can charge. Or alternately just offer the halo as a $5 up-charge.

Another good add-on is hair bows and ribbons and what not. Lots of options there in terms of how to display them, and the price is very low.

In winter you definately need to have a supply of cold weather caps and beanies in both adult and kid's sizes -- you are banking here on the folks who forgot them at home. Like everything else I sell, I have them imported wholesale so my cost is very low, but if nothing else and you cannot find any you could hit up walmart and mark them up as much as you can get away with. Charge at least 5 or 6 bucks each.

Right now we really don't do the princess thing any more. There's nothing wrong with it, I just wanted something that appealed to teens rather than kids, so we do the fashion jewelry thing now. You can make plenty with anything if you do it properly.

And yes, you can easily make a decent living doing just this.

that's great... i was thinking about adding headbands with animal ears (bunnies, tigers, etc.) but haven't gone that route yet as I've been focusing on other aspects of my clowning than just fairs and such. Maybe for next spring when the outdoor events start up again.