Festival Set-ups

I do several festivals each year as well as setting up weekly at the Downtown Windsor Farmers' Market.  These outdoor events require more equipment than just doing birthday parties, so I thought I would cover some of those things to help anyone who might be thinking about getting into those kinds of events.

Tent/Canopy - most of these events will require you to bring your own shelter.  Don't risk going without it by just getting shade under a tree or something.  If you will be there for most of a day (or over several days), it is definitely worth putting up a tent.  There are cheap and easy ones for occasional use like the FirstUp ones from Walmart.  I had one of those, but in a high wind and being left overnight, this will not be sufficient.  Once I came the next day to find it rather warped and had to kind of untwist it to get it up properly again, the second time though (while I will grant there were tornadoes in the area that night) it was completely uprooted and in a tangled mess when I showed up the next morning.  My current tent is one that I bought at Costco, made by a company called Caravan.  It was about $200 and well worth the money.  Go for white rather than green or something.  It is cooler and as a face painter, I don't want funny colours being cast onto my clients' faces.

Tables - you need to decide how much room you will need for all your stuff.  Some people bring everything including the kitchen sink, those people might need a couple of tables.  Or if you will have more than one person working in the space, you will probably want one table for each person.  When working on my own, I find that a 4 foot table is enough for me.  Many different sizes and shapes are available at Staples, I got mine for about $50.

Chairs - There are many different ways of setting yourself up at a festival.  I have a tall director's chair for the customers to sit in while I stand and paint them.  This is easiest on my back and for me to be able to move around them as needed while painting.  My chair is from EZ Up, I have my name printed on the inside back of the chair and it cost me about $200.  It came with a large black bag to carry it in and it has been well worth the money spent.  I believe that if you live in the US there are some cheaper options on Amazon, but none of them would ship to Canada when I was looking.  You will also want to bring a chair for yourself.  I use it when making balloons sometimes so that I'm not kneeling on the ground to get closer to the kids and in between customers or when taking a break for lunch.  The chair I use for myself is a little folding one with a back on it from Canadian Tire.  They sell for $10 or $15.

Signage - You will need to post your prices, your name/contact info, and some photos to draw people into your booth.  For my face painting, I have two "small" outdoor banners from vistaprint.  I made image files to match the dimensions they specify for the whole banner, one banner for each price point.  I hang these from the front of my tent using shower curtain hooks or the plastic baby toy links (those are nice because they are colourful, but sometimes the shower curtain hooks are easier to find).  I recently got a third small banner with by balloon sculptures listed and grouped by price.  I don't post pictures of these because there are just too many of them.  I have one more banner, it is a LARGE one... I put it at the back of my tent because I have not found a way of attaching it in the front without it hanging down too low, but it is easily seen and has my name and website proudly displayed on it along with the words "face painting & balloons" because it is very important that everyone knows right away WHAT you are doing there!  I have one more little a-frame folding sign... I found it at Staples and it works out well for facing the direction of traffic walking by (as some will have their blinders on to everything beside them).  On this sign, I usually post the prices and my name again.

What to bring - This depends on what you are doing somewhat, but there are some things that are consistent.  If you are face painting, bring your entire kit (you never know what you will need/want, so don't upset yourself with "I wish I had brought my...").  Make sure you have as many sponges as possible.  Even if you are the kind of painter that uses one per colour instead of one per child, you may find that one ends up on the ground or covered in boogers or whatever and you'll need to replace it, so bring a lot of them.  Bring your own water, you never know how far away the nearest supply will be and you want to be able to change your water as often and quickly as necessary.  For balloons, bring as many as you can carry, your cutter or scissors, markers, etc.  And now for the everybody-needs-these extras: food and drinks for yourself (you could go broke buying it all there), garbage bags, scissors, several different kinds of tape, markers, pens, string or twine, a construction/shop style lamp that you can hang from the top of your tent if you will be there later in the evening and will have access to power (and extension cords?), and a cash box with LOTS of change (I usually go through 5s faster than anything else).

How to bring it - As you can see, you have a lot to bring and you don't want to make 50 trips to your car, even if you can get it pretty close to your spot to unload (you can't always, you don't want to leave everything there overnight and you won't be able to get your car back in there in the evening in between a multiple day event).  You want something with wheels for most of your stuff.  Rolling suitcases, scrapbooking cases, or (as I have) a rolling tool box.  Mine is a FatMax rolling toolbox made by Stanley.  Prices vary depending on where you live and sales going on, but it's usually around the $100 mark.  It's kind of heavy, so some people only use them for festivals where they have a lot to bring... I use mine for parties too though because, as a clown, I have a lot to bring with me everywhere and can fit everything in it.  You'll need a cooler for your food and drinks.  There really isn't any way to get around carrying your table and chairs, but hopefully your canopy case has wheels on it like mine.  I couldn't move my canopy without wheels since it is taller than me even when folded in the case.  My signage and little folding chair fit into my director's chair bag pretty well.  While each trip from the car will be heavy, you can probably get away with only 3 or 4 trips to unload it all.

You'll put in a lot of hours at a festival, but unless you can book 4 or 5 hourly gigs in the same weekend, you'll probably make some pretty good money working pay per face and pay per balloon.  It depends on the number of people that come to the festival of course and somewhat on the weather, but it is a chance that I often take as long as the booth fees aren't ridiculous.

Happy Fest-ing! :oD
Perry Noia the Scaredy Clown