Plan Your Facepainting Party To Ensure Success

As a facepainter and a professional party planner, we like to guide the person booking a party with some general advice. Unfortunately, the following story illustrates when the client didn’t wish to follow the observations:

I was asked to arrive at a large park with many acres of property to conduct a facepainting party for young children.  Upon arrival, all the parking spots were filled for miles, so vital time was taken up trying to find a spot on one way lanes… It took quite some time for a guest to find my vehicle and, consequently, haul a lot of facepainting supplies over a large span of park to the planned location. As artists, we like to arrive before the guests, and set up our table and supplies. It is necessary to ensure that we have a table and chairs, just for the artist and guest, so they can have a private place to conduct the activity.

Unfortunately, the mother of the birthday boy, had accidentally booked the wrong day through Parks and Recreation, and had no spot reserved to sit at… The park consisted mostly of outdoor picnic seats and they were all filled! Then, the weather turned on us and a torrential rainstorm poured down on the guests.

Luckily, we all found a picnic shelter to huddlein, although it was dark and had open doorways. Rain started pouring into the shelter, so one of the guests had to find a bucket and supplies to dump the water off the dirt floor.  The kids were all afraid from hearing the thunder and lightning. Other people that were uninvited guests also entered the shelter to avoid the storm.

Now, there were few places for me to spread out my supplies to do facepainting. It was dark and noisy, which are not perfect conditions to perform my best artistry… The birthday boy was only 1 year old and was squirming and over tired from being surrounded by guests and a rainstorm.

This was an expensive and embarrassing lesson learned for the hostess.

Moral of the story:

• Double check that your party location is booked properly and that it is on the correct day.
• Book an indoor location, as an option, with proper lighting, electricity, and a washroom and water source.
• Booking outdoor locations is risky at a park, due to weather changes, and access to washrooms. At the least, bring some umbrellas and portable tables and chairs, in case of inclement weather.
• Ensure that there is parking nearby, as the face painter might have to drag boxes of supplies, tables and a water source to the site.
• Consider the number of guests and age groups when you are planning a party.  Babies and little tots get tired quickly and may spend the entire time crying or wanting a quiet nap, instead of a 3 hour party surrounded by 50 adults.