History:
There is an event that is held every year a few blocks away from our house that is a big local event for our neighborhood. When I first moved here I handed them my card and told them i was local and that I'm a face painters and would love to support my community. And for 2 years they ignored me, until last year they called me because i wouldn't stop bugging them lol. They asked prices and i asked what their budget was. $400 for 2 artists for 6 hours..... ouch, even with our old prices that was a pretty big cut. But i accepted because it's our local community and i wanted to provide my services and hand out cards to local families. Also I was sure once the event saw what we had to offer, they might get us again next year and perhaps pay our rate or something close.
We brought our entire set up, signs, tent and everything and had a HUGE line up all day, and the organizers hey saw our work, our talent and what we had to offer. A total success.
This Year:
So I get an email last month asking pretty much "hey! want to do 2 face painters for 6 hours for $400 again?"
Rats, so much for paying our rate.... so i opened with our non-profit rate spiel. Told them our regular rate and what they would be saving. They would be saving $600 with our non profit rate, and we only asked for $200 more then they offered, so $600 total. I also added that if this isn't in their budget to please contact me and we can work something out.
then nothing..... no email, no call. nada.... I called them after a week, and spoke to the organizer and asked if she got my email.
"yeah we did. But we only have $400."
"Oh I understand. We can still do the event for $400, but perhaps there is another way we could also do business. Such as mention us in your advertising flyers where it says 'face painting' say "face painting provided by -my company name-" or give use a shout out on your face book page?"
She said she'd "talk to the board" and call me back.
Then nothing.... no email, no call, nada. Really not impressed with the lack of communication.
I call her back a week later.
"yeah you guys are too expensive."
"But we met your budget.... we said we would do it for $400 and a face book post....."
"Well we already hired some one else."
"I see. Good luck with your event."
Needless to say i was not happy. Before they got us they hired some cheapo under cutting company that does craptastic stuff, and is very unsanitary. But I got over it.
Then my neighbors were asking us if we were going to be back again this year, and we had to say no (and told a few of them what happened, which they weren't happy about, because this event is supposed to be supporting local business's.... can't get any more local then down the street...)
But then to my surprise I was walking down the main drag getting groceries and I spot on of their posters in a store window and notice something VERY interesting.
That's ME! and in the back you can clearly see my partner Aryn! Both our faces clearly visible. (this is a photo of a poster not a scan, it's clearer IRL)
Boy was I ticked!
I wasn't sure what to do about it. I mean the photo was taken at their event last year, and we were working for them at the time. But holy hell I do not like them using it this year if they aren't getting me back!
Was thinking about an angry email of phone call, but decided against it. On the day of the event I had some time between my bookings, so i stopped by to see who they hired. Sure enough it was the under cutting hacks of years passed. They hire any one who responds to their ads.
They had NOTHING to their set up. Not even a sign that said 'face painting' NOTHING. I wanted to get a photo of the hideous table so i sat down to get a flower, because there was no line. (again no signs)
In the 4 minutes it took her to paint a simple flower on my hand i took photos of the table pretending like i was a tourist type and this was 'an experience'. I just asked like most adults do when they choose to get their faces painted by me. "Nothing big, just a flower, but it has to have glitter!"
While she was painting she asked if I have ever had my hand painted before. lol I told her "Yes but not by some one with your level of artistic talent though."
Not necessarily a lie when you think about the wording
So i proceeded to snap some shots while she worked.
Here is the table.
All I can say is EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
Used a drinking cup to hold their reject brushes and a nothing else was on the table. What you see is what was there
The "water" was really low on both sides and BLACK. and i use "quotes" on the word water because I'm pretty sure one side was 99% iso because of the bottle on the table. Also i asked what kind of paints they were and she said she didn't know, but they were "either water based of alcohol based". *face palm* She was dipping from both sides to activate the clearly snazaroo paints. Drying out the paints and putting straight 99% on the skin..... and they did full faces on skids near the eyes too like this! I watched! But it was probably pretty diluted at that point...
They pay their artists $14/hr and there were two of them so the company must have been taking home more then half of the $400. And they can't afford a sign or some brushes that don't look like they are used for cleaning car parts? Or even to TEACH their artists what paints they are using?
So it took a long time, about 3-4 min (yes i was timing it on my phone). She drew each petal, filled each petal, put white in each petal, drew each leaf, filled each leaf, then slowly outlined everything, then dots, and glitter. While she was painting some kids lined up and i told her i didn't want to make them wait, but she insisted on finishing, and said this would be a show piece because i was holding so still.
Behold the show piece.
I know I know... I shouldn't make fun. I wonder how good i would been working with brushes that looked like they came from the arts and crafts drawer at a pre-school and trying to use 99% iso to paint with water based makeup.
I was more upset that this is what MY community gets stuck with, when they have a professional living right down the street. This event claims to support the local community but everything is half a$ and cheeped out on. There were pony rides with NO HELMETS, and every business tent was offering a different crappy craft to make with crappy cheap stuff. Disappointing. If it wasn't a weekend in the summer i might have done it for free just to support my local community.
Still can't believe that woman though, I MET her budget and she couldn't even do a face book post, THEN has the nerve to put me and my partner on her poster.
So this week I'm going down to London Drugs (the store whose parking lot this is held in, and they are the biggest sponsor) and I'm going to ask them if they would like to sponsor the face painting next year, also going to put a bug in the ear or VanCity Bank and Royal Bank of Canada who were also there and ask them if London Drugs isn't interested. Because no way am i going through that lady again.
If I don't get sponsored for next year, I'll write her a nice email asking her to kindly NOT use photos of us on her advertising material this next year if we aren't going to be there. :
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