The Importance of Teamwork

At larger events it will be necessary to have more than one Face Painter for the following reasons:

Hard at work!

Face Painting is extremely popular and demand will be high.
If there are not enough Face Painters queues will be unacceptably long. A line of twelve people means a wait of up to an hour.
Children will be disappointed if they don’t get painted before closing time. Parents may complain!
Face Painting is intensive work and the artists need to have breaks for toilet, drinks, food etc
Queue management is easier when a team of Face Painters are working together.

Having a well organised team of experienced Face Painters is better for the organisers, better for the public and better for the Face Painters too.

What makes a good face painting team?

Organisation

There must be a team leader who is responsible for deciding

Concentration

where each face painter will set up
if there is to be one main queue or several separate queues
when breaks are to be taken
when the queue will be stopped ( usually well before the event closes )
if there is to be a ticketing or numbering system

Speed

Each Face Painter must be able to paint at a certain minimum speed. This is generally accepted to be five minutes for a full face. Having a slow painter is not fair on the rest of the team or those waiting in line ( as they will have to stand even longer if one of the painters is slow ).

Quality

Katrina applying twirls to a face paint design

Katrina puts twirls on a girls face

Each Face Painter must paint to a high standard. Some parents will insist on their children being painted by a good painter and will avoid one whose work is obviously poor.

Professionalism

Each Face Painter should follow the same strict guidelines in terms of cleanliness, hygiene and health and safety. See related article “Why hire a professional Face Painter”

Being Happy

Face Painters are working in close contact with the public. They are talking to children and parents who are on a day out and are enjoying themselves. Having a happy team is important. A good face painter should be able to smile and chat to customers in a friendly manner.

Advice for event organisers

How many face painters are required?

Hard at work!

Corporate events

If you are planning a corporate event / company family fun day then find out in advance how many children are attending. Children under three years of age can’t be painted so exclude these from your calculations. Determine how many children between the ages of three and eleven will be attending. Although not all will want to be painted some teenagers and adults might want to so assume that they will make up the numbers.

You need to know how many children there are and how long the event runs for.

Example 1

The event runs for four hours, there are 100 children between the ages of three and eleven. A Face painter can do a full face in five minutes or twelve face an hour.

12 full faces x 4 hours = 48 faces per painter for this event.

100 children / 48 = 2 Face Painters are required.

Example 2

The event runs for five hours and there are 400 children attending.

Daniella applying a base for face painting on a boy's face

12 faces x 5 hours = 60 faces per painter for this event.

400 children / 60 = 7 Face Painters are required.

NOTE

These examples do not include time for breaks which means that you must either employ another face painter or accept that the number of faces painted will be less.

Public events

It is always very difficult to know how many people will attend a public event. If the intention is to provide FREE face painting then at smaller events it may be ok to just employ one face painter. For all other events it is strongly adviseable to have at least two.

How to reduce the size of the face painting queue!

There are a number of ways to decrease the size of the face painting queue :

Ensure that there are lots of other exciting things for the children to do instead.
Increase the size of the face painting team ( more face painters )
Make a charge. The more you charge the shorter the queue.

A good face painting team means a good event!

Having a well organised team of happy face painters who all paint to a consistently high standard and can work quickly makes a big difference at an event.

If the face painting experience is good, people will notice. It will be appreciated and it will be remembered.

To enquire about booking a face painter or face painting team go to our face painting page.