Things to know about pricing- from a design book- prices you may see at a festival may be different than what is available for a private appointment. Festival designs are often meant to have less fine detail and be able to serve many people at a busy event. For a private appointment, you are paying for the time, and the artist can cover as much skin as possible during that time. Perhaps you book time with a friend, or you sell tickets for 10 friends and you split the cost, and get as many designs possible in that time which may have you getting more henna than you’d pay for at a festival. However if it’s just you for the appointment, to meet time minimums etc you might spend more to get as much of you decorated as possible.
In a festival setting- artist choice designs have a few benefits- you are likely going to get a design that’s higher value than what you are paying for as most artists enjoy having creative license and will give you extra. If they have a specialty, let’s say flowers, you likely will get the best of what they can do which might be even more what you’d want than if you picked out a design yourself.
Being a lifelong extremely creative person, sometimes I forget that not everyone’s imagination is as limitless. I remember a client who had 3 designs she liked, couldn’t decide, and after hearing what she liked about each design I said “ok would you like the cat from this design, instead of sitting on the moon from this design, put it on the flower you like from this design, and add the stars from this design?” If you could see the way she lit up at realizing that was even a possibility she hadn’t thought of! She had one of the most customized designs and got all that she wanted! It was so fun to do that for her- and I can completely relate- I was the kid who asked them to give me a blonde Barbie head with green eyes so it would look more like me, on a Little Mermaid body for a birthday cake as a little kid. Let’s make your dreams come true!
Far before COVID my rates for an organization to hire me for “half day” was over $1000. There were certain amounts of work time versus potential break time. I’m still considering different pricing options, but for now, as of Jan 2025, I’m going to have private appointments close to my Cuddlist pricing which is $200/hour, 90 minute minimum ($300 total minimum) for Cuddlist sessions. I have infinite ideas on deals such as Black Friday deals for various services I offer- and really want to find collaborators. I love the art, and I would love to combine forces with groups like Relay for Life or schools that want to do fundraising for their band trips etc. They can sell tickets and manage the line ( I have many ideas for maximizing efficiency) and I can do the art- while they get a portion of the proceeds for their fundraising and the better they are at selling, the more fundraising they accomplish. At the moment I’d consider having them hire me by the hour, and they sell designs and I do as many as can be done in that time. I’d also consider an arrangement where they sell designs depending on the event, and they get a percent, similar to when groups get people to go to XYZ restaurant and a % from the people mentioning that fundraiser goes back to the school. It would vary from event to event which of those scenarios would work.
As an artist the last option would be more laid back and less of a time crunch, but with the previous option people might be more motivated to sell and keep the line organized.
I’ve also always been a fan of trading- my grandfather was a physician and when he had a farmer who couldn’t pay him, he accepted chickens and gave it to his staff. So if it’s something I would enjoy - I will certainly trade- like massage, facials, restaurants I’d enjoy, musical theater tickets, car detailing services, etc. I recently found a neat place that has many things I’d like to try- and if they had me trade decorating their staff for a punch pass I’d be all over it! I’d also love to work with companies that want to raise morale for their staff and gift them body art for doing a great job, or have a promotional event.
One thing to note is that while in the past, I did more events like this- currently I often have travel that gets planned soon before it’s time to travel, so I prefer appointments scheduled within a week, and less of “we want you to be here on this day at this time 6 months from now.”
Somehow my design page has now turned into a pondering blog post style of information so I may move some of this over- it’s been a while since I’ve updated these pages of my site so for now let’s go with the flow :)
