19/08/2026
🎉 TO EVENT ORGANISERS 🎉
….. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, STOP ASKING FACE PAINTERS TO … “PAINT FASTER”.
This may be controversial, but I’m going to talk about this because I hear it’s being said to professional face painters far too often by event organisers planning large events.
“We’re expecting thousands of people. Can you do smaller designs and get through more children?” “Can you simplify everything so you can paint faster?” “Can you get more faces done per hour?”
Please stop. Please.
Because whether you intend it or not, there is an implication behind that question that is actually quite insulting:
😔 That we aren’t already working as fast as we can.
😔 That there’s a bit more capacity in there somewhere.
😔 That perhaps we’re taking more time deliberately or even being lazy.
😔 That if we just tried a little harder, worked a little faster or stopped doing quite so much, we could churn a few more children through.
We are not slacking. Anyone who has professionally face painted continuously at a busy event knows how physically and mentally demanding this job is.
We stand for hours. We lean, twist and bend over hundreds of times. Our backs hurt. Our shoulders hurt. Our hands work continuously. Our eyes are focusing at close range for hours on end. And our brains never switch off.
We are thinking about the artwork, speed, symmetry, colour, hygiene, safety and the experience of the child in front of us, while simultaneously listening to parents, keeping an eye on the queue and remaining cheerful and engaging.
Then that child gets their mirror moment, leaves the chair and we reset everything.
And we do it again. And again. And again, and for hours and hours often without being able to take a significant break, or even time to grab a drink.
There really isn’t a magical extra gear we’re refusing to use.
Yes, professional face painters can streamline. We can remove flourishes. We can create a carefully selected menu of simpler designs. We can even have somebody managing the queue, at an extra cost. But there is a physical limit to how many children one human being can safely, hygienically and professionally paint.
For me, that is approximately 15 children per hour, around four minutes per person. At the absolute outer limit, under ideal circumstances and with extremely streamlined designs, I might occasionally reach closer to 20, around three minutes per person.
But that is the outer edge, not a target.
And I will not compromise my hygiene, the quality of my artwork or my professional reputation simply to make a number on a spreadsheet look better.
Smaller doesn’t automatically mean faster, either. Small designs can require more intricate brushwork. Simple is what saves time, not necessarily small.
And there is something else that seems to get forgotten in the obsession with throughput: these are children. Not units of production.
Face painting isn’t a supermarket checkout. A child climbs into my chair and, for those few minutes, they are my customer. They deserve to be spoken to and heard. They deserve to feel comfortable. They deserve to watch themselves become whatever they’ve chosen. And they deserve that wonderful little mirror moment at the end.
I am not going to bark “NEXT!” and shove one child out of the chair because there are another 40 waiting.
You wouldn’t employ a hairdresser and say, “We’ve got twice as many customers as expected. Can you halve the time you spend on each haircut?”
You wouldn’t tell a photographer, “We sold more tickets than expected, so can you spend half as long taking each photograph?”
You wouldn’t tell an electrician, “There’s loads to do today. Could you just work twice as fast?”
So why is it considered acceptable to say it to a face painter?
And here’s the part event organisers really need to understand….
The number of tickets YOU sell does not increase the physical capacity of the professional YOU booked.
💴 If you’ve sold 500 tickets, one face painter has a certain capacity.
💴 If you sell 1,000 tickets, that capacity doesn’t magically double.
💴 If you sell 2,000 tickets, that face painter does not suddenly acquire another pair of hands.
If you are expecting huge numbers and you want significantly more children to access face painting, there is a very straightforward solution: you need to budget for and book more face painters.
If you want twice the capacity, book twice the capacity. Don’t book one professional and then ask them to somehow become two.
And please don’t mistake the limit of someone’s professional capacity for a lack of effort.
Because every single child who walks away from my chair is wearing my work. My professional reputation walks away with them.
People don’t know that an organiser asked me to work faster. They don’t know that I was asked to strip the designs back further and further because the event sold thousands of tickets. They simply see the face painting and associate it with The Artful Dabber. And if I produce lower-quality work or don’t maintain good hygiene standards, my business suffers.
So no. I won’t produce work I’m not proud of simply to make a queue disappear faster.
I WILL work very hard. I WILL work very efficiently. I WILL streamline where appropriate. I WILL paint continuously. I WILL give you everything I’ve got for the hours you’ve booked me.
But I will not apologise for the fact that one professional face painter can only do the work of one professional face painter.
If you need more capacity, you need to resource your event accordingly. That’s not me being difficult, demanding or rude. That’s me being realistic, honest, transparent and protecting my professional reputation.
And if that means I’m not the right fit for your event, that’s absolutely fine. I won’t be the right fit for everyone, but I know the standard of service I provide, and I’m proud of it. I’m just not prepared to compromise the boundaries that allow me to maintain that standard.
Professional standards aren’t negotiable.
Thanks for your understanding.
Sara 😊
The Artful Dabber – Face & Body Art
