I have been doing balloons at restaurants for quite some time, but lately we have done several large festivals. At the booth, my wife does face painting for a fee depending on the face. I tried once doing balloons for tips, but some people just don't know what to tip and usually will give a dollar. Does anyone have any experience in this and what do you do? Do you say a suggested donation or charge depending on the creation?
We do these for the good publicity, but also because it can be good money as well. It seems face painting is an easy fix to just showing a board with prices, I'm struggling on the balloon aspect.

I for one highly encourage the tipping aspect and would not flat out charge the people. Have you ever had to turn away a kid for not having enough cash. I cant imagine how terrible that would feel. Now I get paid by the hour from all my local fairs so any tips are just extra (make sure it is written in your contract that you can accept but not solicit tips).
The trick to this is to sell yourself as an entertainer who will work at their event. If you come in looking to purchase space for a booth all they will see is dollars in their eyes. If the people in charge see you as an asset they will hire you on at your rate. Great for public exposure at no cost to you.

If you for some reason require the purchase of space and need some flow of cash you can always go with the old standby. Fill the tip jar with 5 dollar bills and remove ALL change from it. People will see the 5s and thing that it is normal to put a 5 in. If they see change in the bottom of the jar they will consider you a convenient use of the 25 cents they got back with their corndog. Not good.

Depending on your balloons I would say try a per balloon fee 2 balloon sculpture = 2 bucks??
or maybe based on your time if a sculpture consistently takes you 5 minutes charge 5 bucks kind of thing
make a menu and charge how you best feel about it
sorry for sounding callous but if your at a fair and clearly have your prices marked you wont be turning kids away as the parents wont let them get in line in the first place you are a business after all .if the way you charge for face-painting is working why not run it the same way for balloons
but if you are already getting paid by the festival then yeah don't charge and hope for tips your already getting paid once
but if you have to pay for the space or even if they made that free spot part of the offer to be there charge what you feel your time and skill is worth

OK, I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this one, but here goes...

To be fair I should say that when I'm at a fair or festival, I'm usually performing magic shows. Often I'll barter with the event for free vendor space in exchange for the shows. My fiance is a face painter and you'd be amazed at how much they can make.

So I start my show by making a few big balloon sculptures usually of the cartoon variety. Then after I end my show I make an announcement to the the effect of..."if you'd like a balloon sculpture and didn't get one I'll be making them for a limited time over there" and direct them to the face painting booth. Then I just pull out a sign that says "balloon sculptures $5." Then I just go about making balloons for the line of kids that inevitably show up. I just decided I don't want to make anything for less than $5. I usually end up making more elaborate stuff which takes longer anyway. So it gives me a chance to show off some of my better stuff, instead of just making teddy bears and swords for a $1 like most guys.

It is also a way to draw more kids to the face painting. Since they are standing in line anyway it just works out.

That's just the way I do it...

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