I had a phone call this afternoon, a big well named local store looking for a balloon modeller for the next three Saturdays, I'm so busy I could do all the dates.
They tell me they had someone booked and he found out he was double booked, I asked if they had a budget, they were after 12 till 4 and they wanted to pay £300,
I thought that was fair'ish until she said for all three dates. I explained that I think the person who was double booked probably got a better paid job come in and dumped them.
I tried to get them to look at my website to see if I could tempt them to book me and they were not interested, the only thing that mattered was they would not pay more than
£100 a day for 4 hours.

Now is going out for £100 OK, parking and balloons I would guess at £20 so you would still earn £20 an hour and if there is not a lot of work about I suppose that is better than nothing.
I declined though, this was a top store and for some reason I am rather annoyed that they were not interested in talking quality, just a low price    

So would anyone have done it for £100 a day? No worries if you say yes as I do understand it would buy the food for the week.

I would not do 4 hours even last minute for £100.

I recently did an event for a major quality store and it was important to them that my work reflected there persona of quality, and they expected to have to pay for it.

Quote from: "Graham Lee"I had a phone call this afternoon, a big well named local store looking for a balloon modeller for the next three Saturdays, I'm so busy I could do all the dates.
They tell me they had someone booked and he found out he was double booked, I asked if they had a budget, they were after 12 till 4 and they wanted to pay £300,
I thought that was fair'ish until she said for all three dates. I explained that I think the person who was double booked probably got a better paid job come in and dumped them.
I tried to get them to look at my website to see if I could tempt them to book me and they were not interested, the only thing that mattered was they would not pay more than
£100 a day for 4 hours.

Now is going out for £100 OK, parking and balloons I would guess at £20 so you would still earn £20 an hour and if there is not a lot of work about I suppose that is better than nothing.
I declined though, this was a top store and for some reason I am rather annoyed that they were not interested in talking quality, just a low price    

So would anyone have done it for £100 a day? No worries if you say yes as I do understand it would buy the food for the week.

I have had the same thing so many times!!!! :roll:  These sort of people have the idea that a balloon dog..is a balloon dog(3 twist dog), and it goes no further than that,!! Or i get " a balloon is a balloon". Most people just wont pay for quality. The most asked question about balloons, that i get is..how many can you make in an hour, not what can you make!!  

So would i work for £100 for 4 hours? NO! I value my hands at a lot more than that

£100 for four hours - no way, especially for a large store who can obviously afford such entertainment. When I get these sorts of calls I try to explain the value I can add to their event with in-store promotions, customer retention, reputation building etc and use my business knowledge to sell my skills.

So if the price remains the same, just say no thanks - they may well call you back at a later stage.

My next move would be to call another store in the area to let them know that one of their competitors is looking to provide balloon entertainment on certain dates and tell them that you can help them look better and attract more customers by using you!

The sad thing is, someone will accept their offer. I comes down to supply and demand. If you are hungry and have bills to pay £20 per hour is higher than the national wage. If you have another job and this is just beer money then why not.

Say No. If word gets out that you've worked for this sum of money... It's hard to recover sometimes.. Stick to your prices.

Interesting topic...  I would give
Them my rates and if they want send an invoice to the double Booker for the difference.

If their story is true, the entertainer messed up and needs to fix it.:lol:
Charles Dolbel
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer

Good point may be an idea to suggest this to the store. Butt I guess they did not have a contract.

Quote from: "CharlesDolbel"Interesting topic...  I would give
Them my rates and if they want send an invoice to the double Booker for the difference.

If their story is true, the entertainer messed up and needs to fix it.:lol:
Charles Dolbel
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer

That's so silly....
I personally do this as my career or job(well if u call going out and having fun a job!!) so you have a smaller window of time where you can make your money.
Perhaps they misheard them and thought,like u Graham that it was 300 for the afternoon!

If I got out twisting I have two rates,one for day and hourly rate.
I offer the odd special price for last minute mid week but I think if you are a discounter
Entertainer it won't take long before you devalue your services and people will expect to pay cheaper prices.

I have to deal with these cheap entertainers in  my local area but it's not a like for like service.

Norm

If you have the confidence that your product holds more value than your competitors then there is no need to lower your prices. I had someone call me the other day who was disgusted that I wouldn't do two hours of balloon modelling on a Saturday for £40 total!

There will be someone who will do it for that price.

Saying that, if an event is high profile, it looks like it will be fun or something that is on my 'to do list' I would be flexible.

And today I get a call wanting me to do 5 hours of balloon modelling in a shopping centre to promote a business there with a two hour drive there and again back, so 9 hours and you would have to leave an extra hour just in case of a problem or two. So 10 hours and they wanted to pay £150     I quoted originally £325 and then we had a chat and I offered to do it for £275
but still they said no.

even if I live just down the road £150 for 5 hours      

Is it the economy of the world causing this or just cheap people?  I live near a small town and have seen several small businesses close recently and they are the ones that sell "like" not "need" items.  It seems unfortunate, but when families are deciding to buy groceries or a balloon artist for a party - I know why they make that decision.  Large corporations feel the pinch for the same reasons and maybe the person who is in control of the budget looks at it differently than we do.  They don't and can't understand the cost to us of attending a gig or event, nor do they realize the cost that it has been to get us to this point of balloon artistry (not me so much, but certainly most of you).   There is no answer fort this very complicated situation but I'm thinking that until the economy improves, we will be seeing more and more of those who we consider "cheap".

I was contacted by a department store who was opening a new children's clothes shop within their store and they suggested I could do 4 hours just for the publicity as they didn't have a budget for their opening!!  They spoke to me as though they were doing me a favour by letting me do this!!!!  I told them my hourly rate x 4 hours and they weren't happy!  

The store did get face painters etc and I'm sure the public thought the store was wonderful for letting their children have all this entertainment free lol!!!

A department store with no budget for an opening?  

xx

Guess where I ended up today?

Graham, you didn't do it at their rate did you?  :shock: