Herefordshire hen party enquiry
An enquiry came in from a lady asking me to quote for providing my life drawing and body painting services for a hen party in Herefordshire.
Most groups I work with are from ten to twenty five in numbers. I’ve done the odd one or two with twenty eight people but nothing larger.
As you can imagine, the larger the group the more difficult they are to control to ensure a meaningful session for them.
Ths group had an expected thirty two participants. It’s a little too large really, but I will not shy away from a challenge, so I went ahead and gave her a quote.
When working out a quote I have to consider the cost of materials, fuel, wear and tear of the car, and my time. This usually often amouts to 8 hours for each event.
The baseline I work from is that in a traditional life drawing session you would pay £8 to £10 for a 2 hour untutored session where you have to come to a specific venue and bring your own material.
After weighing all these factors, I tend to pitch myself at £18 per head with all costs involved. (It’s sometimes more if I have to travel 4 plus hours round trip.)
Quoting for a large hen party
So, how do I quote for 32 people? As I gave her a lower per person rate than my normal rate, I unwisely thought it was a done deal. this wasn’t the case at all..
I heard nothing back from her at all.
Following a couple of emails from me, she said that she’d been provided a service, for a total of £150. This worked out at £4.60 per person.
Competition and in particular competitive pricing is a good thing, but I can’t and couldn’t compete with that in any shape or form. I started thinking more about it though and how this supplier could charge so little.. All I could think of was this person on Twitter that offer his services as a nude butler completely free of charge, which beg a few questions to be asked if I’m honest.
I completely empathise with groups though. They want to pack as much into a a weekend to make it memorable for the Bride to Be so there is considerable pressure on organisers to get value for money.
I, however, am not going to be swayed from my costings. I don’t want to be seen as your Poundshop of hen party life drawing! I’d hope to aspire to being more John Lewis (there are other department stores available!) where you get excellent value for money with reliability and a high quality product. I hear more and more of sub-standard suppliers of life drawing, and I don’t want to be associated with that type.
To contradict myself, I do have exceptions to my rigidity with costings but I won’t tell you exactly what they are, as I don’t want a slew of enquiries along those lines.
Ok, end of rant. I now feel a bit cathartic.
