Event Caricature and Queue Control II

Unable to do Caricature for Sleeping Children/Baby
I found sleeping children or baby was very difficult to do.

In live quick caricature, the outcome of a sleeping baby or children was bad; thought such caricature only can be done in studio that having plenty of time, not in an event that having crowded and long queue.
Moreover, after you spent big effort to try it out, the parents will tell you: "Doesn't looks like at all!" Hence I strictly not doing any sleeping children or baby; such type of drawing, beside studio works and for editorial purpose, it belonging to fine art drawing, not suit for live caricature at all; unfortunately, lots guests in the event did not understand this.

Not Drawing photos or photos from mobile phone which given by the guests during Live Caricature
Many people thought during our live caricature drawing session, we can be able to draw their wife/husband/children's caricature (whom not presented in this event) from their mobile phone since they queue. Thought they did not understand that we taking much longer time to draw caricature from a photo due to a photo was giving limited info compare with the real person, moreover, the photo's quality, the clearness of the photo, when the photo being taken, the angle of the photo etc could caused us spend more then 25 minutes to produce the drawing.
We are hired to entertain the guests that attended this event with a limited time frame of booking, the organiser can't afford us only entertain 2-3 guests in an hour's booking for a 20pax -900pax (or more)'s event.

Event Caricature and Queue Control

Doing caricature in the event under "Free Drawing" category, as a caricaturist, we not just purely in-charge doing the free drawing for the guests during our booking hour, we need to know how to control the queue effectively.

Usually, in the last 30 minutes of my drawing session I will check the queuing guests and cut the queue by telling them I can only draw that much of people within the last 30 minutes and give respectively paper to each guests in the queue that I am able to completed within 30 minutes.

At this moment, you can found many people in the queue who wanted the free drawing became very "creative" like asking if can squeeze 2 or more persons in a drawing so they can get more people being done.

Frankly speaking, most of the time I insists only 1 person allowed to be drawn in an individual piece of paper is because 2 or more people being drawing in same piece of paper will take longer time, it involved time taken in positioning of the persons being drawn and the right scale size of the heads to be drawing in this paper, it definitely not suitable for an event that having big crowd and queues with limited working time frames.

The Art of Control the Crowd III

Through controlling of the queue, you can see many kinds of peoples; like their attitude, the way their reactions…..and their ‘Creativities’.

As a professional event artist, I always try my best to draw as much caricature as possible and try maintain the best quality within such time frame as I can.

In some type of events (usually in companies’ family days) , if there are 10 peoples in your queue, it doesn’t means there are really having 10 peoples queuing for your drawing, it could be multiple of the amount!

What I mean is: while I think this lady is the next person to be drawn in my queue, she does not sit down but will waive her hands and get both of her sons and husband cut the queue to sit down and get drawn instead!Based on this scenario, if one person queuing for 2 family members, you are going to draw 30 persons even though there are only 10 persons in the queue. That is the unexpected circumstances you need to handle.

Of course, people come to family day is to enjoy, there are many free gifts can be taken home and everyone just wanted to ensure each of their family members having the gifts, that is understood.

Unfortunately, we, the entertainers in-charged of producing free gifts might not able to fulfill every single guest’s need due to ensure the event running smoothly within the event’s time frame.

The Art of Control the Crowd II

Why need crowd control? We need to ensure we are not over work during the booking hour(s), the event organisers also might need to ensure the crowd proceed to the next stage (like getting every guests seated to pay their respect and attention to the related persons’ speech eg. the chairman giving speech the guests.)

This also ensures the rest of the planned programme to be running smoothly, for example, in the dinner and dance, usually the fringe activities start from 6.30pm – 7.30pm, the guests need to be seated in the ballroom by 7.45pm and then the dancers do the opening dance from 7.45pm till 8.00pm and follow by the chairman’s speech etc, every scheduled programming have to be execute in time!
Especially during the peak period of company dinner and dance like November and December, many entertainers having tight schedules (like those dancers, magicians, Chinese opera mask changing performance, vocalists, models etc. needed to rush to another place to do their performance.) hence any delay will cause the relevant schedule go hair wired, either the event organisers or the entertainers themselves.

Imaging you supposed performance your belly dancing 8pm till 8.30pm at hotel A and your next performance will be at hotel B from 9.15pm-9.45pm, you sure pray every of your show should be done within the scheduled time frame.

We, the fringe art artists (caricaturists, silhouette cutting artists, henna, airbrushes, glamour shoot and etc have to be stop in time to help the smooth running of the event.

The Art of Crowd Control During Events

Whether you are in charge caricature drawing, airbrush tattoo or doing any complementary items in the events, I am very sure you always face the big crowd or people queuing for their free stuffs.

After many years’ experience doing event, I found that crowd control for complimentary stuffs is one of the very important thing we need to do.

To me, crowd control is an art. You can’t expect there is always having event officers or crew to help in the crowd control, hence you need to control by yourself and I found that is the best way to make the show running smoothly.

For example, during my caricature drawing session (stationary type, not roving type), I will estimate how many people I can draw within the last 30minutes, and then I will quickly go to the queue and past my colorized papers to the limited peoples in the queue, I told the queue I can only draw these amount of peoples within the last 30minutes’ working hour, hence basically avoided any disappointment and frustrations.

Some artists was passing own made queue number to the queue in 30 minutes in advance as well, it work as well.