Wrestling Day

Last Saturday I worked at the annual Tournament of Champions wrestling tournament. It was an all-day affair where I was there selling caricatures for $10 a person from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm. I had three pre-made wrestling bodies to choose from (and one cheerleader body) and put the heads on the bodies. For five bucks more you could get a custom body (I did five of those), and for three dollars more, I'd add color (I did several with color).

I've done this tournament for over a dozen years now, and this was probably one of my weakest years ever, the worst in a decade and maybe even the worst ever. Part of it was the change in the format of the event, and the venue was quite different. I was set-up in a different location, and that may have contributed to the slow day as well. I really don't know. I'm wondering how much of it was the economy, how much of it was my location and what, if any of it, was the clientele.

It didn't seem that there were many people that complained about the price. There was one mother with two daughters who said "is it 20 for two?" and walked away when I said it was. At the point she asked that, I was willing to give her a discount just to get someone to draw, but she left so quickly that I didn't get the chance. But other than her, there didn't seem to be people balking at the price as much as there were just kids that wanted to watch and not get drawn and people who just weren't interested at all (not even looking as they went past). I did have several people upgrade to color, so the ones that did get drawn didn't seem to mind spending a little extra.

It's very disappointing because I put a lot of effort into new signage and turned down another job and put aside some personal things to do this event. Combined with last year's Arts Fest numbers being down, this has been a very rough year for me as far as retail is concerned. These are really the only two retail events I do, but they are usually big money-makers. Unfortunately at a time when I need it most, the money is just not there. :(

The good news is that I have recently booked a few all-day gigs that will pay me a "day rate" which is a maximum I charge for a day's work. The first of these comes tomorrow when I will work for nine hours for Verizon. This should make up for some of the "lost" income from the weekend.

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