A Record Summer: What 59 Events Taught Us About Booking Early in Vancouver
By the second week of June, I was pulling my face paint kit through the crowds outside BC Place in a wagon, a 20 minute walk each way to the Science World SkyTrain station as Stadium-Chinatown was closed for the games, because that's what working an actual FIFA World Cup game turns out to look like. MJC Artistry is a Vancouver face painting and event entertainment company, and this summer we didn't just have our busiest season ever, we had one of the wildest. Between June and August, we worked 59 events. This is the story of how that happened, month by month, and what it taught me about where this business is going.
The Month Everything Landed at Once
June is where it started, and where it hit hardest. We ran 26 events that month: 12 tied to the FIFA World Cup at BC Place and CBC Radio, 11 corporate and community bookings, and 3 birthday parties. Buried inside that same month was the biggest single event in our three year history, a 10-artist team for MTU Canada's summer company party. Summer is already our busiest season of the year outside of the Christmas rush. This year, the World Cup landed directly on top of that normal summer volume, not instead of it.
Inside the World Cup
There was a different kind of uniform involved before any of the fun parts. Because of official FIFA branding rules, I couldn't just show up in my normal setup. Instead of my usual look, I had to wear Adidas clothing or unbranded clothing in the specific colours I was assigned. I wore arm covers over my tattoos, taped over my shoes because they weren't Adidas, and had to tape up my own kit and signage because they carried my branding. It was about as far from the colourful, personal way I normally present my business as it gets.
Getting to and from BC Place wasn't simple either. Roads around the stadium were closed for every game, so before and after each match came that wagon walk I mentioned at the start of this post, 20 minutes each way to the SkyTrain, every single game. Brushes and sponges needed to be washed and sanitized between events, and I had other bookings squeezed in between games too, so packing everything up and hauling it out wasn't optional. The walkways were packed with visitors stopping to photograph the Science World geodesic dome wrapped as a giant soccer ball, so just getting through the crowds with a wagon in tow was its own challenge some days.
Once I was actually set up and painting, it was a different experience entirely. I was in the VIP hospitality village at BC Place for all 7 Vancouver games, with an artist stationed outside CBC Radio for pregame activations across 9 game days, and I painted people from Australia, Belgium, Thailand, the United States, and other provinces across Canada. A couple of bald heads became soccer balls, one very memorable pregnant belly got a soccer ball design, and I lost count of the "side eye" soccer ball looks in team colours and flaming soccer balls I did on mostly adults, but a fair number of kids too.
A lot of people were genuinely thankful, grateful to finally feel "complete" and ready to cheer once the face paint was on. One dad came with his daughter and was hesitant to get painted himself at first, but watching her get hers done gave him a case of FOMO, and he caved and joined her. I'd bet those photos are something the two of them look back on for years. More than a few people have photos of me on their phones now, scattered across the other side of the world, which honestly, lowkey, made me feel a little famous. People wanted to remember exactly who painted their face at the World Cup in Vancouver.
Through all of it, we weren't allowed to post anything about being there until after the Vancouver hosted games wrapped. The last Vancouver game was July 7, so I couldn't share any of it until July 8. I had a full gallery of photos and videos saved up from all 7 games, sitting there for weeks, waiting to finally be able to share the experience with the world.
It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, and one I'm genuinely thankful to TENBC for bringing me into.
Our Biggest Team Yet: The MTU Canada Company Party
The other event that defined June happened away from the World Cup entirely. MTU Canada found us through a Google search for their summer company party, which is honestly one of the best parts of this story. They started with a guest count of around 600 and asked whether 8 painters would be enough. After a few emails back and forth, we split the team differently: 4 face painters, 4 balloon twisters, and 2 glitter tattoo artists, 10 artists total, so there was something for everyone and no single line got out of hand.
Running a team that size is a completely different job than painting solo. I was managing schedules and booking details for every artist, making sure each person had what they needed and showed up on time, and I coordinated the tent rentals for the entertainment area through a third party rental company on top of that. It was a lot more project management than people probably picture when they think of a "face painter" showing up to an event.
We painted a lot of adults that day, which is typical for a corporate crowd. I checked in with the rest of the team throughout the event, and the fishing rod and butterfly wands were the most popular balloon designs, while spiders and butterflies were the favourites for glitter tattoos. Two moments from my own station stuck with me most. We painted the CEO and one of MTU's tech team as matching snakes, which was a huge hit on the day. It wouldn't surprise me if those photos ended up in the company newsletter, and I'd bet it's a memory the team still talks about. I also painted a bald head as a fried egg for one dad, and the look on his daughter's face when she saw it made the whole booking worth it on its own.
The 10-artist MTU event and actually working inside the World Cup itself, not just around its edges, were both firsts for us at this scale. They tested our limits and genuinely raised our bar for what we know we can handle. And that was still only June.
July and August: The Pace Never Really Broke
July brought 17 events: 4 more FIFA World Cup bookings at BC Place and CBC Radio, 8 corporate and community events, 4 birthday parties, and 1 other. August brought 16 more: 14 corporate and community, 1 birthday, 1 other.
That "other" booking in both months was running balloon twisting workshops at a local summer camp, actually teaching kids the basics of balloon twisting rather than just performing for them. It was a fun new format to try, but teaching a full camp of kids turned out to be a different kind of hard than event work, and it's probably not something we'll make a regular part of what we do.
By the time August wrapped, we'd worked 59 events in three months without the pace ever really letting up.
We Hit Our Capacity
No business, ours included, can service every event in the Lower Mainland, and this summer we pushed our limits further than we ever have. By our rough count, we had to turn down somewhere around 55 inquiries between June and the end of August. We can't say that number is exact, but even as an estimate, it's close to matching the 59 events we actually worked.
Honestly, this wasn't a surprise to us. Back in May, we wrote about what the FIFA World Cup would mean for event planners in Vancouver and warned specifically that non-FIFA events would feel a real squeeze on entertainment availability this summer. We'd also already written about how far in advance you should book a face painter in Vancouver before any of this started. This summer turned out to be the clearest real world proof of both of those posts we could have asked for.
People who leave booking to the last minute usually end up in one of two places, no entertainment at all, or whoever's left or just picked up face painting as a hobby last week, which is often the riskiest, cheapest option available, for exactly the reasons we broke down in our pricing guide. If you reached out this summer and we couldn't fit you in, that's genuinely why. We just reached our capacity.
Where This Leaves Us
We're already taking bookings for Christmas parties. If summer is any indication, waiting until the last minute isn't a great plan this year. To be fair, a Vancouver hosted FIFA World Cup isn't happening again anytime soon, realistically not in my lifetime, so next summer will very likely have more breathing room than this one did. But the underlying pattern isn't going anywhere: summer is our busiest season every year, World Cup or not, and it's the people and events who book early who actually get the date and the entertainment they want.
This summer gave me a lot of clarity on where this business is actually headed. Corporate and community events are where MJC Artistry is going all in. That's where the biggest, most interesting bookings are, it's where we get to push what we're actually capable of (the MTU event and the World Cup itself proved that this summer), and it's where I want to keep building. Birthday parties aren't going anywhere, we still love them and we're still great at them, but they're settling into being a smaller part of what we do rather than the core focus. This summer made that distinction clearer to me than anything else has.
Proud, tired in a good way, and already looking ahead. If you're planning something for this fall or the holidays, reach out now rather than in November.
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If your event is on the calendar, now is the right time to reach out, whether it's next month or next December. The earlier you confirm, the more options you have.
