Charge for Parties?

Hey everyone,

I have noticed that where I live I get a lot of requests for tarot parties at houses with varying amounts of women reading for different lengths of time. Last year I was only charging $1/minute to read but found that the time involved the drive, the set up, the perhaps sitting around until they are ready to read, time in between clients means that I was spending a significant amount of time overall not reading and not getting paid either.

This year I upped it to $2/minute which I am hoping will decrease the actual minutes per client (before I was getting 30 min.each), encourage a hostess to have a larger number of people and it seems to better pay for my time overall.

But I have other perks now with the $2 like party favors, hostess gift and points for hosting redeemable towards a full hour reading later on.

What I have noticed is that these parties often do NOT translate into full hour clients later on. The come, get their reading and I dont hear from them again. Or they refer to other people who want a party.

What do you think? Is $2/minute fair? I do not do the flat rate because each woman pays on their own.

Would appreciate your input and insight. thanks!

I think $2 a minute is very fair...maybe even a little low, considering all the extras you are also giving.

What is the average length of the readings that you do? if it's 10-15 minutes, then that sounds about right!

I had a similar problem with parties, and getting no further readings until I started bringing the guestbook with me. Once I had emails and birthdays,I would send them a little free reading on their birthday (really no more than a "fortune cookie" reading!) and then give them a coupon for a percentage off a full length yearly birthday reading.

Hi,

it really depends on at whose party you are performing, and how others around you charge.
If you live in a city where heaps of ladies are ready to spend their evening at someones party for some pocket money and a warm meal reading tarot cards till their voices say goodbye....ohoh... ;-)

If you work at someones elegant party you can charge considerably more. Also the time you work makes a big difference. Some ladies work 2 to 3 times 40 minutes per evening, others up to 6 hours with very few breaks in between.

The prices people charge seem to be very different, and I know of people charging between 50 Eur and 2500 Eur per evening.

I myself am a fan of getting paid by the hostess completely, as this always comes down to a higher fee per evening. Although: If you are just starting out you need to go the lower income route of being paid by the guests sometimes...

As far as I experienced charging only 2 Eur per minute can mean you drive somewhere, are there x ours before the event, and can only take your decoration down at 3 in the morning when everything gets quiet... Then you drive home and find out that you invested 15 hours or more of your time for 150 - 180 Eur.....

And if the place of the event is a little farther away you will also not have one client turning up at your house for private readings, as people are to lazy to drive...

Not cool.

So I always tried to make sure that if I invest x hours of time for a party, that I got paid a decent amount. That usually means that the hostess had to pay for the cost of my decoration, the cost of driving there, the time I waited at the event before and till I could take down my decoration etc. I also found it is easier to sell short readings of 7 - 10 minutes for 25 to 30 Eur to the guests, then to go the 2 min per hour route, or the 3 Eur per min route.

Some other pitfalls I stumbled into when following this model of work:

Beware of people that want to talk to you 15 min without paying you, about tarot, the way you work, where you learned this and so on...Then they want to buy a 10 $ 5 min reading. They next have questions that take 12 minutes. Still they would like to pay only 10 $, as that was what they asked for in the first place: A 10 $ reading. If you took soooo long to answer their questions it is not their fault, but yours, they say. Grrrr..
(So really always make sure you charge by the minute if you do, and that longer readings need to be paid.)

Beware of hostesses that "know" so many friends at their parties will want a reading...
that tell you they will have sooooo many guests attending their event, where you find out after driving there over 37 the hills and valleys, that only 12 people attend the event. And that only 4 of them want a reading, because the thers are absolutely opposed against psychics...And the 4 that want a reading think they want to pay a max of 20 Eur, for a 30 minute reading, - because that is what the local tarot reader is charging too... ;-)

If at all costs you have to try that way of working, make the hostess handle selling x readings for x amount of dollars as a minimum. Make sure that is the min she needs to get together, and that a "oh, I wanted to sell 6 redings, but 3 of my friends that said they would buy a reading did not show up" will not be acceptable. (She then needs to bridge the financial gap.)

Also try to make a friend of the hostess handle the appointments, if you do short back to back readings, as you could loose to much time answering unpaid questions about tarot, psychics, your experience etc.

An antidote about those heaps of questions from to many people is if you introduce yourself in a short 5 min talk, hand out some info flyer about you and how you work, + have a collage of press articles put into a large photo frame for people to read. (Put the articles behind glass, otherwise oily fingers will make them unusable after a few parties ;-)
However: I feel it is much less of a hassle to just charge the hostess, and offer free readings to the guests

Nowadays I do not do those party readings any more where I have to chase the guests to get paid doing readings, as the risk of earning much to little is to high going that road.
If you like to sell readings per minute, how about doing renfaires?

There you set your tent up one time, and have time from thursday or friday to sunday night to sell readings, not just measly 2 and a half hours, like it is with some parties, minus the unpaid time of handling pretalk, enquiries etc.

So ohoh...I really am no fan of the "chase my guests to be paid" model ;-)
Instead get the person that organizes the event to pay you, and all is well.

And think of 500 Eur + cost of driving, hotel + vat and up as a minimum, if you need to live from that line of work.

If your references do not allow that, try to get at least 300 Eur + what the guests pay you.

I love you Tarotiana - I really do! I was hoping you would join this discussion!

FYI - all you Americans out there at current exchange rates (1 Euro = $1.33 USD):2 Euros is @ $3 USD, and 300 Euros is @ $400 USD, 500 Euros is @ $666 USD - to put these fees into a dollar perspective.

huh

All very good advice.

I have a minimum for even coming out and that is a two hour minimum and I also charge a travel fee if its beyond 10 miles. I make it the hostesses responsibility to ensure that we are going to meet the minimum and if we do not she understand that she needs to make up the difference for my time.

It seems where I am there are not many who are willing to pay for the whole cost of having me but rather split it up among their guests so I though $2/minute overall better compensates me for my time. At that rate though it is slightly more than my regular one hour sessions and I have had people try to complain about that until I express how much more work a party intails.

But I think my least favorite readings are these hen party coffee klach ladies houses readings. I would prefer one on one or a large event because I find with these ladies clubs you get the worst of both worlds, an expectation to do deep work in smelly basements, weird rooms, back to back. I am hoping to in a year not have to do these, I think.

thanks for the feedback again!

I was thinking to do local ren faires but they seem to be well and truly inundated by readers already...

QofWands said:

But I think my least favorite readings are these hen party coffee klach ladies houses readings. I would prefer one on one or a large event because I find with these ladies clubs you get the worst of both worlds, an expectation to do deep work in smelly basements, weird rooms, back to back. I am hoping to in a year not have to do these, I think.

Click to expand...

Thank you tarotbear, ahhh...my little ego needs a hug now and then

To Qofwands: Yes. I also was happy to let go of that kind of work. To attract a more upscale clientele for parties it is important to invest in good costumes, professional photos, newspaper articles about your work, exclusive decoration, and voila: A more upscale market with better pay, work ambiente, and more fun opens up

About renfaires: For renfaires nowadays you need to invest some money into a great looking tent, and pics that represent the theme of "tarot reader" that is easy to market to the organisators. (Enclosed one in this posting.) - Otherwise you will not get into the door very often, except if you are ready to pay amounts for working at the renfair that make the whole thing unprofitable... Or accept heaps of competition or do small unprofitable events :-(

So better do what you need to do to work under attractive conditions at attractive renfairs

Tarot parties, never thought about giving one of those. I have seen being hired for a party, graduation, reunions, all kinds of events where you were paid per hour by the host and have a tip jar out, you do short 3 card readings. I have seen fliers in our local party store for tarot readings for your parties. They started at $200 for 2 hours. Something you might think about. I agree with tarotianna, you need to dress the part and have the right set up (table cloth, signs,). Good luck to you..let us know how it turns out.

Greetings,

If I am reading at an event, such as a birthday, Halloween party, bridal shower, etc, I charge a flat fee of $150 / hr with a minimum of two hours. There is also a travel allowance charged if the location is more than an hour from my house. You read as many folks as you reasonably can within the paid for time frame.

If there is no related function for the party, which typically means I'm doing readings in the middle of a group of ladies who are just having cocktails, I charge $25 a head for ten minute readings (note this works out to the same fee). The fees are collected by the hostess, who herself gets a free reading for hosting the party. I set a minimum of 10 guests for a Tarot party. Since these are paid per-person, you have more leeway on letting the readings go a little longer if you like.

Another professional note - if it is an 'event' I will not do much promotion of my services past having business cards on my table, as I am technically 'the entertainment'. If it is a private tarot specific party it is a much more intimate setting and I will hand out cards, flyers, collect email addresst, etc.