Sunday Mailbag: Caricaturist Artist Territory?

Q: It is acceptable for a caricature artist to work an event knowing a competing artist is working at the same festival or art fair, etc.?

A: Yes. If those running the fair or festival are willing to rent space to vendors selling the same products then there is nothing wrong, both commercially and ethically, with having multiple caricaturists at the same event. Many large fairs or festivals have several different caricaturists set up in different locations. I even know of at least one major theme park that has two different caricature companies with booths in the SAME PARK. That is unusual… most of the time a theme park will have a concession lease with only one company at a time.

That said, if a fair or event already has a caricaturist I would personally only seek a spot to sell my caricatures at that event if I thought it was large enough to support more than one artist’s sales. By “large” I mean having enough people attending that there would be enough demand to keep more than one artist busy drawing. If it is just small local festival, maybe there would not be enough potential customers to keep more than one artist drawing. You would not want to do that to another artist.

Thanks to Michael Klen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!