How Many People Can an Event Caricature Artist Draw Per Hour?
If you are considering event caricature artists for a wedding, corporate event, party, festival or other gathering, there is one question you should ask before you book:
How many people can you actually draw per hour?
Notice I said people, not drawings. We will get to that in a minute because there is an important difference.
A typical professional caricature artist for events may draw somewhere around 10 to 15 black-and-white faces per hour. Color usually takes longer.
But that number is only a starting point.
I have been drawing caricatures professionally for 27 years, including 10 years in Las Vegas, and I have worked alongside a lot of other caricature artists. One thing I can tell you with certainty is that drawing speed varies tremendously from one artist to another.
I have seen professional artists draw four or five people in an hour. I have seen others draw 15 or 20.
And then there are unusually fast artists who can draw considerably more. (I personally draw 20 to 30 per hour)
So if you have 100, 200 or even 2,000 guests at your event, simply knowing that you want a caricature artist is not enough information to determine how many artists you should hire.
You need to know how fast your particular artist works.
First, Count People, Not Drawings
This is probably the most common source of confusion when people ask how many caricatures an artist can draw per hour.
Let’s say a caricature artist tells you they can draw 15 people per hour.
That does not necessarily mean 15 pieces of paper.
If a family of five sits down together and all five faces are drawn on one sheet, that counts as five people. If a couple is drawn together, that is two.
At weddings especially, families often want to be drawn together. At other events, you may have one person on one drawing, three on the next, two on another and five on another.
What matters when you are estimating capacity is the number of faces being drawn, not the number of finished sheets of paper.
A group drawing doesn’t magically take the same amount of time as a single-person drawing. If an artist takes approximately three minutes per person, putting 10 people on one piece of paper could easily take close to 30 minutes, especially with people getting in and out of chairs.
So when you’re comparing event caricature artists, ask how many people or faces they draw per hour.
Why Are Some Caricature Artists So Much Faster Than Others?
You might assume it comes down to experience.
Not necessarily.
Years ago, shortly after I moved to the Gulf Coast, I worked an event with several other caricature artists. The gentleman sitting beside me was a very nice man and a good artist. He had also been drawing professionally for many years.
But as the event went on, I realized I was drawing three or four people for every one person he drew.
I watched his process. He carefully drew each person in pencil. Then he shaded the drawing. He chatted with the guest for a while. Then he picked up a marker and went back over the pencil drawing.
His finished drawings were perfectly good.
But he was producing only about four or five per hour.
That experience reinforced something I had learned a long time ago:
Being a good artist and being a good live-event artist are not necessarily the same skill.
Live event caricature requires an artist to simplify. You have to make decisions quickly, capture a likeness and keep moving without sacrificing the quality of the finished drawing.
Sometimes Speed Is in the Training
My late husband, Buddy, was also a caricature artist. We actually met at a caricature convention.
He once told me a story about learning to draw caricatures at a theme park. His teacher was a caricature artist named Jess Rubio, whose reputation I had heard about from other artists as well.
Jess didn’t want his artists drawing in pencil first. One day, he caught Buddy using a pencil anyway.
Jess walked over, took the pencil from him and broke it in two.
Point made. No pencil.
I was trained much the same way. I learned to draw directly in marker rather than sketching everything first and then going over it again.
Guests still regularly look at me and say something along the lines of, “You’re doing that straight in Sharpie?”
Yes.
When you learn that way, you develop a sequence and a rhythm. You aren’t stopping after every feature to figure out what to do next. You learn what information you need from a face, put it down and move to the next feature.
It looks a little like magic from the other side of the easel, but really it is thousands and thousands of faces worth of practice.
That kind of training can make an enormous difference at a live event.
The Style You Choose Matters Too
Speed isn’t determined by the artist alone. It also depends on what you are asking the artist to draw.
Generally, black-and-white faces are going to be the fastest option if your priority is getting as many guests drawn as possible.
Adding bodies takes additional time. Adding color takes additional time. A more elaborate full-color caricature takes considerably longer than a quick black-and-white face.
That doesn’t mean one style is better than another.
It means the best choice depends on your particular event.
For a large event, faces-only caricatures can be a great choice because the line moves quickly and more people can participate. For a smaller event, you may have time for something more elaborate.
I also love doing themed caricatures. I’ve drawn guests as everything from Lord of the Rings characters to characters from Shrek. Themed bodies can become part of the event itself.
There is one funny problem with them, though.
Once people see them, everybody tends to want one.
So when someone is planning a themed event, I look at the guest count and the amount of time available before recommending that option.
How Long Should You Hire a Caricature Artist for 100 Guests?
If someone tells me they have around 100 guests and they would like most of the people who want a caricature to have an opportunity to get one, I generally recommend at least three hours and preferably four.
Usually, however, the event already has a set length. In that case, I work backward.
How many guests are attending? How long is the event?
Then we choose a drawing style that makes sense for those numbers.
In my own case, I tell clients that during a four-hour event, I can usually cover up to about
100 people, depending on the drawing style and the flow of the event.
That is my capacity. It should not be treated as an industry average.
This is exactly why asking your individual artist about speed matters.
Don’t Forget That Real Events Have a Flow
An event is not an assembly line.
There are speeches. First dances. Toasts. Dinner. Awards. Presentations. Games. Sometimes everyone disappears onto the dance floor at once. At a holiday party, there might be a gift exchange. At a wedding, everyone may stop what they’re doing to watch the cake cutting.
That affects the caricature line.
I work by time rather than charging by the number of people drawn because this is the tradtional wau caricature artists have been doing it for decades.
Generally there are no issues. Obviously there is an ebb and flow to live events that neither the client nor the artist can completely control.
How I worl it is this: If guests continue coming, I continue drawing. If the event naturally pauses, that’s often a good opportunity for me to take a quick break, use the restroom or grab something to eat if a meal is included.
Then I get right back to drawing.
If the line stops I will ask the DJ or emcee to announce again that theres no line. That picks things up immediately. Some really good DJ's will do this on their own without me having to ask.
They know what every good live artist knows: we are there for your event, to make it successful. And therefore we are all there to help each other out to that end.
Line Management Is Part of the Job
There is another part of live caricature entertainment that doesn’t get talked about very often: Knowing when to close the line.
I never want someone standing in line for an hour only to reach the end of the event and discover that they aren’t going to get drawn.
That is a terrible way to end an otherwise fun experience.
So I watch my line throughout the event. As the end time approaches, I calculate approximately how many people I can still accommodate and close the line at the appropriate time.
Sometimes I use a small sign explaining that there is one caricature per person so that as many guests as possible can participate. People are generally very understanding.
I also use common sense. If the guest of honor wants a drawing with a spouse or best friend, for example, I’m not going to become the caricature police.
The point is simply to manage the line fairly and make the experience enjoyable.
Speed matters, but crowd and line management matter too.
Will Everyone at Your Event Want a Caricature?
Maybe.
You will sometimes see estimates suggesting that only a percentage of guests at an event will want to be drawn. I would be careful about relying too heavily on that when planning.
At many of my events, nearly everyone wants one.
I can only speculate about why, but after doing this for so many years, I have noticed an interesting pattern.
At the beginning of an event, the extroverts tend to find me first. They jump in the chair. They’re laughing. They’re talking. They’re showing their finished caricatures to everybody else.
The quieter guests are watching.
They see the drawings other people are carrying around. They stand near the easel and watch for a while. They see how I interact with people. They realize I’m not trying to embarrass anyone and that the caricatures are flattering and fun.
By the second half of the event, many of those quieter guests start coming over.
They’ve decided it’s safe.
Then, near the end, I often get the host, planner or immediate family members who have been too busy taking care of everybody else to sit down earlier.
So don’t automatically assume that only a small percentage of your guests will participate. The artist’s style and the experience they create can influence demand.
What If You Have Hundreds or Thousands of Guests?
This is where expectations matter.
If you are hosting a 2,000-person event, nobody should expect one caricature artist to draw 2,000 people. And that’s perfectly fine.
At very large events, a caricature artist can simply be one piece of the entertainment. Guests gather around and watch. People laugh at the drawings. The activity attracts attention. Some guests get a caricature as a keepsake and others enjoy watching the process.
During my years in Las Vegas, I worked plenty of enormous events where drawing everyone was never the expectation. Sometimes I worked alone. Sometimes there were several artists.
The goal isn’t always 100% guest coverage.
The goal is to decide what you want the caricature experience to accomplish at your event.
Sometimes it's just to help add a fun, festive atmosphere.
When Should You Hire More Than One Caricature Artist?
There isn’t a universal formula.
For example, if you have 150 guests, I can’t responsibly tell you that you need exactly two artists without knowing who those artists are, how fast they draw, how long your event lasts and what style of caricatures you want.
Two very fast artists could potentially accomplish more than several slow ones.
I draw an annual graduation event for Columbia Southern University where they bring in eight caricature artists. There is a huge line, and someone directs guests to the next available station.
I deliberately take the first station.
Why?
Because I know I can move people through quickly, which helps keep the front of that enormous line moving.
It isn’t about showing off or trying to beat the other artists. I’m there to help the event work.
That’s something I think good event professionals understand. The event isn’t about us. We are there to help make your event successful.
Sometimes You Really Do Need a Lot of Artists
One of the biggest events I ever helped organize was the launch of the original Samsung Galaxy Note at CES in Las Vegas in 2012. Samsung wanted 26 caricature artists.
My late husband and I were asked to put the team together, and we even brought in artists from California to get enough qualified people.
There was another challenge: we had to draw digitally on the original Galaxy Note using the tools available on the device at the time. We were also drawing in color, which slowed the process.
The Samsung exhibit was in a prime location at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the crowds were enormous.
The line wrapped around the entire hall. And if youve ever been to the Las Vegas Convention Center, you know how large that place is!
People waited hours for a caricature that took only a few minutes to create.
At that scale, multiple artists weren’t a luxury. They were part of the logistics of the event.
Your party probably doesn’t need 26 caricature artists.
But the principle is the same whether you have 50 guests or 5,000:
Start with the number of guests, the length of the event, the drawing style and the actual speed of the artists available to you.
Then do the math.
I can help.
How Do You Know Whether an Artist Is Really That Fast?
This may be the most important advice in this entire article.
Verify it.
Don’t rely solely on a beautiful portfolio. A portfolio tells you whether you like someone’s finished work. It doesn’t necessarily tell you how long each drawing took.
Don’t rely solely on years of experience either. As I’ve already explained, I’ve worked beside very experienced artists who were quite slow.
If speed matters for your event, ask the artist how many people they typically draw per hour in the style you’re considering.
Then, whenever possible, watch them draw live.
Look for videos of them working live. An unedited video is particularly helpful because you can actually see the pace.
If they publish a schedule of public events, go see them. Stand nearby for 10 or 15 minutes. Watch the drawings. Watch the line. Watch how they interact with guests.
I’ve had people hire me many times after seeing me draw at another event. In fact, someone told me exactly that today. They had already seen the speed and the finished product with their own eyes.
They didn’t have to take my word for it.
Trust, but Verify
When I worked in Las Vegas, my husband Buddy taught me a simple rule about hiring caricature artists:
If someone says they can draw, ask them to draw.
After Buddy passed away, I was running our business and an artist came in looking for work.
He gave me his whole spiel. He told me how long he had been drawing and talked about his experience.
I wasn't so sure.
Then I remembered what Buddy had told me. So, I handed the man a piece of paper and a marker.
“Draw me.”
He looked at me.
“Right now?”
Yep. Right now.
The poor man sat there sweating while he tried to draw me. I couldn’t see the paper from where I was sitting, so I waited until he finally turned it around.
It was immediately obvious that he couldn’t actually draw a person from life.
As Ronald Reagan famously put it, “Trust, but verify.”
That’s good advice when you’re hiring an event caricature artist, too.
Ask how many people they draw per hour. Ask what style that number is based on. Look at the quality of their finished work. Watch video if you can.
And, whenever possible, watch them draw in person.
Because when you’re planning an event for 50, 100, 500 or even several thousand people, the question isn’t simply “How many caricature artists do I need?”
The better question is:
“How many people can the event caricature artists I’m considering actually draw in the time I have?”
Once you know that, you can make a much better decision for your event.
Choosing the Right Event Caricature Artist
The right event caricature artist does more than create good drawings. They understand timing, line management, guest interaction and how to keep the experience enjoyable from the first caricature to the last.
Before booking, talk honestly with your artist about your guest count, event length and the type of drawings you would like. And of course, their speed. A knowledgeable artist should be able to help you choose a style and amount of time that fit your event, rather than simply giving you a one-size-fits-all answer.
About Kathy Buskett
Kathy Buskett is a professional event caricature artist with 27 years of experience, including 10 years working in Las Vegas. Known for creating flattering caricatures at remarkable speed, Kathy draws approximately 25 to 30 black-and-white faces per hour while giving each guest a fun, personal experience.
Through Caricatures by Kathy, she provides live caricature entertainment for weddings, corporate events, parties, festivals and other special occasions throughout the Gulf Coast and beyond.
Planning an event? Contact Kathy to discuss your guest count, schedule and vision. She will help you determine the drawing style and amount of time that make the most sense for your event.
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