Its nearly Christmas – well, it’s just a month away
Auntie Julie has had a busy Autumn. The term started off with an unusual amount of back to school shows. A couple of nurseries had anniversaries of opening and another was a welcome to new students. All of these was a good way to start September off.
Northwick Park hosptial has been very busy. Lots of coughs and colds around this time of year. A visit from POD Charity always brightens the day. Next month will have Christmas shows for everyone.
Birthday Parties
I belong to a group of about 200 entertainers who meet up every year for a convention. It’s a lot of fun with shows, lectures and stuff to buy. It means that we all know pretty much how each of us run our parties. That doesn’t mean that we are all the same. What works for one magician, may not for another. This is particularly helpful when passing work amongst ourselves. Sometimes an enquiry comes in and I am fully booked, or the job is too far away. Rather than leave the client scrolling through dozens of options I do my best to find them a similar, suitable entertainer. In return, when I have a gap, I can often fill someone elses enquiry.
Why am I telling you this? This week I came across an entertainer who wasn’t part of my group. It was refreshing to see a completley different ‘take’ on the party. Firstly it was a male entertainer, with 3 year old party children. Mostly male entertainers prefer to entertain older children. He ran a session of singing and actions for 45 minutes. Every song had a new puppet or prop. All his tracks were backing tracks with live singing. I applaud his singing ( much better than mine). What I did notice was that he wasn’t phased by the children that didn’t join in . The children were very young so didnt have a huge attention span, and a few were allowed to wander and run around. Nobody should copy an act ( because it’s his intellectual property) but it did give me some worthwhile inspiration.
My act followed food. I settled everyone into place after they’d had their birthday tea and ran my show, missing out the songs they’d already sung. The birthday girls dad complimented me, and said he didn’t think I had a chance of getting everyone sat down. Infact, I had more children at the end of my show, than I’d started with.
