Superheroes and kids party characters are highly popular, and confidence in choosing the right party entertainment for your child’s birthday is important. The options seem endless and unless its a word of mouth referral or you happen to attend a party featuring an entertainer, you might be worried about making the wrong choice. We hope this resource can help to overcome your fears and give you the right questions to ask and the confidence to make a choice.
Who is the Entertainer?
Many party entertainment businesses run as a national party agency with their entertainment working in a completely different area than operate from. A good question to ask is
Are you the entertainer? Can I speak with the entertainer? And if not- where are you based?
Just because you can’t speak to the entertainer doesn’t necessarily mean you are making a poor choice, but not being able to speak to the entertainer at all prior to the birthday party is a good insurance policy in ensuring the personality feels right to you.
Is the party entertainment age-appropriate?
This isn’t a deal-breaker. There are plenty of party entertainment companies that offer superhero entertainment to all ages. That said, you should still ask what their main clientele is, and also look at their website to gauge whether they are targeting kids or adults. If adults seem to be their main clientele, this might be a sign to consider whether they will have the experience to entertain a group of young children. You may want to check for testimonials online to confirm whether they are left by parents (or partners).
You may also want to ask things like:
What sort of entertainment will the performer offer?
What sort of activities could you prepare for them to participate in?
Make sure they have a blue card
It goes without saying but a blue card is an essential part of working with kids. If they don’t have a blue card and blue card number then you do not want to hire them for your kids birthday party.
Is the entertainer experienced?
An experienced kids party entertainer is important because kids are a tough crowd and being able to “improv” and deal with the inevitable chaos that can ensue post sugar ingestion. Questions you might like to ask include:
How many years has the entertainer performed?
Do they only do kids parties or do they also work in shopping centres etc?
Do they have any online videos you might be able to view?
What happens if something happens
Find out what the entertainer plans to do if they (for any reason) cant attend the party. Do they have a backup plan? Will they email you a week prior to confirm their attendance or text you the day before. Don’t leave things to chance. How will you reach them if you need to?
Check online testimonials
This approach does come with a word of warning. There will always be a small number of people that can never be pleased and an equal number who can take an unavoidable issue (like a sick entertainer) and turn it into a negative review. Every single service business likely has negative reviews if they are running a successful business. Warning signs are repetitive reviews of the same nature, no reviews at all and obviously a majority amount of negative reviews. Don’t be deterred by a few in amongst a lot of positives. However, this does give you the chance to see how they might respond to such reviews and may serve to help further in giving you confidence in making a choice. Reviews can often be found on Google My Business and Facebook (on their Facebook page).
Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Before you ring, have a list of questions and don’t be afraid to ask them. Just be upfront and say, this is the first time you have had a party like this and you have a list of things you just want to understand- do they mind giving you a couple of minutes of their time. Ideally, you would visit their website first to answer all the basic questions like what they cost and can they come to your location. You also want to ask very early on in this phone call if they have availability on your date so you don’t waste your time if they don’t.
We hope you have some more confidence when choosing a party entertainer for your next kids’ birthday party. If you have any other ideas they have worked for you, please feel free to leave them in comments below.
Check out our Birthday Parties hub, for a full range of resources for Brisbane kids’ parties, featuring lots of fun Kids Party Ideas, even Cool Tween and Teen Party Ideas!
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