Entertain at children’s birthday parties

Quite honestly, only a few retirees go into the party entertainment business unless they have been involved in entertainment before retirement–for example, in a local little theater or in the party planning business. I think this opportunity is being overlooked because, the fact is, being a children’s party entertainer can be fun and pays quite well. You need:

• A character–a persona that you play at the party
• A costume for your character
• Business cards with contact information
• A very simple website
• About one to one and a half hours of entertainment and activities

Successful party entertainers can earn from $100 to $300 or more for each party.

From stay-at-home to “Mother Goose”

A homemaker, Ann, whose husband had retired and was at home all the time, decided she should be the one to get out of the house and became a children’s party entertainer. With no background in entertainment but a love of children she developed a Mother Goose costume and a goose hand puppet so she could entertain and tell stories to the children at birthday parties.

She handed out her new business cards, posted some in local coffee shops and stores and soon had bookings. From there her business grew primarily by word-of-mouth. She was so popular that she began to be booked into local street fairs which in turn helped her children’s entertainment business.

Several other local women, not retired, also do this kind of work. I met them when they entertained at my granddaughter’s birthday parties. One has a Hawaiian theme where she comes dressed in a hula skirt and tells Hawaiian stories, plays recorded Hawaiian music and teaches the children to do hula dances wearing the paper leis she provides.  If wearing a hula skirt would leave you more exposed than you like, you could always wear a Hawaiian Mu-Mu.

Another woman comes as a Fairy Godmother, complete with shimmering “wings”, and she, too, tells stories. She also leads the children, usually 4 to 6 year old, in making big soap bubbles and some group games. She often books 2 parties each weekend and still works part time at her day job.

“Cowboy” succeeds by word-of-mouth

And a retired man decided to create a cowboy character and tell stories about the Old West. In addition to promoting his Cowboy persona locally by word-of-mouth, he set up a very simple website online to make it easy for parents to contact him and quickly began booking parties for young boys. He handed out favors at the party that were in keeping with his character.

Some character entertainers, like the Star Wars Storm Troopers, also work at adult parties or big public events, but the costumes are quite expensive and so are they.

Library story teller

Some people forego the idea of creating a character and simply book themselves into public libraries as story tellers for the library’s children’s story time. Almost every library in the country has story time for little children and some hire people to read the stories. It could be you! (Other libraries rely on volunteers.)

Practical tips:  To keep your costs low when you are getting started buy your business cards from VistaPrint and set up a free Facebook page or free website using WordPress.com or WIX or other free website.