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. The big attraction, however, is the fact that 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 $50 to $200 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.
Several other local women, not retired, also do this kind of work. 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.
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
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Note: The people mentioned on this site are real and what they did is true. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy.