[Pickles]

I need some advice on crowd control at birthday parties. In the past week, I did two birthday parties. Both were big parties -- with 18-20 children -- and were held outside.

During my magic show I use a lot of different magic wands, and I often let the volunteers hold my different wands. During both parties, children started fighting over who got to hold nesting wands, and some children were clearly upset that they were not chosen to assist me by waving one of my wands. During yesterday's party, the children actually were mobbing me during the magic show.

I used to lay a rope or tape down and instruct the children to stay behind that line unless they were invited up to my "stage," but in recent years I had abandoned this boundary line, thinking it wasn't necessary. Clearly, it's become necessary again.

How many of you use a rope or some other line to set boundaries between the audience and performer, and do you do this at all parties, regardless of size?

How do you handle unruly children who fight over wands and mob the clown magician during her performance?

I try to involve as many children as possible as assistants during my show, but, obviously, if there are 20 kids, there is no way I can use all of them. I don't want to hurt any feelings, but I don't want to quit using volunteers in my shows.

Yesterday's kids were a particularly rowdy bunch. I was doing the silk birthday cake routine with the change bag and having them put invisible ingredients in the bag. But instead, they were tearing grass out of the lawn and trying to put it in my bag. Ohmygoodness.

I'm eager to hear about your experiences in handling overly rambunctious birthday party urchins.