When taking a booking for a party, do you hand out a terms and conditions form?

I was wondering, as i am compling my own list. What sort of things should i include? this is how it goes so far...



Mustard requires a 'stage' area of which to perform in. This will be marked out before the party starts.
Unless invited it is very important that no child nor adult enters the 'stage' area.
Help from the parents is encouraged. Any unruly children need to be stopped before it gets out of hand. Although Mustard enjoys the interaction, it can get out of control.
Mustard reserves the right to stop at any time if he feels it is getting out of control.
Where balloon modelling is involved, space is always needed. With children crowding around, it is almost impossible to model.
The maximum amount of performing time is 45mins.
During the performance a level of control is needed. We ask parents to police this and stop any unruly behaviour

what do you 'gurus' think? as i said, that is only a draft. I was wondering what i should add/take away to complete it

toodooloo!

i can see why you are doing this due to your last thread about getting mobbed
how about something like while i am there to entertain the children i am not a babysitter if your kid is doing something wrong please take appropriot or how ever it is spelled measures

i can see why you are doing this due to your last thread about getting mobbed
how about something like while i am there to entertain the children i am not a babysitter if your kid is doing something wrong please take appropriot or how ever it is spelled measures

yeah, might chuck that in - thanks :D

I wished you had continued the posting in the "Mobbed" thread rather than starting up an entirely new thread on the same subject, Mustard.

I am sorry Mustard but there are several things wrong with your "terms and conditions" notice. Nobody in their right mind, would ever want to employ you after reading that! You are offering to entertain and care for the most precious and special things that people have and at the same time declaring in several lines that you're unable to handle them. Please do not show these conditions to prospective employers untill we have had a think about this.

Party clowning does demand an ability to interact closely with excited children, without loosing control. It is not particularly hard, most people have to do it at some stage in life. It requires you being adult and letting the kids know who is in charge. Children are very accustomed to being herded around in little groups by adults. They are conditioned to do as they are told by an endless array of differant adult people whom they come into contact with. So the first thing you let the little ones know is that you are in authority.

I work in a very hapazard and random nature where children are drawn to me, rather than me being presented to them. Either way, they have to be made to understand that their good behaviour will reap rewards. They will be told that they should sit or stand at what ever distance I deam to be suitable and if they move any closer, I will not be showing them the funny, special, magic, silly, thing. I never use ropes to mark out boundries, prefering to talk plainly and directly. However a rope used in this fashion is a practicle, simple, visual marker that all children can understand. As soon as the first one makes a forward movement, I will stop and remind them what I said earlier that I dont do funny clowny stuff for naughty children. I will threaten to leave them, to show the good behaved childrern in the next field. Pretty soon, they will be policing each other telling them selves not to spoil the show. I consider how the children will remember me. For most children, I wish and expect it will be a special, unusual and happy memory they will retain throughout all of their lives. I want them to remember me as a clown, not an adult dressed in a clown costume. It is very easy to project a figure of authority over children, without ever having to come out of clown.

I think, Mustard, you are throwing yourself in at the deep end before you can even swim. You are offering something that is more aspirational at the moment, rather than a real quality service. I think what you could really do with doing, is watching and working with a more seasoned and experenced childrens entertainer. If I were you, I would look out for these people local to you and voluteer to assist them. This way, you will gain confidence and first hand knowledge on seeing how it works. Also, you will be able to practice under their watchfull eye and have their experience to rescue the situation before it all falls apart.

There is a very famous childrens entertainer called David Ginn. He has written some very good books on entertaining children, you would do well to find those books and study them. You will find all sorts of very usefull information that will easily help you aquire the right balance of clown and authority.

With regards to your "terms and conditions" notice, I think it would be much more proffessional to center this more on the services you are offering and how payments should be made for said services. I never use one but I know many clowns here do use them and I am sure they and I can come up with a better worded document that will also address you concerns on child managment.

i didnt realise this would kind be the same thread i apologise.

those t&c's are only a rough draft. I dont do all that many clown discos, and when i do im covered by my t&cs in the discos. but its only touched apon lightly. I dont think i am ready to do just a clown party as yet.
I work better when i have another person to bounce off, and me and the chap i work with on disco have realised this and have worked on a routine together.

Mustard, I understand what you are trying to accomplish with your terms and conditions, but... it seams to have a somewhat negative tone, clowns are suposed to be fun. Yes, you must be serious about the buisness aspect and protecting yourself! I just think you should try to re-word most of these to be more light hearted and work on a more posative tone. You definetly should not be a babysitter but in terms of controling the crowd you must be in control, it is after all you they are crowding around.

I think there may need to be a happy medium somewhere in here....

I understand what you are going for and I think it could be set out in one simple phrase "The entertainer is present to entertain and not to police rowdy behaviour or chase stray children, as such, there must be a minimum of 1 adult per 5 children present at all times to aid in supervision." I don't do this, but I have seen something similar to this somewhere in a contract or something.

As a children's entertainer, there needs to be a certain level of crowd control that you do, however. You may want to google some teacher's classroom management techniques... while they will not all apply to clowning, some ideas may help. From my training and experiences as a teacher, here are some things that may help (I admit to not having read the "mobbed" thread, but I think I see where this is going)

- Be VERY well prepared in your presentation (have all materials and supplies close at hand so that you are not busy searching for something)

- Have all children sitting unless they are actively participating in a song or game that requires them to stand. Do not start your presentation unless they are all doing as you have asked. Simply say, "I'm sorry, we have to wait for Johnny to join everyone sitting on the floor." Don't go crazy if they are wandering away to mom, but if they're just jumping around on the outskirts or bugging people, wait for them to settle in to "watch the show."

- If one child starts to do something when you have asked them to stop, state that you may need to put all of your toys away if they cannot treat them nicely. No one wants the party to stop and the other children will get on your side to get the trouble maker to stop. Nip that first one in the bud though because if one gets away with it, they will ALL start doing it too. Don't be a punching bag.

- If all the kids are getting antsy, they are probably bored with the activity you are doing and you should move on to something else. They like to be involved and not just watching passively. Much of my show involves action songs and games that have the kids in a circle or dancing around... the parents love this because I get the kids to wear off some of the energy that naturally comes with a kids' party and the goodies that go along with it.

- The best way to redirect a situation that is going wrong is to change the activity entirely. "Wow, this isn't working out too well, let's do this instead..."

I hope these ideas help. Clown parties aren't exactly classroom management because you aren't there to be an authority figure, but you aren't there to be disrespected either. You are there as a special friend to all of the children and they need to treat you as a friend.

Some of the numbered points seem redundant. Edit. #3 &7 are the same thought. The last sentence of #3 is the same thought as in #4. Group yoru thoughts liek this: STAGE AREA INFORMATION/ PARENTS INFORMATION/ REGULATIONS (this is where you enforce performance maximum time & you have the right to stop the show if crowd control is not administered by the parents or you may want to word it "Mustard has the right to pause the performance when unruly children pose a safety concern tot he performer and to other participant" Something like that.

Some of the numbered points seem redundant. Edit. #3 &7 are the same thought. The last sentence of #3 is the same thought as in #4. Group yoru thoughts liek this: STAGE AREA INFORMATION/ PARENTS INFORMATION/ REGULATIONS (this is where you enforce performance maximum time & you have the right to stop the show if crowd control is not administered by the parents or you may want to word it "Mustard has the right to pause the performance when unruly children pose a safety concern tot he performer and to other participant" Something like that.

thanks artsy, really helped me there 8-)

Well. I suggest getting a book on this, because it can't all be covered here. First of all, you should not be referring to yourself as Mustard, by your clown name, in your legal documentation. Secondly, the tone is very much about protecting you, but a good contractual agreement is always about protecting both parties. You may also want to consider adding points about what you ARE going to provide, what they should expect, how to prepare, how to pay you, what happens in the event of a weather or other cancellation, etc so the heat is taken off you asking for help with crowd control.

An additional issue is that much of this could be handled in your booking conversation with the client, and only RE-ITERATED in the document.

Alexa

I just have a section where I state
A adult must be present at all times this is for the childrens protection as well as mine
This is usally all that is required and the adult automatically helps in crowd control