New Clown Issues – Money, Material, PR and More!

[milo]

Hi there,

This started a s a reply to Joey’s post on getting gigs and becoming well known, but I started to ramble a bit so I though I would post a new thread.

We have a real shortage of children’s entertainers over here in the UK, whether it be clowns, magicians, DJs or whatever.

I’m not yet a clown, so I can’t offer the wisdom of others on the forum, but if you are looking to do this as a career i.e. to pay your mortgage/bills etc. Then you absolutely have to investigate the financial reward in the early stages.

Questions I asked myself:

Why do I want to become a clown?

I didn’t wake up one morning and think “I know, I’ll make a fortune as a clown” – What actually happened is that I woke up and realised that although I have a well paid job as a loss adjuster, I’m not happy doing what I do. So it was obvious I needed to change career before getting “stuck in a rut”. I thought to my self (and discussed with my wife) what I enjoy doing and we came up the facts that I love kids, I like to be the centre of attention, I don’t really care what other adults think of me, I have great people skills, I do a lot of charity work with children and I would have great fun as a clown – and so the idea was born!

Where can I learn clown skills?

This is the tricky bit because in the South East of England there are no clown schools! I managed to find a few circus skills classes, but they are about £200.00 a day (€400.00ish), they don’t focus on that many clown skills as they do more circus trapeze acts etc. and the traditional circus clowns seem to frown on the children’s entertainer clowns.

I went to my local magic shop and got a few large visual tricks that I imagine would be crowd pleasers and I have taught myself a few disappearing/appearing foam ball tricks and juggling etc ( I used this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFb_-GyleJA ). Youtube is great for learning as there are hundreds of acts you can watch for free. I want to learn to ride a unicycle and also stilt walk in the near future too, so I will buy my props and just practice, practice, practice! I found out that I can talk fairly well without moving my lips so I might look into buying some kind of ventriloquist doll and putting together a slapstick act.

Whatever act you decide to put together, it’s just a case of practising everyday!

Can I make any money?

Clowning is a great business to be in, but if you ever loose sight of what inspired you to become a clown you should get out of the business. Fun comes first then money should naturally follow! If you are having fun it will come across to your audience and they’ll have fun too, so you’ll get repeat business. If you are not enjoying it, they’ll see straight through you, you’ll loose bookings and the cycle will begin!

There is defiantly money to be made (at least in England there is) I know from booking my sons parties over the years that we have three “well known” children’s entertainers covering our area and none of them are clowns!!! They all charge between £100.00 and £150.00 for a show that can be between 45 minutes and 1 hour long (so in your money $200-$300 per hour) and most of them are booked out all year round for children’s parties up to two months in advance.

How do I make a name for myself?

You need an act, something that others do not offer, and you need to be able to tailor your act to different audiences. For example, a five year old will be amused in different ways to a ten year old. Learn as many skills as you can (there is so much more to professional clowning than dressing up and “acting the clown”), you need to be able to go into a booking with the versatility to change you act to suit the audience. Get the crown involved, bring the kids up, take a pie in the face and don’t forget to chuck in some adult humour for the grown ups (innuendos that the kids will take in a childish way and the adults will interoperate as adult humour). You need to be a hit with the kids, but don’t forget that you have been booked by the adult and every other adult in the room is a potential client.

Charity work is great PR and it gives you a warm feeling too! I intend on visiting the children’s ward at my local hospital once a week for an hour or so just to say hello, do balloon modelling and generate some smiles. The local papers will be all over it and they will do a spread every couple of months with pictures, reviews and staff statements (I’m lucky because my auntie works at the hospital and my cousin for the local press). Go out every once in a while in costume and just walk around the streets, try doing your weekly food shopping in costume! Make sure you always have flyers to hand out along the way!

Weddings – I don’t know about you, but we have wedding fairs, try to get along to as many of these as you can! If there’s a wedding with lots of children people will often be happy to pay for an entertainer – easily £300.00 - £500.00 for the day (up to €1000.00). Make sure you take bookings on the day and take a deposit.

Corporate events – Large companies often have family days, go to local events organisers and let them know you’re there! If a new children’s shop opens up near you ask if they would be interested in having you canvass the streets giving out their leaflets (make sure you have a box on the back of the leaflet advertising yourself and that they have paid for printing) – Charge £100.00 for the mornings work, It’s nothing to them and you are effectively advertising yourself so it’s money for nothing!

Website – The people who will be booking you will mostly be working parents. Anytime I look for anyone to do anything my first point of call is yell.com (do you have yellow pages? It’s a phone directory) then I would Google search for clowns in Kent. I’m sure that most working parents with office jobs and internet access do the same! Make sure you have a good professional looking website.

Should I have add-ons?

Yes! I am buying a bouncy castle, but there are hundreds of extras you can offer.

Anyway, like I say I’m not yet a clown, but after doing my research I have come up with the above and this is the road down which I intend to proceed. I hope there has been something of some use to someone and if anyone has anything they think might help someone please feel free to share anything about everything!

Milo the (soon to be) Clown xxx

[Snugglesnort]

Sounds like a plan!

There is a ton out there on how to do this stuff. Much of it can be found on the forum. If you havent already (looks like you have) look around and dig through old threads.

The trick is to start simple and build. All of clowning starts with yourself. You are what is funny, not the nose, the clothes, not the skills, and not the props.

Don't worry about the circus/stage clowns either, you can learn alot from them. They (or in the future we) work in a different enviroment, than hometown clowns, but the basic goal (making people laugh) and the basic way of reaching it (being funny) is the same. If you meet one, they frown at you, and then you remind them of this with a straight face, I would be surprised if they didn't answer any questions you might have, or be willing to exchange contact information.

[Fitzwilly]

Most circus clowns these days have no intention of being lifers with the circus. The idea is to stay a couple of years, and then get off, using the name and the training to help propel you for the rest of your life. So generally the circus clowns to not look down on hometown clowns that are seriously looking to hone their skills and become better clowns. It is generally the ones that think everything they have been doing for 20 years is good enough and there is no reason to learn anything new or try harder to be a better clown. Just like the ones in any profession, the ones that are just putting in their time.