Where in the world am I today?: At Sea off the Coast of South America aboard the GRAND Princess.
When I first started performing in the Byward Market I always faced the inevitable truth that performing outdoors in Canada was a rather seasonal pursuit. Although I can remember getting some weekends in as late as November in the Byward Market, more often than not late October signalled the end of the outdoor performance season. Thankfully it wasn’t the only season during which I was able to perform.
Performing in the Byward Market most of the summer season meant that people knew where to find me and I’d often hand out tons of business cards to people interested in hiring me to perform a private parties. The biggest season for private parties and company parties for me at the time had to be the Christmas Season. From late November right up until the weekend before Christmas I’d be booked solid performing for company parties, private functions and quite often did more shows per day than some of my busiest days as a street performer.
This year I only had one Christmas party on the books, but that was likely due to the fact that my schedule was so full up with cruise ship work. I was away on the biggest weekends of the Christmas Party season, and I must admit to not really have pushed to book shows at this time of the year. I’ve been quite happy to take what comes and not really stress too much about it, but I know some performers who have turned the Christmas Season into the mainstay of their performing business.
I know of one guy who got into the gift/toy end of the business and with one call a company could book him to do the show, provide the gifts, enlist the Santa and provide a one stop shopping solution to the Christmas Party challenge. He went as far as to have contacts for the following year ready to go so as he was wrapping up another successful event for company A they’d be signing up for the following year’s Holiday Package… Amazing.
I know another guy who decided to become a Santa and crafted a brilliant system to use at shopping malls. The kids would be greeted by elves who would talk to the children before they went in to see Santa and ask some pertinent questions. What’s your name? How old are you? What do you want for Christmas? Did you write to Santa yet? The whole time the questions were being asked the conversation was being sent to an ear piece that Santa wore (much like in the film ‘Leap of Faith‘ with Steve Martin) so that when the child came in to see Santa he would be greeted by name and Santa would know all sorts of ‘inside’ information that make the magic of Christmas come alive for the kids who were visiting Jolly Old St. Nick… Brilliant!
Now although I recognize the brilliance in both of these ‘Seasonal‘ businesses, this was never really the kind of approach that appealed to me, and although I was quite happy/am quite happy to do private shows at this time of the year, I always enjoyed other sorts of work more. Still… If you approach this season correctly and you’ll have plenty to put into your stocking before December 25th!
