I have added a new bit to my terms and conditions regarding child safety after a grim party experience recently.
I absolutely love 99.9% of my clients. I work with wonderful families every week. But this experience was deeply unpleasant.
I have performed at over 2,000 birthday parties in all sorts of venues over the last 15 years, but I am always learning. A family had me for a birthday party in their garden. For no extra cost, I took the time to visit their house in advance of the party to help them find the best spot for the show and noticed a dangerous sheer drop off the garden onto a concrete patio. Similar to this (AI pic).
This was to be a party for 17 children with many toddlers and other children under 5. I told the client that there must be some padding put on the concrete where the drops are. A few big cushions/duvets would have done the job. TADA!
On the day, I assumed they would have put down the padding done but had not. I politely asked the client again if we could put something there to make it safe, but she repeatedly and angrily told me “we have had loads of parties and nothing has ever happened!” I’m sure that people have ran across the motorway before and “nothing happened”. I persuaded the client to cut down the entertainment (at a £100 loss to me) eliminating the games part and having a static show but was very uneasy about the experience and the opposition to my concerns from this client so I have now added this to my T and Cs page to make it more clear.
🧒 Child Safety
The safety and wellbeing of children is of the utmost importance at all times.
The client is responsible for ensuring that the performance area is safe, secure, and suitable for children. This includes (but is not limited to) removing or adequately safeguarding any potential hazards such as drops, sharp objects, or unsafe garden features.
The entertainer reserves the right to pause or stop the performance if, in their professional judgement, the environment poses a risk to the safety of any child. No liability will be accepted for incidents arising from unsafe conditions that were not disclosed or addressed prior to the performance.
The Greenwood Centre, 1A School Rd, Hampton Hill, Hampton TW12 1QL
Fantastic venue for a children’s birthday party. Perfect size. Not echoey (like many halls). Clean, big kitchen, children’s tables and chairs. Lovely kind manager Maurice. Only downside; only a couple of parking spaces outside. Free parking on the street but might have to park a street or two away as busy on street parking.
Brilliant venue for a children’s birthday party or family event. Car park right outside, clean, easy ground floor access, easy for chairs. The church car park is just next to the Church Hall. The postcode for the car park is KT7 0QQ. It is accessed from Summer Road. The turn is opposite Riversdale Road.
Great venue for a children’s birthday party. Very clean. Good kitchen and a few parking spaces in the car park and easy to park on the surrounding streets.
Great hall for small party. (up to 25 guests) Lovely staff who can prep food for your party. Only a few parking spaces outside.
Please avoid booking the party in the halls listed below. They are very echoey and the sound bounces around the room, creating a “ball of noise”. This makes the show difficult to hear and can be uncomfortable for both children and parents.
Ritchie is performing at lots of fun-filled holiday camps in 2026. Great fun during half-terms and summer holidays. Lazer Lions in Hampton, Surbiton, Weybridge, Richmond, New Malden and Walton on Thames. Fun Fest in Kingston and Worcester Park. Fort 4 Fun in Shepards Bush.
I got into working at children’s birthday parties because of balloon modelling. I bought a balloon modelling DVD but couldn’t keep them from untwisting and popping. That week a friend introduced me to the man who changed my life, the very funny magic man, Michael Wo.
Ritchie with Michael Wo and magician Brendan Rodrigues
Michael would carry a suitcase full of magic tricks and balloons wherever he went and I ended up doing the same for 3 years. He taught me to make balloon animals and we had great fun making them in the pubs for people and it earnt us free drinks, got us a few gigs and I got a wife from it (another story).
Balloon modelling is awesome. It has the wow factor. It has the aw factor. You can produce a teddy bear, a hat, an alien out of a few pieces of rubber in your hand. That for me is magical! Just check out the incredible things that David Crofts makes.
In around 2010, I wanted to become a clown much to the objections of my clown-fearing mother. I bought a unicycle, boxes full of joke props, giant shoes and loads more nonsense including balloon modelling balloons and a pump. This is when I met Michael Wo. I made a few balloon animals and put a few pics up online. My Facebook friends loved them! Their enthusiasm and likes pushed me to make more and more and ended up getting gigs by billing myself as, “The Happy Balloon Man!” It was brilliant because, with half a dozen gigs in the diary, I could finally quit the painful job I had at the time of being a contortionist. See this blog to read about that
I worked at all sorts of events making balloons and it was great fun at times. At others, it was frankly horrid with queues of angry parents furiously demanding the most complicated balloons I could make, “Right mate, I need 3 aliens for these monsters and 4 teddy bears for my other kids that are in the car!“
I ended up making balloons at a few children’s birthday parties. I was usually a side act, while a magician/entertainer was doing a show and games for the children, which is where I first thought of doing that myself. The kids were having a brilliant time. They were totally engaged and were laughing their socks off. I had never seen such an entertainer when I was a child. The shows and games I realised were much more fun than the balloon modelling that I was doing.
When I started doing children’s parties as an entertainer, I put a magic show together and then thought “I’ll make everyone balloons in the second half.” 30 happy laughing children in the first half became less and less so as they waited and started to get frustrated. Even with lots of jokes along the way, after 5 minutes, children get bored watching an entertainer making balloons and start to get frustrated that they haven’t got their balloon, then they may complain about the colour, the one they got, then comes the popping and crying.
Children hate the sound of balloons popping. Some are actually terrified of the sound. I often have requests from parents for ” no balloons!” Because they have had that wow pop cry* experience and it is something very sad for them that lingers.
What I have done for the last two years is stopped making everyone a balloon and tada, my parties are better than ever and my reviews are stronger. With plenty of music, magic shows, dancing, fun games, and a bubble machine, none of these issues arise and everybody is happy. What I still do is make a nice balloon for the birthday child in the calm of the food break. The other children understand that it is a present for the special child.
Balloon modelling I conclude is rubbish for birthday parties. If you are an entertainer reading this, consider dropping it from your party packages. Put fun games in that time instead or do more amazing magic routines.
For bigger events, DO book balloon modellers. But don’t just pick people who make amazing balloon models because I have seen “entertainers” grumpily making balloon in silence. But then I have worked with the fantastic Graham Lee, the awesome David Crofts and the dashing and glorious beast of a balloon superstar Russell Wells. If you are organising a large corporate event, fun day, festival do book a group of balloon modellers. Book 2 or 3 as demand will be high and they will quickly get swamped.
The brilliant Russell Wells from South Wales.
* “Wow, pop, cry” is a phrase that brilliant South Wales based children’s entertainer Simon Sparkles came up with.
Thank you for booking me for your school magic show. It’s fun to build excitement for the show by putting up a poster or sharing it on social media/email for parents to see.
I am happy to make you a poster that you can print or share online.
Poster example I did for my shows at Lazer Lions holiday camps
I work entertaining with magic shows, dancing, party games at children’s birthday parties and school shows and people often ask me this question. I do have ADHD and have a natural liveliness and a desire to be physical and expressive. I have a YouTube about ADHD I called it “Lets go Lets go Baby!” And this is part of it; this positive self talk to get you into that high energy, high fun mindset. I am not dancing and being crazy all week. A lot of my business is doing emails, editing music, prepping props but on show days and even the day before I am beginning that process of psyching myself up.
I like to be well rested so I may go for dinner but will get an early night the day before a show, I’ll be up early, sometimes work out and be very fresh. Singing on the journey there help me a lot to get into that fun, high energy frame of mind. In your normal life a great tip is do not start the day with news like having the radio on a news channel. This is a major downer to get the day going. I wonder if I have a low blood sugar problem as I need to graze through the day and have snacks like nuts, bananas, dates, dark chocolate and the odd naughy bar like a Crunchie but I never buy a multipack as then I will binge on them!
I have tried entertaining at birthday parties for this age range, but they start to get cool and serious and don’t appreciate my silly fun. Some children’s entertainers will just take the cash and turn up to any part,y but I want my clients to be super happy and so keep my parties for 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th birthdays for maximum laughs and great memories.
