Tips for planning live entertainment. Part 1
"Hello," I said picking up the phone. "Walden Magic Productions, this is Chris."
"Hi," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "Did we book you for a show this morning at 10:00?"
The clock read 10:35. Someone was in trouble. I knew they had not booked us because our procedures make it pretty difficult to forget a show. Yet someone had forgotten, or not realized that it was a solid booking. The story has a happy ending for this person. We had availability and they booked us to come and do a rescheduled show for the afternoon. I have no idea who they had been dealing with before. I'm glad we were able to help fix the problem. The show ended up being very spontaneous and lots of fun!
This incident points out an issue that many have when dealing with hiring entertainers. Most people have never done it before and don't know the signs of trouble or the best practices to keep them out of trouble. So I thought I'd use my little soap box here to give some tips to people hiring entertainers to help insure success.
Today's tip: Get Something In Writing.
Whenever I book a show we have established procedures. A major procedure is clarifying with our customer that we agree on what is to be done, where, when and how. We normally don't do a fancy contract, unless they want one. What we do is to write a letter which outlines what we are providing and what we require.
Sometimes these notes bounce back and forth while details are worked out. Recently I had one go back and forth three times while the location was corrected because the entertainment happened in a different location from other parts of the event, the things we were providing changed because they decided to go with different options, and the date needed to be corrected because sometimes I can't type. That last one was a big one. Imagine if I had made my own notes with the wrong date and the person running the event never had a chance to correct me!
By taking this extra step we made sure that everyone's expectations were set, theirs and ours, and we have something to go by in case anyone gets confused. Generally it's all done by email and it's very quick and easy.
When you are planning an event get your entertainer to give you confirmation in writing. Not only will you keep track of who you are dealing with, you will have a reminder of what is happening and anything that you agreed to do-- like move the furniture or leave a parking place.
I'll talk more about hiring entertainers in future posts. In the mean time if you would like a free copy of our report on event planning, "An Affair To Remember," send a note to info@waldenmagic.com and we'll send you an ebook version in PDF format.
"Hi," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "Did we book you for a show this morning at 10:00?"
The clock read 10:35. Someone was in trouble. I knew they had not booked us because our procedures make it pretty difficult to forget a show. Yet someone had forgotten, or not realized that it was a solid booking. The story has a happy ending for this person. We had availability and they booked us to come and do a rescheduled show for the afternoon. I have no idea who they had been dealing with before. I'm glad we were able to help fix the problem. The show ended up being very spontaneous and lots of fun!
This incident points out an issue that many have when dealing with hiring entertainers. Most people have never done it before and don't know the signs of trouble or the best practices to keep them out of trouble. So I thought I'd use my little soap box here to give some tips to people hiring entertainers to help insure success.
Today's tip: Get Something In Writing.
Whenever I book a show we have established procedures. A major procedure is clarifying with our customer that we agree on what is to be done, where, when and how. We normally don't do a fancy contract, unless they want one. What we do is to write a letter which outlines what we are providing and what we require.
Sometimes these notes bounce back and forth while details are worked out. Recently I had one go back and forth three times while the location was corrected because the entertainment happened in a different location from other parts of the event, the things we were providing changed because they decided to go with different options, and the date needed to be corrected because sometimes I can't type. That last one was a big one. Imagine if I had made my own notes with the wrong date and the person running the event never had a chance to correct me!
By taking this extra step we made sure that everyone's expectations were set, theirs and ours, and we have something to go by in case anyone gets confused. Generally it's all done by email and it's very quick and easy.
When you are planning an event get your entertainer to give you confirmation in writing. Not only will you keep track of who you are dealing with, you will have a reminder of what is happening and anything that you agreed to do-- like move the furniture or leave a parking place.
I'll talk more about hiring entertainers in future posts. In the mean time if you would like a free copy of our report on event planning, "An Affair To Remember," send a note to info@waldenmagic.com and we'll send you an ebook version in PDF format.
posted by Chris Walden at
9:19 AM
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