How To Book An Extra 117 Children's Shows Per Year (Even If You Think You're Fully Booked)

If you’re any good at magic shows you are probably booked every weekend – and very often have to turn away shows on those days too. Once the slots are filled there are no other times to do shows…are there…?

There are many ways to get midweek bookings and I’ll explain a couple here.

Midweek shows are ideal for any magician who wants to spend more time at home on weekends with their children, wives or husbands – when they aren’t at school or work. Or for greedy magicians like me who want to work as often as possible – often for higher fees than weekend parties and events.

Personally I don’t get many after school parties – maybe it’s because there are so many working parents now. Of course they do come along now and again BUT there IS another market for children’s magicians during the day midweek.

“But Martin, all the children are at school during the week?”

EXACTLY!!

Imagine if you do a show between 9am and 3pm you can be there when your children get home from school and in plenty of time to cook your partner an evening meal after they have been hard at work all day!

Typically I charge a minimum of £150 per show at a local school. If I am in a school for a whole day I charge between £350 and £550. If it’s not a local school those fees are plus travel and hotel. It’s very rare for me to do anything less than a full day when I travel out of the local area. I don’t mind driving an hour to a school in the morning but any more than that and they pay for a hotel. Also if it’s more than 2-3 hours’ drive home after working all day I’ll get a hotel for that night too.

But how to get the schools to book you?

The easiest way is to offer an Educational Magic Show.

Educational Magic Shows are based on three key elements of performance management.

1. Entertainment combined with education. Children learn best when they are having fun and enjoying themselves.

2. Audience participation. Allowing children to learn by being involved.

3. Using magic to illustrate key points and helping children to remember the message.

I have been performing Educational Magic Shows in schools for over 20 years; it has been a very good source of income for me.

“But Martin” I hear you say “The government is cutting the money they give to schools – it’s in the papers every week.”

Thankfully now it seems some bright spark has realised that the best people to decide what a school needs most are the very people running it, the senior management team and teachers.

This is great news for you as the people receiving your marketing are more than likely those in control of the decision, so they are the ones asking themselves the key question – to book or not to book?

The timing to learn an Educational Magic Show couldn’t be better. As you are reading this schools and budget holders will be counting their pennies (well £89 billion to be precise) and ‘umming’ and ‘arring’ over what to spend it on.

Don’t get me wrong, they can’t afford to be frivolous as a large portion of their budgets will already be earmarked (e.g. over 50% will be spent on staff wages), but they will now be ready to decide what their school needs to survive and thrive over the next 12 months.

If you can truly understand how teachers think, act, purchase, and ultimately what they need, and you can communicate how your Educational Magic

Shows can satisfy this need then will you stand a chance of winning a slice of the £89 billion budget.

Of course working midweek will not suit everybody but getting one or two school shows can also help you be more picky about the weekend shows you take!

Sound good?

I founded "Magic in Schools” with the aim of helping children’s entertainers create and book school shows, with my blog posts, training products and events! So watch this space for more.