Three weeks before a sixth birthday, a parent searches “kids party entertainer” with the name of the area, “magician for children’s party Dublin” or “face painter near me”, and has one question above all the others: are you free on the Saturday. After that they want the price, what happens in the hour, whether it suits a four year old or a nine year old, whether you come to the house or a hall, how far you travel, and whether you are Garda vetted. Websites for kids’ party entertainers in Dublin are won by the page that answers the Saturday question without a phone call, because the parent is doing this at ten at night after the child is asleep.
Your business is a calendar of Saturdays
You sell a finite number of weekend slots, and the calendar is the product. A booking page that shows the Saturday and Sunday slots you have open, lets the parent pick one, pay a deposit and get a confirmation, turns a week of “I’ll check and get back to you” into bookings made while you were doing a show somewhere else. The maybe that blocked the two o’clock slot for a fortnight disappears, because a slot is either paid for or it is open.
Midweek work has its own line: creche and school visits, communion parties in May, the Christmas run of office family days and Santa visits in December. The quiet spell in January and the bank holiday weekends that go one way or the other are yours to manage, and a “last dates for December” line, changed by you from your phone, fills more than any ad.
What the page has to settle
Packages, named plainly: the forty five minute show, the hour with games and balloons, the two hour party with face painting, the disco. For each, the age range it actually suits, how many children it works for, what you bring, what the parent needs to provide (a socket, a clear space, a table), and the price. Travel: the areas you cover at the standard price and where the travel charge starts. Indoor and outdoor, and what happens when it rains.
Then the trust lines. Garda vetted, insured, how many years you have been doing this, what you were before. Some venues ask for your public liability certificate, so saying you have it saves an email.
The deposit and the no-show
Party entertainers lose money to cancellations the week of the party and to double bookings when two parents were both told “probably fine”. A deposit at booking fixes both. Your terms, how much the deposit is, when the balance is due, what happens if the party moves, are written once on the page and agreed when the parent pays. We keep the wording on the right side of Irish consumer rules on deposits, and the plain explanation is in how to take deposits online in Ireland.
Sunday morning is for reviews
A parent whose house has just emptied of twelve seven year olds, with the birthday child still talking about the rabbit, is the most grateful customer you will ever have, for about a day. A text on Sunday morning with a direct link to your Google review box catches that. The reviews are specific, they mention the child’s age and what went down well, and they are what the next parent reads at ten at night. Nothing invented and nobody rewarded, just asked at the right time; the steps are in how to get more Google reviews.
Photographs with permission
Photograph yourself in costume and out of it, your props, the balloon models, the face painting designs on a willing adult or your own child, the set-up in a hall and in a sitting room. Photographs of children at parties only with the parent’s written permission, and a short video of a show, from the back of the room, is worth more than all of them. A clip of children laughing at something you did answers the only question the parent really has.
If you work alongside bouncy castle people, their page is at websites for bouncy castle hire and it covers the same Saturday problem from the other side.
What we need from you
Your packages with prices and ages, the areas you cover and the travel charge, your weekend availability pattern, your deposit and cancellation terms, your Garda vetting and insurance position as you want it worded, photographs and a video, and ten minutes. Most entertainers have everything on their phone already.
Plan and price
Saturdays booked with a deposit, the chat box answering the date question mid-show and the Sunday review text are Complete, at €1,499 to set up and €100 a month. An entertainer who does a few parties a month by phone and wants a clean page, a Google listing and the enquiry form is right on Essentials at €499 and €50 a month. Both plans are compared on the pricing page.