189 pages and with over 70 colour photo illustrations

10 warm-up routines, over 40 games for all ages, and 20 magic routines

THE COMPLETE MAGIC PARTY is a highly detailed book dealing with many aspects of entertaining children with games and magic and it provides children’s entertainers with a huge amount of information based on my 30+ years experience of providing lively, marketable parties for youngsters.

The book is divided into sections.

Advice Sections. There are major chapters of professional advice on understanding the modern child, on how to exercise control over your young charges, on how to organise yourself in terms of taking bookings and providing good backup paperwork, on advertising, plus a whole range of other aspects of being a paid children’s performer.

Games Section. I give a thorough overview of how to present games in a fun and commercial way with all the main principles of running games being covered. Providing games at a party enables you to provide more at your bookings and thus achieve higher fees when you work. There are also over 40 games and activities detailed which cover all ages up to about 10. There are even four pre-show activities described to help smooth the way to a calm start to the party.

Warm Up Section. Preparing your audience well at the very outset of your show helps them to enjoy what you do to the full, and this section talks about how to get your young audience into the right frame of mind at the start of your performance and why it is so important. I also detail 10 warm ups that I have used in my own shows, two of which are published for the first time.

Magic Section. My approach to magic for children has always been to minimise the props and maximise the entertainment. My magic is often based on tricks more usually presented to adults but to which a presentation suitable for children has been added. There are 20 magic routines described and these are not just presentations for dealer type effects which you will need to purchase before you can proceed, but instead use props that you will either have or can easily get hold of. Included in the list of effects are full instructions for two children’s routines currently sold separately in my catalogue, plus a couple of other effects which were not in the original books.

THE COMPLETE MAGIC PARTY is packed full of information which will help both experienced and novice children’s entertainers to get the most out of their paid work at children’s parties.