I have not yet reached the stage of motherhood at which my daughter is requesting Elsa appear at her birthday party, so my experience with “characters” at events is somewhat limited. Tasked with finding kid-friendly entertainment for my firm’s Halloween party, I was at a loss. I was given loose direction to find a crowd-pleasing “magician/caricaturist/fortune teller/balloon artist” within our budget. I’m not sure what energy I was exuding to give my boss confidence that I knew how to find such a person, but here we were with at least a portion of my professional credibility on the line.
Fortunately, a more experienced mom friend pointed me in the direction of Abra-Kid-Abra, a Webster Groves-based company with over 40 years of experience providing kid-friendly magic shows and offering a variety of other entertainers, including face painters, balloon artists, and caricaturists.
This option appealed to me as I would be contracting a company with an established reputation, rather than working directly with an individual “character” who might leave me high and dry. I felt some level of assurance that the company would have a quality control process in place when hiring entertainers, I could hire any and all entertainers for my event from the same source, and since the company is specifically focused on children’s entertainment, I wasn’t worried about questionable or frightening adult content.
I contacted Abra-Kid-Abra with a vague description of the services I was seeking. I received a prompt reply with several suggestions at varying price points, clearly indicating that Abra-Kid-Abra understood my event and the interests of elementary-aged children far better than I did. Their advice was logical and gave me confidence presenting the different options to my superiors.
We paid our deposit for a magician and caricaturist, and were held by our contract to pay a second installment in advance of the event. As is typical in nearly all corporate events, someone higher up than I had a last-minute change of heart about hiring a caricaturist. Since we’d already overpaid slightly, Abra-Kid-Abra wasn’t able to refund our over-payment but suggested bringing “magic” wands for every child who attended the magic show to make up the balance – a quick and easy compromise.
Leading up to our event, our magician called me twice to confirm details. The day of, while I was running up and down the 6 floors of my office suite confirming flower delivery, pumpkin placement, hors d’oeuvres and drink set up, last-minute wine delivery, and 100 other details, I was so relieved to quickly greet our magician as he called while on his way and arrived promptly at the expected time.
Our delightfully kooky magician successfully entertained a room full of children ranging from toddlers to pre-teens (and the wand giveaway was a huge hit with aspiring mini magicians), but as the organizer, the best part of his performance was his reliability. Working with a company with a clear and organized process for responding to requests, maintaining an open line of communication with the client, and double-confirming all pertinent event details took a weight off of my shoulders.
Shortly over one month later, I had the opportunity to experience Abra-Kid-Abra as an event attendee at the St. Louis City Mom’s Blog Donuts with Santa event, and was extremely impressed with Santa’s professionalism and warmth. Although I can’t speak to the organizer’s experience working with Abra-Kid-Abra, from a results perspective, the company is two for two with me!
Whether you are planning a birthday party at home, corporate event, or fundraiser, I can’t say enough about how easy Abra-Kid-Abra was to work with and how their professionals will delight your guests.
