KEH 137: Performance Techniques #2 – How to shine on Zoom and win in the virtual parties game

Performance Techniques #2 – How to shine on Zoom and win in the virtual parties game


Download Your Free Resource: Stagecraft by Danny Schlesinger

Welcome to Season 7 chapter 137 of the Kids Entertainer Podcast! In today’s episode Zivi and Danny shared about Performance Techniques #2 – How to shine on Zoom and win in the virtual parties game. Listen to this episode to get so many tips.

Here are some of the important notes from this episode:

  • Virtual Vs. Live! You can win at both if you know the secrets! Techniques and tips
  • What are the benefits of performing Virtual shows?
  • Do you need to spend lots of money on new equipment?
  • What if I’m not very good at technology?
  • What material should I perform?
  • How do I market a virtual show?
  • Techniques – Look into the camera – windows to the soul.
  • Using the medium to max the advantages, smiling and looking at the camera
  • Involve the kids
  • Virtual backgrounds
  • Back ups!
  • You can win at both by having a new product – A virtual show, a new online market and also having your normal live kids shows.


Resources mentioned in this episode:

Now it’s your turn!
What did you think of this episode? Please share your comments below. Thanks for listening!


Download Your Free Resource: Stagecraft by Danny Schlesinger

Transcript:

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Voice Over:

Welcome to the Kids Entertainer Podcast, the world’s leading podcast for children’s and family entertainers, and here to help you in your journey of spreading smiles and joy, your host, Zivi Kivi.

Zivi:

Hello, and welcome to the Kids Entertainer Podcast. Hi I’m Zivi Kivi. And I’m so excited to share this episode with you, Danny Schlesinger. Hello, Danny.

Danny:

Hi Zivi. Hi everybody. Thanks for joining us and listening. I’m looking forward to this episode as well. It’s very exciting.

Ziv:

It’s a combination of, of topics today where we call it performance techniques to how to shine on zoom and win individual parties game. And this is actually a topic where it’s all new territory, right? We we’re getting to this point in this world where zoom shows and virtual parties has become a thing. And no one, no one holds the book yet, right? It’s new stuff. So at the same time, performance is performance is performance and performance on stage and on camera is stuff that has been around. So let’s dive in. Dany lead the way. Danny:
So I’ve been through everything we’re going to talk about and I’m still going through it because at first I was, I don’t want to do virtual shows. It’s not the same. There’s a lot of problems. I’m not technically competent. So yet. Yes, exactly. So what are the benefits of performing virtual shows? You talk to lots of people that are doing virtual shows, you’re coaching people. So what are the benefits of virtual shows?

Zivi:

There are a few benefits. I actually have created an online course. We’ll probably mention that later called virtual shows. And it’s a part of the Kids Entertainer Academy. And that course was created as a result of my customers needing it. My, my coaching clients were in this situation. They want it to go well and I had to study it and show them the quickest way. So I did a lot of interviews of people that already did it and started to do it and constantly kept it updated so that I know what is the trend, what is happening. Zivi:
And the bottom line is do it for me. That’s the number one benefit do it for Timmy. He has a birthday and he needs a show. And if you show the Timmy’s mom chain that you have an option to do a virtual show, she actually will maybe consider it. We’ll book you in. Once you start to do some virtual shelves, they start to sell themselves. You feel really good and competent, and if you are rehearsing and if you’re creating original content, and if you’re really good with kids, all of that good stuff. And while we feel like you’re a member and you’ve been with for a year or two, that will automatically bring you to the right level. So people need this. Timmy needs his birthday to be fun. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I thought I was skeptical too at the beginning because they felt, Hey, Timmy’s not going to ask for it.

Stephanie wants the experience of the table with the candies of his kids, laughing it out to him. But then I found out that actually the kids are laughing because he is surrounded by kids laughing in his birthday. So yes, there’s no big table with a lot of candies for everyone, which is cheaper and healthier, but he is in zoom in the meeting. So now that he’s surrounded by faces that are laughing and having fun. So the biggest benefit of using zoom or using official party, it’s just the fact that you can choose whether you’re muting people or unmuting them. So you can make it into an experience that is engaging. You can hear the people’s laughters and answers. You can interact just like you interact in the show. But if you wanna, you can always just hit the button and mute that little clip. Exactly.

Ziv:

That kid. I really wanted to say, but I didn’t say it this time. Danny:
So I saved you this time. Thank you. That’s a great benefits. Thank you for that. But I think there are lots more as well. And for me, one of them is health. It’s very risk-free to perform in your house for people in their houses and there’s no contact. So whatever the state of play is in your area, you can, you can be safe. You don’t have to travel, you can have everything set up. So you just step into your little studio or corner of a room or whatever. So that’s that for me is a huge benefit and Timmy’s grandma will be exactly right. However, you do it. You can invite people from that may not be able to travel to the birthday party in real life. So grandma in Australia or somebody on the other side of the country, friends.

Danny:

So it’s a great benefit that other people can join in on this birthday party for the best they can for, to me,

Ziv:

The last, there is like a few alternatives, right? So, and they’re not really way better. So for example, the drive through birthday, which is a phenomenon that exists in certain places in the world, in America, a drive through birthday where everyone’s stand outside, like the family, Timmy and his mom and his mommy thingy outside. And there’s a parade of cars, honking their cars and waving with all of his friends from school or from kindergarten. And they will stop the cow throw the gift on the floor. So that there’s like two meters apart and continued driving, or maybe do another round of driving a haunting. And sometimes they will percolate to the yard or they will have an entertainer wave or whatnot, or with a funny costume. But that’s not as empowering as a complete show.

Danny:

No, it’s not very interactive for the kids because they’ll have traveled in the car. They’re stuck in the car still. Or they might, it’s not the same at all. It’s a different alternative, but it’s not a real, it’s not a kid friendly interactive show.

Zivi:

Yeah. And you can see the kids’ faces when you perform. You can. And when you look into the camera, they feel like you’re looking at them. That’s how they appear. So there’s a few advantages to zoom. Yes. There’s different levels of energy. Yes. Sometimes there will be a baby in the back dying and you will like, the kids might be disengaged with you. And the, I don’t know, be focused on something else, but there’s also a lot of advantages. Like it’s actually fun. It’s actually interactive. You can record it really easily. You can, a lot of time, the kid will sit on his parent’s lap at certain ages. Right. So they actually are forcing the parents to watch right in the past, the parent will talk without a parent in the back of the event, potentially. But in here in zoom, they can’t do that. They just can’t. So there’s more word of mouth. The marketing is easier. You feel good because the parents will feel, yeah, there’s a lot of benefits.

Danny:

That’s great.

Zivi:

And you can perform all over the world. Danny:
You can, this is, I was just getting to that. And that was going to be my next benefit that you don’t have to be limited by your local area or how far you want to drive. You can literally perform on the other side of the world. Right? Zivi:
We have case studies of these like Metallica wasn’t bed used to be an adult entertainer. He became a kid’s entertainer. Now with the zoom shows, there was a demand. He just finished 48 shows for kids for like, I like for one customer for all of his after school, summer camp activity. And we suggest that is a need for entertainment, whether it’s with schools and play schools and after school activities, whether it’s birthdays. Danny:
Yeah. It doesn’t have to be for birthday parties. But because I think that’s what we generally think of as instant. Let’s do a show for birthday parties because they’re all the time, all parts of the year, but there’s summer camps. There’s lots of vacation things. Now, when we’re recording here in August and there’s also events coming up, we have Halloween and Christmas in a few months time. So yeah, I think you can, you can adapt a show for anything and as we, okay, that’s great. So we’ve done the benefits, I think, Zivi:
But just to emphasize, like, you don’t have to pay for, for gas. You don’t have to drive anywhere. You can do many of these in one day. It’s significant benefit.

Danny:

Thank you. That’s good to point out and

Zivi:

The money and the money to like people pay for this. Even if not a full price, they pay for this. And they, if you could do a shorter show and it’s still good.

Danny:

But the thing is, you don’t have the costs of traveling. You don’t have the time. So you can do more shows back to back. If you really wanted to, you can, you can have it set up in your house or your room or your corner of the room. So you just step in, do a half hour show for half, whatever half hour party, and then next or 45 minutes an hour, whatever you want, it’s up to you. Totally. And you can decide and because yeah

Ziv:

And you can decide on the magic tricks too. We’ll probably talk about that soon, but literally it’s easier. You have only one angle, right? So there’s a lot of magic tricks that you will never carry into a real gig with people. You just won’t take the risk, but there’s only one angle and it’s this with a camera. It makes your life easier. If you’re doing magic and you have all sorts of all the magic pops that you’ve never used now we’ll hit time.

Danny:

Or if you have a huge prop that you just cannot be bothered taking into the car, setting it up, taking it out again, you can just have it permanently set up. And that’s your big finale of the levitation or whatever it is that you, I’m not, I don’t think levitation would work on your own, but you know what I mean? It’s a big props that you kind of go, oh yeah, that’ll be a great finale and you never ever use it.

Now you can use it, right.

Zivi:

How are we going to talk about these advantages?

Danny:

You sure. Why not? Well, it’s good to put things on the table, right? It’s good to be honest and open and let’s have both sides of the argument. So why are virtual shows bad or not good? Or what are the problems? Ziv:
So, first of all, we need to be totally upfront about this. Even though the kids will, can laugh and have fun and it’s interactive and it’s going to be amazing. It’s still not the level of energy of a real life show. We just met in a theater or in a show. There’s an electricity in the air. If you want a good performance, this like I’m feeling I’m filled up with TILs. Now, when I’m, when I’m saying this, because it’s not exactly the same level of energy, right?

But for Timmy, the second disadvantage is that people are not aware yet of these options. So often that’s just not the well. So there’s in the marketing of, this is an extra step that needs to be done, which is to do marketing, to actually educate people about this new option, this new whole horizon and this new opportunity and the benefits of it. And that’s something that we are trying to help as well in Kids Entertainer Academy, by providing all sorts of marketing assets and PDFs and stuff that you can download easily and using Canva, which is a website for designing Facebook ads and stuff like that. And, but you do need to do some, some work on that. That’s a disadvantage. There is a way to do it faster with your past clients, which is important on the marketing side of things. So you, there is a way out of it once you are doing a good show, if you’ll do five good shows, that’s it, it will start to create new shows for you, snowball and snowball.

Ziv:

And one more disadvantage because of the technology side of things, you do need to practice the technology side of things. And that means for some, I think to do a free show for once, twice, three times, five different times for the fence, some people learn fast and they can get it after one time. Some people have been using zoom very often in the last three years, as a result of all of these Kivi Media webinars and school and online courses and online meetings.

Danny:

But, but it’s still a working with you and learning from you on zoom for a while. Like you said, three, four years, whatever, but that’s very different from operating and conducting a whole meeting and being responsible and performing as well. Yes, it is different. And that’s why some of my coaching clients actually perform the show when there’s a helper doing all the zoom stuff.

And that’s, that’s, that’s something that can cost money, you know? So, so that’s another disadvantage. You will need to learn something new. You will need to. Another disadvantage is you might go into the loop of not loophole, but just like this pitfall, pitfall potential pitfall of spending a lot of money on equipment. This is actually a bad idea. Danny:
That’s kind of be my next questions of a, you’ve just cut my question.

Zivi:

I’m killing the entire plan, but that’s how plans work. You plan, then you execute like 60% of them. So you don’t need to spend a lot of money on equipment to begin with. You should definitely check your internet speed. And if you don’t have a webcam, you need a webcam and some webcam not very fitted, like if you don’t show your face well, so that’s a low-end webcam, and you might want to replace that component.

Zivi:

But if you only do one thing, it would be just checking your internet speed. He’s about one megabyte upstream, four megabytes downstream or better. And if you have that, you can actually say your first show, make some money out of doing the shows and only then decide who I want some lights. I want the microphone. I want whatever at the beginning, you really don’t want me to update anything. I’ve seen people do. The first, even 20 shows paid shows before they decide to invest. So that’s a thing. Danny:
That’s a top tip. Oh, don’t spend money until you’re making money. Yeah, I think so. I think that’s important. And you know, I had severe, I had something happened to me that I think it would be interested in. I think our listeners will be as well, because I was vaguely thinking about starting zooms parties in the lockdown. And then about halfway through my webcam was playing up and then it died. It literally stopped. I could, people could not see me. They could hear me, but they couldn’t see me. And this was in total lockdown. And I managed to order a new webcam. It took one week to arrive, which I thought was pretty good considering it came from the Netherlands to the UK. And, and it was like, what, what was I going to do if I had bookings and I was earning money from it. And then I couldn’t do it because my camera, I didn’t want it. I could have done it on my phone. It would have been all completely different, but I’m really glad I waited. So then I bought a new one and I’ve just bought a backup, backup, backup, because I’m terrible at buying two things. Instead of one, you always teach me how to pay.

Danny:

But it’s very important that if you’re relying and you’re getting the bookings coming in, that you have a backup plan because if technology fails and people have paid you and they’re expecting shows, you need to be able to deliver. You need to have a backup plan. So that that’s also a consideration.

Zivi:

And there is a software, for example, the Ivy cam, where you can create a web cam from your phone, right. But again, it’s a little bit technical and you need to know how to connect the one thing to another, of course you need your battery to be charged and stuff like that.

Danny:

Six spikes, six stuff needs to be did two at all times. Yup.

Zivi:

So there are these advantages to being zoom shows. You’re the marketing part at some point, maybe the expenses and also the fact that it’s not going for your heart for your soul, the entertainer.

So it’s not going to be as rewarding. It’s not. And for the spectator, it’s not going to be as the Walters and CTV in the theater and watching everyone that may not tell is going on. It’s just not the same, right?

Danny:

No, but it’s the best alternative under the circumstances. And maybe that’s good enough for the moment. Yeah. So my next question is, and it kind of applies to me big time. What if I’m not very good at technology? What if I’m not technically competent or I don’t think I am. I have a bit of a barrier. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m prepared to learn and, and my situation, yes. I know I have to do with this now. And I am not stupid, although I’m only the idiot, that’s my professional. You have to pay me to be stupid. So what can you say to people like me who may be listening and they’re going, yeah, but I’m not very competent.

Zivi:

Say it’s easier than you think. And I would say that we are going to support you both with like, if you can’t afford it for free, we’ll go, we’re setting up an article in kids, entertainment hub that will be available for free. It’s a transcript of one of our lectures about every step of the way of zoom and of how to operate it. And we’ll put the pictures in it. So we’re making that blog post. If you’re willing to read where without someone showing you on, on a video, if you’re willing to lead, we’ll make that available for free. And if you are, and even just to this podcast is free too. So you can lead into this and be inspired and take action. But if you want the, the safest way and the fastest way to learn this, you just need to follow up with the 10 steps in the video calls of visual shows by Kids Entertainer Academy and you just walk through it. Zivi:
I, it’s really short and precise and concise and like shows you exactly the steps. Now click here. Now open the screen. Now do this. Literally every step of the way after that, you just need to practice once, like one show, do one show full practice. If you’re willing, do five shows for practice, because that way you will be confident. Right? So I think that I would definitely give a word of warning in order to produce these resources, both me and wasn’t Berg who contributed a lot have on the technical side, we’ve watched dozens of YouTube videos of people that created some studios, YouTube, but all sorts of professionals that have created home studios. That’s confusing a lot like very, it’s very confusing if you go there. So don’t, don’t do that. Don’t go on Facebook and say, Hey, how can I go into zoom shows, you’ll get 50 answers.

And it will be very, very confusing, especially if you want to start cheap. If you want to start expensive, go to YouTube, we’ll see lots of options of how to create a $1,000 studio, $2,000 studio and anything after $20,000 studios. Right. But you can go way cheaper and hear how kids entertainers managed to create a show with just the laptop. She asked that. Yeah, I think it’s important to just highlight a couple of things. Don’t spend loads of money.

Danny:

Remember the goal is to entertain to me and his friends and family. So you still have to perform and you have to be willing to a new skill. And we’re all, we’re all, all the time learning stuff. And now in this situation, we find ourselves in, in the pandemic, it’s important to be flexible and learn some new skills, which I now have come around to the fact that I’m going to have to do.

Danny:

So then we come on to what materials should I perform? What’s suitable for an online virtual show.

Zivi:

That’s a big question.

Danny:

That is a big question. Yeah. Let’s start to dive in. Okay.

Zivi:

So the first answer is start with your regular material and only adapt to the parts that require a volunteer. That’s the first stage easy, right? Just, just go through your show. Eliminate all entails that are, that needs to touch something, right? It needs to touch the physical hop. Some of the other patients are easy, right? If it’s a like, Hey, choose this or that instead of holding a, we just choose. Right? So, so it’d be, you can have interaction with the volunteer, but obviously you’re not in the same space, so they cannot hold it. You cannot put a funny hat on top of your volunteer. You can. And we discussed this before.

Ziv:

It’s a really good tip, Danny, that you’ve made that you’ve shared that, you know, you can use the puppet. You can use the topic as a volunteer, and it’s actually a more advanced solution on just on the base of it. We just take out the stuff with the volunteers and Hey, good news. Most of the zoom shows and visual parties are shorter than your regular shelves. And actually that’s a good thing for everyone because it’s hard to sit in front of the camera for a long while for the kids.

Danny:

And do you know why it’s hard to be like, I found this out, Ziv:
Tell me.

Danny:

I’m happy to share it with you and everybody. It’s hard because in real life we used to body language. We’re used to hearing people breathe before they’re about to speak. We’re used to it. This is what we’ve got used to on zoom on virtual things.

There were lots of little boxes and we’re constantly checking and there’s a lot of hard work for your brain to do so. That’s why when you’re spending a day on zoom meetings, especially you Zivi it’s exhausting, it’s very tiring for your brain. So you don’t need to do a long show.

Zivi:

No, 20, 30 minutes is way more than enough. 20 to 30 minutes is fine. Even 50 minutes shows could be sold for good money. And this is, of course our role let’s get to the tenants is to splice our show, like, like add some nice glittery band of all sorts of activities, where people dance and people play games. Danny:
And we’re like, we just talked about those sorts of games last weeks. Yeah. Last week’s was about games. And so you can add that in as well to add a little bit more time. It’s fun as well. It’s basically generating fun online for the people watching and taking part and interaction is a key part of all shows and even more so on zoom. So you can get them to shout out things. You don’t need to hear them. You can put them on mute. You can see their mouse moves.

Zivi:

And speaking of shout out, I want to give a shout out to Chad Jacobs. They Chad Jacobs, chef bananas, and he really got into the vitriol shows very efficiently, very fast. They started to perform these including in library, settings and birthday settings. And he did the hard work of marketing of filming the show and creating a video that will demonstrate what is a visual show. And he would do his regular show, which is very interactive. And he will, from time to time go closer to the camera and call someone by name because you can see their names or their parents’ names, which is funny.

Like, Hey, Mr. James, nice to meet you and stuff like that. You can see the names of the kids or the names of the parents only company, meaning main. Sometimes that’s also funny and you can literally get the kids to this situation where t they do, whatever you tell them to do. It’s a very unique, interactive experience for the kids. The guy in the TV is talking with them, absolutely is playing with them, is telling them what to do is totally different.

Danny:

It is very much interactive TV.

Zivi:

Yeah, it is. And it’s very empowering if it is for a birthday kid and that you can do all sorts of things. You can spotlight your video. You can spotlight his video, the even more advanced tactics where you use another piece of software called OBS, and you can do all sorts of videos that are running.

Just hilarious because the kids are calling out, Hey, the rabbit is back then rabbit is back and you could, you could spend 10 to 20 minutes just doing the pads on certain pages and it’s technology at the end of our fingertips, just click a button and boom stuff is happening. If you can, you could duplicate yourself and put a video of yourself and you, and you can talk with each other. There’s so many things you can do. Just like we discussed last week on the virtual shows, you can do stories with your background, the opportunities for fun and for magic, just a creative outlet even is so rewarding. So you start with just changing your show a little bit, but you constantly can improve your show and adapt it with the more advanced tactics with the help of technology all with the help of just you figuring out other ways that are practical.

Some magicians have reported back to me and kids at the dentist have reported back to me that they thought we’ll walk and he didn’t used to in real life. And that’s okay. You need to listen to your audience.

Danny:

Definitely. And so I know that because I watched it that Robert Bax did a great show on a kind of virtual shows and original content. And it was one of the things he was saying that I remember was used colorful big stuff. Now there’s no point. I mean, you can do coin magic. You can do cards depending on the age of the kids, but then you’re kind of getting into the closeup world and you have to step near to the camera. And it’s just, maybe it depends on the edge of the kids, but using colorful handkerchiefs, silks, using stuff, that’s very visual because you’re on the visual medium of the small screen.

It’s really important. So, yeah, it’s good to, if you’ve ditched some tricks in the past, bring them back because your audience won’t have seen them. That’s for sure.

Ziv:

So, you know, what about, it’s also a matter of the age of the kids? Definitely because like for the younger kids, I don’t know about until age seven, all those visual magic and big pops, it’s just more engaging and more funny and more interesting. But we do have a case study and by the time this goes live, the lecture has only been recorded and shared. So the Kids Entertainer Academy were doing a lecture about mentalism for kids and it’s for grade school ages. Yeah. And it’s different when it’s performed to first grader and secondary to a third grader, fourth grader, all of them receive a little bit of a different type of engagement, but they get it, they get the magic fakes that are advanced stuff, advanced stuff that adults will enjoy them and they get it.

And it’s funny, just a quick example, even like with gags, but that out for mentalism shows like the no gag, when you hide the words, no. On some card and you ask people, do you know what is written here? And they say, no, and you’ve done it. And you say, magically, you write that gag on a mask. So I have even a face mask. Right? Look, there’s something written here, but you hiding, what is it? You just show that the xAPI printing is a bit shown. So there’s something written here. What do you think is leading on my mask? And then they say like, do you know, what is it? And they say, no, and you showed him your life. And it’s just like these funny gags that you can adapt. So like we’ve created this full lecture for people to get inspiration and the, and have fun with it.

Danny:

Thank you. That’s great. So I, so this is called performance techniques, number two. And I want to now move into some actual techniques to help you. And so this is, yeah, of course, on your zoom show, but even on zoom meetings, when you’re talking with friends and family, you can make it easier for your audience with these techniques. So use the medium to the maximum advantage. And what do I mean by that? Ideally, I think we mentioned this earlier in the series of this talks that your eyes are the windows to the soul. And it’s really important that when you’re talking to your audience on zoom, that you’re looking directly into the camera so that you’re actually talking to them and not looking at the screen at them because you’re not looking at them, you’re looking at them through the camera. So I think that’s my ultra top tip for performing online is the camera is your audience.

The screen is not.

Zivi:

And it does require a little bit of practice to get used to it. And one nice deep about that. Chad Jacobs, our members all hands on deck, like imagined the camera is the best kid in the audience. Like we always have this one kid that just, it’s so fun to entertain that kid because he’s laughing, he’s engaged and he’s the best one in the group. So just imagine it’s that kid and think that then they’ll deliver it to the camera and immediately everyone will feel your presence.

Danny:

So a more practical, I like that tip, but a more practical tip that I use is the I have on my camera, on my webcam. I have a little smiley face stuck on above the lens and a big note with smile and an arrow pointing to my camera and another smiley face.

So that every time I look at the camera, I have these things reminding me. I need to smile and look into the lens or not just using sticky, sticky notes. ZIvi:
It’s not just about looking into the camera and smiling. And it’s about smiling. Yeah. Mining is important.

Danny:

So that’s my ultra-top tip, which is why we’ve said it first. Then we move on to what I’m calling self-zoom. So, your webcam is fixed. Generally. It’s a fixed thing, but you can move in and out. You can move back away from the camera and you, you can have more space or you can move closer to the, to the camera. And you have like a close-up situation where you’re, you can emphasize things and show your hands or whatever you need to do. So you can use this facility of just using, moving your body in and out of the, towards, and back from the camera for effect.

Danny:

So you can come into the camera, talk to them, pick something up, which is my next point about hiding props. And then you come back and you magically have a new, proper, you can switch things around or you can move swiftly onto the next routine because you’ve dumped while distracting them by talking to them close up.

Zivi:

And that’s very important. We don’t want, you don’t have an hour show where you can take the time in, I don’t know, replacing the prop did they don’t need to see the, your back. You need to be engaged and you have to like, forget about social distancing on his own show. And then he’ll show all in the subtle difference. So physically you will never go that close to someone, but in over zoom, they’re not going to get someone to sneeze on you because you’re literally not in the same room.

So you can go all the way in. Literally it’s funny cause the old face close by doing facial expressions or whatnot. And then go back again. It’s just very interesting.

Danny:

So self zoom is a very important part of a virtual shows. So I mentioned hiding props out of sight, out of sights rather. And also, yeah, you don’t need to put stuff away. It can all be out of sight in order of the show, whatever you want to do. And it’s just reachable. It should be, you don’t need to put things away. It’s not necessarily, it’s just instant. If you’re doing a 15, 20-minute, even half an hour show, it should flow. So the kind of resetting, no, forget it. You don’t need to put it out of sight of the camera. I mean physically move it away and go off screen. That’s none of that.

Zivi:

None of that take the old laundry box and use that as a beach box. Well done. Yeah, exactly. You’re welcome.

Danny:

Then I, and we’ve talked about this a little bit. Get to know the zoom as best you can or whatever format you’re using, because the better, you know, it, the more confidence you have with it, and then you can feel, then you can concentrate more on the show and the performing, which is the most important bit for that 20-minute show or half an hour show. It’s really important that you’re focusing on the kids on your screen. So get to know zoom or your platform that you’re performing it on. And my other tip is set up a space where you can just leave it where you can just leave it set up. So you’re not, I need to set it up again for five shows to stay and then take it down because we need the space sort out your basement.

Danny:

So town a corner of a room. That’s not going to be interrupted when you’re performing your shows. Maybe it’s a, a room where at the moment it’s a dump room or something that you can just set up permanently. And that is your studio. That is your TV studio, where you are earning money from doing your zoom shows. And you just step in, I’m going to do a show, everybody else in the household. Can you be quiet for half an hour, 40 minutes? Right? Done. Now, now we can go shopping for groceries. It’s that simple.

Zivi:

People forget how awesome they are on those. You guys, your unicorns, people are amazed at what you can do. They don’t. When you’re in the show, when you’re in, in the home or in the zoom home, they only see you. They don’t see the other, your heroes, the mutations that can do all these wonderful, amazing things. They see you. And it’s amazing. And they love it. So remember Timmy, remember Timmy fruitful, Timmy. Yes. What else then you have other.

Danny:

Well, it is really all about Timmy. And the next point is involving the kids because we’re used to doing this in real life shows and even in social distancing shows, but it’s even more important on virtual shows to be interactive and to get them to do things, even though they were mute, as we said earlier, you can still get them to shout out colors. You can still get them to count with you out loud or to do whatever the age group is appropriate for and get them to clap, get them to do whatever. But stand up. Comedians are always counting gags per minute. Laughs per minute. Now, if you’re a magician, you might not be a comedy magician, but you want interactions per minute.

If you’re a children’s entertainer, you want interactions per minute. That is the most important thing. So, if you can up the scale by asking them questions, asking them to help you count, asking them to just include them in whatever you’re doing so that they’re involved, they’re engaged that will make your show kill it. We’ll just, that’s what parents want to see that their kids are enjoying themselves and interacting. And if you get the parents involved as well, then you’re you’ve won. So that’s, I think it’s really important to involve the kids. That’s my top tip amongst many top tips that we’re talking about today.

Ziv:

A lot of top tips today, I just, I think, I think we need to help up, but I just want to say about zoom. Zoom can be used for free for up to 40 minutes of a show. And I personally think that it’s okay to start with a free one. If you’re doing a short version of your show, but it is a risk with that. I would not recommend taking. So sometimes after the show, the kids want to keep staying in mingle and sometimes you need to open up the zoom show for 20 minutes before enough kids that arrive and stuff like that. So you might need to obligate your zoom account to a 15 bucks a month. Zoom accounts. Those are an option to buy a webinar zoom account for an additional 40 bucks, which is something that I think is not needed for kids entertainment. It’s not even needed for small adult entertainment shows with magic, but for more of a corporate setting for a stage ticketed show for stuff like that, it can be something that you consider to pay those extra 40. I think that the, this is not mandatory and it’s more advanced.

And sometimes when you get to that level, you can actually afford hiring a helper. That will be the technical guy behind the scenes. We, we in the Israeli society of magicians that I volunteered as the director of finances. And every week we have a zoom mini convention. Yeah. For like 70 magicians. Every time they kept giving it kept coming up. And every time we have a host, it will do all the talking and we hope we have a logistical help for elevating the zoom, showboating people to attend the panelists and like just helping people, mute people, short lighting, people it’s work. And the 70 people in you need one person to shut up a new thing. It’s better for the health to be timed and for the logistical helper to do that. So at some point, if you can afford it, you can get help.

But at the beginning you just don’t need that.

Danny:

Of course. So I think virtual shows are the way forward. We don’t know what’s happening with the pandemic in the next year. There are possibilities of vaccines, but we don’t know. We don’t know. So it’s for me, for myself personally, I’m now working through the virtual show course on kids academy Kids Entertainers Academy, I’m going through that. And I am planning to do virtual shows because I can see my Christmas work is looking grim. I think my autumn, my fall is bare. So I kind of go, okay, well let’s do something. Let’s earn a little bit of money. It probably won’t be as much as I would normally make, but it’s something. And I think it’s really important to remember that something is better than nothing performing online is better than not performing at all. It’s not as good as performing in theaters or live shows or parties, but I can keep my skills up.

Danny:

I can keep my creativity up and I can get my name out there to new audiences that normally wouldn’t come to my shows or I would travel to them. So I think there’s a lot of wins. There’s a lot of wins with the virtual parties, with the virtual shows.

Zivi:

And if you’re listening to this and you’re considering going into virtual shows, first of all, yes, he needs you. But also ask yourself, this is like a question that has a business element to it, please. The question, should you go into visual shows for the money? Like, do you need to make more money? And if you do like sometimes, it’s okay to give up. It’s okay to survive, to go and get a job to go and get a part-time job to teach kids English or to whatnot. Just use your skills and reinvent back in the Phoenix.

Like leave on, leave on please. Right. And get flutist. But if you are, if you insist on making money from something that you really love until really passionate about, well, performing online can be bad. You can, you can get back to making by me form performing online.

Danny:

And just to one last point, I we’re going to give you a gift. And the gift this week is from me. It’s from me to you listening. It’s all about stage craft. And it’s a lecture that I did a while ago for Kivi Media. It’s about stagecraft and you can see it free. There’s a link in the notes for the show. So I enjoy. And it’s some basic stuff that applies totally to virtual shows as well as stage performance, live performance as well.

Danny:

So where should people go to find your lecture? I don’t know this, you’re organizing all this.

Ziv:

They should go to Kids Entertainer Hub so that they know that’s it. It’s really easy to remember kids to have those fights today’s episode on there’s a search function you can look for which shows you can look for a stage craft. And basically, we are making sure that you will have free education online, especially these days, especially with going into something that is a new territory. We are here for you, Danny. You’ve been very generous with offering this lecture now for anyone available for free. Of course, it’s not the only lecture you have. You’ve done multiple lectures on gags and you’ve done all sorts of other elections for us in Kids Entertainer Academy. But we want you guys to be in college and supported in these hard times. I hope that this helps you go to pizza day and a half.com and do that. Like just do it now.

Danny:

One last thing, please don’t teach English. I get an English person to teach English. I’m kidding. Of course, because you have very good English.

Ziv:

No, no. It’s okay. I actually, I’m a student of English language myself. I have a teacher that helps me and she even helps me with she’s not doing that really well.

Danny:

I’m not saying anything more. Okay.

Zivi:

So guys, thank you for listening for yet. Another entertaining and educational session here in the heat of the day. End of podcast. See you next week. Bye-Bye

Danny:

Bye.

Voice over:

Thanks for listening to the Kids Entertainer Podcast. Get the show notes, links and resources from today’s episode by visiting kidsentertainerhub.com.