29 members turned up on the 1st June to welcome Philip Partridge to Bradford for the first time. Philip explained that he had qualified as a pharmacist, but after 5 years working in that trade, he turned full-time pro magician in December 1997. His talk that evening covered both the art of being a childrens entertainer along with how to deal with the business side of things. Philip uses 2 tables for his childrens shows and works in the middle of them. He uses his computer to print out "STEVIE'S PARTY" (or whoever) which he sticks to the front of one of the tables. At the end of the show this is given to the birthday child. He tries not to travel in his magician's clothes, but changes at the venue. He feels he gets many repeat bookings as he can remember the names of all the children. He can remember 30 names in less than 15 minutes (some doing, it takes me all the time to remember the name of the birthday child!). To do so he uses memory association e.g. if child says his name is Jack, he will associate this with beanstalk. He always makes sure the birthday child goes away with a balloon sculpture. Usually boys get a motorbike, whilst girls get a bouquet of flowers. When he makes the petals for his flowers, he always makes 6 petals as even if one bursts, as sometimes happens, there are always plenty left. He uses static electricity to make the balloons stick to the wall - with a flower this then becomes a wallflower! One item he showed with a balloon was where he blew up a very small portion of the balloon and then pretended to tie a knot in it. What he actually did was to release the air from the balloon and bring into view a small balloon piece which he had previously blown up. He then proceeds to pull the piece off the balloon. Another balloon effect was having a child (Stevie B) karate chop a blown up balloon. As the child brings their hand down, Philip pulls the balloon apart. His tip was to make sure that you release the balloons away from the audience or otherwise they will be fighting over the remains. If he makes balloons for everyone, he sells them at £1 each. Items which Philip uses that he demonstrated included George Blake's Silver Sceptre; Mark Leveridge's Birthday Card Surprise, which he uses as a running item throughout the show before producing the card for the birthday child at the end of the show; and his puppet, which he freely displays on his arm. Philip suggested that childrens entertainers need to think of current popular characters to get bookings. An example he gave was the fact that Harry Potter's "Goblet of Fire" will be out in paperback in July. Bookshops will be publicising it heavily, and there may be work in these shops. Even if not, Harry Potter should be featuring in childrens magicians shows. Philip showed his business card which had an optical illusion on the back. He feels that this way the cards are more likely to be kept by adults and shown around. He keeps a record of all his bookings on an Excel file on his computer. He also keeps notes of any lectures, etc, that he has attended in a typist's notepad. Eventually he tears out the ones he wants to keep and transfers them onto his computer. He is a great believer in going to all magic meetings and learning more about magic. Turning to fees, Philip revealed that he charges £65 for his basic 1 hour childrens show. If he is doing a 2 hour close-up show he will be looking for £150-£200. His cabaret act is a maximum of 30 minutes in length. He believes in keeping his repertoire small, but doing what he does well. He recommended that youngsters should enter all the competitions they could and try different things. Paul Daniels says that that is how he got all his experience. Finally Philip recommended that you should look at putting an advert in the yellow pages. You get a free entry, which also goes onto the internet site in yell.com. However, if you pay for an entry in yellow pages this does not go onto yell.com. Philip left to a well deserved round of applause. | 
