Bookings

Santa is well known, but the person representing him needs to develop a following. In order to accomplish this, sometimes my PS has to do some 'Good Will' appearances. Generally, we prefer to do our charity appearances with Toys For Tots. The fun aspect of this, aside from helping needy children and seeing the looks on people's faces, is the appearances usually involve motorcycles and/or firetrucks. This is where the little boy in all men tends to come out; the 'when I grow up' aspect. So today my PS is ushering in the season by doing a ride-along on a firetruck with a bunch of bikers and the Marines. How cool is that!

The economy is hitting the Santa business this year hard. Where we would have been booked for most weekends by now, many of our regulars are backing out due to fear of the recession looming or a general lack of funds. We have been lucky over the years, as most of my PS's bookings have been through word-of-mouth and his winning personality, but this year we have to re-double our marketing efforts. The biggest expense in the previous years, besides costumes and their maintenance, has been for business cards and postcards. I design and print them, so the ink and paper costs were biggest part of that, with postage being the third cost. But this year we have to advertise in the local newspapers. We are hoping that this helps us pick up some gigs. If not, there is always the mall!