TRAILER PARKING IT IN TEXAS

 

Making Your Vacation Pay For Itself!

 

By Bill Glenn San Antonio, Texas

There will come a time... if it hasn't come already I assure you it will it will come to you. A time when adults, children, dogs and curious squirrels watch you practice your juggling routines in the backyard, in the laundromat and along the fruit counter at the supermarket. But all these "freebies" don't pay the grocery bills or the gasoline tap... and Circus, Circus, Circus World or the Clown School may never phone. Those hours of practice should count for something.

 

How well we know, there is a financial limit to the "Freebies". Those profuse thanks don't pay for the show clubs, the luminescent rings or the lame covered cubes.

 

There is street juggling. Your routines may never be in the world juggling championships but their novelty holds the interest of young and old. Many of the readers know street juggling is touch and go... sometimes you try to touch the meandering audience... sometimes they go. And the take, well again it's touch and go; and often there is a limit to the street side performance sites free of local restrictions or police hassling. .

 

However, there are other ways to "make a buck" when you may never become a "five baller" or even a "four clubber."

 

Want a receptive paying audience for your juggling talent at any level? Try the trailer park circuit!

 

You'll have to develop a humorous routine and get a presentable costume that lets the audience know that you are the Entertainer. This is close up performing. No beat up clubs, dirty cubes, scarves with holes or grease or sloppy routines.

 

Of course, those show sites won't all be around the comer. Can you borrow a camper or fix your pickup or van for overnight stays? If you can do this, you can make financial ends meet and more as a traveling entertainer.

 

I admit the big bucks are not there all at once... or even really big for that matter. But a six-inch stack of gratefully contributed singles (plus overnight parking) for five one-night stands, to me, is better than the touch and go of a meandering street audience. There are literally thousands of live, smiling, jovial, and grateful residents of travel trailer and mobile home parks that rarely get a chance to enjoy the personal contact with congenial performers. These residents are a built-to-order audience for the traveling entertainer.

 

The entertainment chairman, park owner, or social director often has an activity fund to sponsor good entertainment at a flat fee. Alternatively, the audience, casually mentioned by the performer as sponsors or patrons of the arts for that show, understand that the non-belaboring, non-persistent passing of many hats simultaneously 15 minutes before the show ends is essential to bring them your interesting entertainment.

 

Determine beforehand that the park has a recreation hall with enough ceiling height to do your routines. In many halls, the height is eight feet and sometimes seven, so practice the higher juggling routines kneeling on one knee. Lay a six-by-six foot carpet over an expensive square dance floor. This will prevent floor dents, and show your consideration of the park's property. Bring your own lapel microphone with plug adaptors and at least a 20-foot extension cord. The amplifiers in most parks accommodate such equipment. Two 150 watt spotlights with reflectors which clamp onto stable blocks that rest on the floor are desirable. I find that spotlights from the floor are much better for juggling than glaring lights from the ceiling.

 

This layout, lights, carpet, prop rack, and sound system, should be set up and checked well before the audience arrives.