If you want to grow a beard and look like a hippie and juggle seven balls, that's okay. It's great. But you won't work in a theme park." This is certainly a fair assessment of theme park performing, as stated by Randy Pryor, Royal Court Jester at Disneyland.

 

The Theme Park Experience

 

Juggling at a theme park is a unique experience available to jugglers every year. For all its combined good and bad points, theme park performing still remains one of the few places where a variety performer can find steady work with steady pay.

 

The steady work and steady pay are, in fact, the good points consistently mentioned by the IJA jugglers working theme parks. Alan Howard (Geauga Lake and Darien Lake Parks) used his summer earnings to go to the jugglers' convention in Belgium. Although you might get paid more per freelance show than your daily wage, nowhere else can you perform as often.

 

Jeff "Jig Jug" Lambert (Carowinds) says, "Doing theme park shows is like school, but you are getting paid." Howard expressed the same thought. The amount of practice you accumulate is astounding. The opportunity to experiment with styles and to learn how to play to different sized crowds and their varying moods is also a rare opportunity, pointed out by David Beach (Carowinds, Kings Island). Learning to work in a professional situation and making that commitment to performing were other strong points mentioned by Rick Coleman (Knott's Berry Farm).

 

There are other less obvious benefits. Jig Jug learned how to put a show together, which was highly beneficial after the park season closed and he went on to become the assistant entertainment manager at a lounge in Charlotte, N.C. Beach found a real benefit in extra park promotional work.

 

Exposure is important and the theme park gives you plenty of it. Contacts for outside gigs are a good benefit. Most parks hire jugglers to do five to eight shows per day (usually 20-30 minutes each) six days a week. Park size and patron counts vary, but in an average park a juggler is seen by 125,000 people between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Out of those, you are certain to get a few offers for outside gigs.

 

Is it all fun and games? Unfortunately, there are some other points to be considered.

 

Theme park performing takes place outside. No one can control the weather, yet you will be expected to do shows. Learning to pace yourself outside in the heat can make for a very difficult job. Howard has "fond" memories of juggling lacrosse balls all day to fight the wind. Cold and wet days are equally bad because your muscles are cold and crowds are small and grumpy.

 

Also innate to the theme park environment are nerve-shattering noise and obnoxious children. Your voice can get tired from shouting above the noise of roller coaster and games' barkers.

 

Most jugglers believe the good outweighs the bad. And they stay because it's fun. Pryor has the opportunity to team juggle with the other six jugglers at Disneyland. Howard considers amusing the games' barkers an added attraction to his job. Jig Jug thought combining sets with the park magician was particularly fun. Beach enjoyed working with a script that was written just for him.

 

Performing for the theme park audiences is a special entertainment. Pryor was quoted in the last issue of Juggler's World as saying, "Yucks are bucks, flash is cash and when in doubt, sell out!" With clarification, this statement does demonstrate basic tenets of theme park juggling.

 

'Yucks are bucks" - If you make peo­ple laugh you are more likely to get the job.

 

'Flash is cash" - Vegas-style performing gets attention. You can't draw a crowd without bringing attention to yourself. That's why Howard sometimes opened his show with torches.

 

"When in doubt, sell out" - Well, you don't really sell out, but you do give the people the entertainment they want to see. Park guests may not remember that Beach juggled five balls, but they do remember that he ends his act by juggling three bowling balls. As Pryor said, "Whoever invented apple eating juggling was a genius. "

 

If juggling at a theme park sounds good to you, your next step is to plan for your audition.