I’m between jobs right now and I’m looking for ways to pay rent while I search for another job. Ricks (from theyo chat) mentioned I could do birthday parties and after some thought I realized that’s not that bad of an idea. My only issue is I generally do demo’s for larger crowds and older audiences.
I’m looking for any tips I can get to entertain a room of kids for 10-15 minutes, suggestions on age limits, etc. Really any advice you can offer me I’d be happy to take.
Right now I’m thinking 8 and up, 15 minute demo (starting out w/ a freestyle, explaining a little bit about the past of the yo-yo, show some cool picture tricks and such, and a trick involving the birthday kid), from there go into teaching the kids at the party the basics of yo-yoing for 45 minutes.
Just do cool and flashy tricks like Boing-E-Boing and Eli Hops, also talk about the history but not in a boring way. If you do that you should be fine ;D
To explain the history of the yoyo, you can bring along some old-school yoyos, then explain to them how it evolved to the modern yoyos, including content like bearings, butterfly-shaped, etc.
But as for the science part, I am not sure if it would be a good idea, since it is not really that interesting to be listening to how gyroscopic precession works. Besides, kids might not be able to understand.
I was just in wal-mart and I was waiting on this employee to bring a product up from the back and she was taking her time. I started throwing my popstar and before I knew it I had like 6 kids around 10-13 ish and I just kept doing different picture tricks, classics like walk the dog and highly visual tricks that are fairly simplistic like Mach 5, Nanoblaster, Ninja Vanish, Lacerated Wrist whips, Plastic whip, the zipper. I kept them all wowed and fairly entertained for a good 10 minutes until they all dissipated back to their parents and I got my product. I would just keep a heavy interaction with the audience and do tricks that they would be able to understand. I mean I know you are a suicide king and a sick-nasty tech player but remember the audience and their expectations. That is my only suggestions and I hope they help.
dude same happened here but they were little kids and thier parents i was doing begiiner combos and they were suprised then i did a gt whip followed by a suicide and they freaked so mike depending on the audience spimlpize the tricks or wowo them like u usually do
The biggest thing about performing for people like that is facial expression and body movement. Make sure you are loose and having fun.
As for the history, i have done some demo things and what i do is show people something they are familiar with, i.e. Butterfly. Then show some basic tricks on that. Then go to something with a bearing but responsive, show some tricks on that, then unresponsive and do some crazy stuff.
Also, yeah, Gyro Flop is definitely a huge crowd pleaser as are grinds.
Also, remember to name the tricks you do, people love that, and be open for questions, because you will most likely be asked to repeat a crowd favorite, and it involves the audience.
I know most of this is basic knowledge but i thought id give my advice because ive done some stuff like this.
