Top tips for starting to perform your own show

By Steve Rawlings

So you’re thinking of making the big move and start performing, Here’s a few tips to help you along and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way

1/ Don’t wait for that one big trick that will make everyone sit up and pay attention, get out there and start doing shows.

2/ Do as many shows as you can, it doesn’t matter if it’s for free or not, you have to get the numbers in and find out what works. A good show is made of thousands of layers of trial and error, of doing a show, reviewing what worked and what didn’t, keeping the good, making some changes and trying again. Street performing is an ideal place to start where you can do multiple shows a day and try all kinds of ideas to see what sticks. It’s okay to fail because through it will come success.

3/ Don’t practice not to drop , practice what you’ll do when it happens.

4/ Everyone is bad when they start they just wanted it enough to go through the pain to create something good and you can too, you just have to want it bad enough.

5/ Have a backup plan for everything that could go wrong. What if your mic stops working? What do I do if I drop? What if my diabolo string gets knotted and I can’t fix it? Be prepared for things to go wrong and remember that no one but you knows what is supposed to happen in your show. The audience will react like you do, so as long as you play along with a mistake and don’t show you’re upset your audience will never know if it was supposed to happen or not.

6/ Make sure you’ve tried practicing in your show outfit, you’d be amazed at the unforeseen problems a costume including footwear can cause.

7/ When you begin there are many standard routines that you may wish to use. Let’s use apple eating as an example, but try to perform it in your own way, you should be looking to work in your own ideas over time and slowly let the more standard and well known routines  go, so you can create something new that’s your own that reflects you.

8/  If it looks like it would take 10p (10c) to feed you that’s what you’ll get. People judge you by how you look. Even street performing you need to look good to make the money.

9/ It doesn’t matter if there 1 person or 1000 in the audience, if they’ve paid for a ticket they deserve your best show. Anyone can have a good show when the house is full, a pro will do well when it’s quiet too.

10/ Conditions are very rarely perfect especially when you’re starting (i.e., bad lighting, sound and staging etc,) you need to be flexible and be able to adapt to what’s there.

11/ Spend  as much time working on your show as you did practicing your juggling. It doesn’t matter how good your skills are, if you haven’t found a way to engage with the audience you haven’t got a show .

12/  Make sure that your material fits your personality/character.

13/ People don’t necessarily like juggling, you have to learn to entertain. If you can try and get feedback from people you trust outside of the performing community to give you a genuine opinion and don’t get upset if you don’t like what you hear. You will be genuinely surprised at what you discover. What impresses other jugglers may not impress your audience.

14/ Look after your props and they’ll look after you and if you can, make sure you have doubles of everything, things get lost or broken all the time and can sometimes be hard to replace.

15/ Different is always better, try to find a way to stand out from the rest. It could be anything from Style, Character, story, props or any number of things but you want to give people a reason to hire you, not just a  juggler.

16 / Always arrive early so you can check out the venue and decide how to play it and deal with any issues you find before the crowd comes in.

17/ Go and sit in the audience and check out the sightlines. If you’re working on a dance floor to a seated crowd, for instance, anything you do below the waist won’t be visible to anyone but the first two rows so you’ll need to make some changes (those kick ups will have to go).

18/ Watch as many other artists/acts as you can of all different styles and genres as well as your own, look at what they do, not to copy but study what they do and why it works and apply it to your own show.

19/ Try to fit your act into as many different types of show and venue as possible. The more of them you can work, the better your chance of making a living.

20/ Money is not the most important thing when you start, gaining experience, developing your show, making connections and being seen are far more important and will give you a solid base for a long  career.

21/  Always carry a basic medical kit and prop and clothing repair kit for emergencies.

22/ Make sure you have insurance.

23/. Your act is worth what people are prepared to pay for it.

24/ The amount of time you can productively fill on stage is equal to the money you can expect to make.

25/ If the lighting tech doesn’t understand what you want, bring them up on stage and have them throw a ball up and down. It will give them a much better understanding of what you need and how to help you.

26/ Keep it simple. The more technical and complicated your show is, the more chance it can go wrong.

27/ Once you hit the road and start performing, your best practice days are behind you. Learn to prioritise and pitch your act at a level you can maintain.

28/ Always be polite to the technicians and learn their names. They have your life in their hands while you’re on stage and a little politeness can go a long way.

29/ Your publicity pics need to be visually interesting and ideally show who you are and you’re style of show.

30/ Unless you’re a fire act, don’t feature fire in your publicity/promotional material. It’s better to present it as an option if you think it might be a good fit later. I know it looks cool, but if a booker doesn’t want fire (venues are much more risk averse nowadays than they used to be) it wont occur to them to ask you what else you can do. They’ll just move on to look at other acts .

31/ A good website and strong internet presence is very important, but nothing beats good personal connections and relationships with other artists, bookers, and agents.

32/ A good video is very important but keep it short, 3-5 minutes max, and bear in mind that bookers aren’t just looking to see how cool your tricks are, they’re looking to see how you engage with the audience.

33/ If possible, it’s a good idea to have a promotional video link that doesn’t have your contact details on it so that bookers can send it to clients without worrying that the client will try and cut them out by contacting you directly.

34/ Don’t penny pinch on your publicity, get the best you can and update it constantly.

35/ Answer work inquiries as soon as you can , the booker who contacted you is probably on his computer looking at other acts while he waits for your reply.

36/ If you’re asked for your contact details after a show, unless you got the gig yourself, give out the contact of the agent who booked you. You wouldn’t be there without them and if they think you’re trying to cut them out they’ll stop using you.

I really hope this helps you makes your journey a little easier and wish you all success in your chosen profession

Steve Rawlings has been a successful professional entertainer for 42 years . With a career beginning with street performing and across many other venues, he is now mainly working on some of the biggest cruise ships in the world. He’s broken eight Guinness world records and has been lucky enough to meet and exchange ideas with amazing performers from all around the world.