Children's Birthday Party Questions for Popular Types of Entertainment

Start the process of hiring entertainers or booking activities by asking these important questions.

1. Clowns

• Some questions that may come up with a clown might be: "What kind of balloon animals can they make?" or "Does the clown do magic tricks?" Find out how the clown will fill the scheduled time.

2. Characters

• When booking a character, such as Star Wars' Hans Solo, a Disney Princess, or Spongebob, find out exactly what they will do for an hour. Some Star Wars entertainers may simply walk around while others may be able to perform a cool lightsaber show.

• You may want to go check out the costume or view a photo online. Some costumes have really been through the ringer or may be poor knock-offs of the real thing. You don't want kids to make fun of Spongebob because he doesn't look quite right or be grossed-out by Elmo's matted fur.

3. Animals

• When renting ponies to give kids rides at the party, you want to make sure that there will be a person walking alongside of each child riding on the pony. You may even want to request that they are over a certain age.

• Ask if the animals have ever bitten any children. You'd be surprised how many petting zoo owners or staff will respond, "Well sure they'll nibble if the animal is annoyed or handled a bit roughly." While a 2-year-old may not mean to poke an animal, it may happen no matter how attentive the parent is. You don't want to take any chances.

• Some other good questions are: "How quickly and what method do you have for cleaning up poop?" and "How many people are on staff at the event?"