Tag Archives: circus

The Greatest Show

Posted on by

The Greatest Showman is undoubtedly the hit of the year so far with a soundtrack that has broken records for its longevity in the chart. People just cannot get enough of The Greatest Showman. With this in mind, we thought it might be good to offer a few entertainment options for a themed event that focuses around the film. That’s right, prepare yourself for some truly excellent Greatest Showman party ideas!

Ringmaster (Costume)

How can you be The Greatest Showman? Party ideas should obviously begin with you or someone else becoming Hugh Jackman for the evening. Book a Ringmaster costume to get things going in the right direction. If you don’t have a huge budget then this is the one circus entertainment prop you absolutely have to spring for because in truth, imagination and some top dance moves might be able to do the rest!

Dancers

You have a few friends that want to learn some of the key dance moves from the film. You don’t really want to have to trawl YouTube and pause every seconds to learn the main movements. What can you do? Book dancers of course! Yes, our trained professionals can choreograph winning sequences that are sure to impress everybody at your Greatest Showman event. Looking for some guests to get involved? That shouldn’t be a problem either. Party ideas don’t get much better than this!

Acrobats

At its heart, The Greatest Showman is a painting of Barnum and his invention of the circus. You might not be able to book aerial silk dancers, bearded ladies or Zac Efron but what you can do is book acrobats for your event. The Greatest Showman theme lends itself to the opportunity for you to call it The Greatest Party. So book circus performers and watch the wide-eyed wonder of guests take over.

A Cappella Choir

The highlight of your event should clearly be a flash mob style dance that comes together in the centre of the venue, which has been transformed into a circus ring, and everybody singing ‘This Is Me’ at the top of their lungs whilst two trapeze artists swing above.

At the very least, a sing-through of ‘This Is Me’ by a cappella collective Belt Up will definitely bring the house down.

Lets run away with the circus

Posted on by

Back in the day, ‘running away to join the circus’ seemed to be a pretty viable career option for many a young person if children’s books were to go by. Enid Blyton wrote a whole series of books on the idea and the circus segment in Big Fish is certainly one of the most memorable. But what if you want to join a circus now? How on earth do you go about joining a circus and becoming an acrobat or unicyclist or something else entirely? How do you do that? Well, you’ll have to learn and we know a brilliant place for that!

The National Centre for Circus Arts is one of the leading European providers of circus education. What’s more, it’s based in London! Hooray! You don’t even have to go abroad to enjoy its facilities. A registered charity, the Centre is housed in a fabulous Victorian power station meaning no matter how high-flying you want your act to be, you’ll definitely be able to learn it! From aerial silk to hoop and perhaps even walking a tight rope, you’ll be able to become a circus performer with the help of numerous teachers and students alike.

Depending on your age, there’s a whole host of options to consider as well. If you’re looking to attain a degree in Circus Arts, then the Centre offers a BA Hons degree in the subject. You’re also able to learn as part of a training programme if you’re under 18 whilst there are many development opportunities for those just starting out right through to those who simply want to enhance their already established circus careers. That’s right! As an aspiring circus performer, you’ll be able to rub shoulders with those who have already experienced the excitement of wowing a crowd at events up and down the country!

You might be thinking that signing up for an entire course isn’t really your thing. You might be unsure if the circus is truly for you. I mean sure you’ve thought about joining the circus for a while but the real thing might be completely different to how you’ve imagined it. Can’t you just dip your toe in? Have a bit of taster session? Of course you can! There are a range of recreational classes available for both adults and children alike, whilst the National Centre for Circus Arts also provides workshops and away days for corporate clients.

Running away to the circus might not really be a viable way to become a circus performer in the UK these days, so the National Centre for Circus Arts provides that opportunity for those looking to give circus ago. Work on all things equilibristic, acrobatic and aerial and we suspect you’ll become a circus performer in no time. Many circus acts trained in London so we know just how good they are! So what are you waiting for? Get down to Hoxton as soon as possible and see just how you can accomplish your dream of joining the circus, impressing at the Olympics and performing at parties all over the world!

Planning your next corporate event!!

Posted on by

Every year you have to organise the annual corporate event. So, what are the best of the best for corporate entertainment acts for your next corporate event in 2017? Red Masque directory have the hottest trends and acts for corporate, and company parties to ensure your VIPs are very impressed and your boss is very happy.

Aerialists use aerial circus and dance theatre with dynamic lighting and music to create evocative shows using trapeze, ropes and silks. Available as a solo artist for smaller venue, or as large a troupe as you wish, their show can be tailored to create the atmosphere you require, whether humorous, quirky, elegant. With a range of associated acts, including aerial champagne pouring.

Circus entertainers have given the world of corporate entertainment a whole new generation of aerial artists, defying gravity to present unique. Even if you haven’t got a skyscraper to use as your stage, these circus-inspired artists can perform in almost any space, for any corporate event.

Offer your guests a total 007 experience: an elegant stately home or iconic venue, set up as a celebrity lookalike James Bond complete with elegant hostesses serving martinis (shaken not stirred by expert cocktail waiters). Then add musical entertainment combining iconic Bond movie soundtracks and characters with dance and spectacle, such as a top party function band with a James Bond set.

Bespoke dance groups provide a superb spectacle that transcends language, and can be precisely tailored to your corporate event theme. From ballet dancers to contemporary rock dancers, your guests can enjoy a show full of energy, passion, augmented by state of the lighting and sound systems.

Whatever the occasion, you’ll find a dance troupe to suit; that can offer themed events such as Arabian Nights, Argentinean Tango, Burlesque, Flamenco, Irish Dancing, Ballroom Dancing, and Vegas Showgirls for example.

A Vintage Circus Party

Posted on by

Ever since “Water for Elephants” hit the theatres, we’ve been in love with the Vintage Circus party theme. The idea has been around for a while, but it’s still one of the most visually exciting party themes out there! Plus, you can add all kinds of amazing live entertainment to take things up a notch. We have a few ideas to bring your Vintage Circus party to life.

Decorations

Stripes are an easy way to incorporate that circus feel into your party. If you can’t have the actual big top tent, bringing the red and white stripes into your decor will do the trick. Hanging a backdrop of alternating white and red scarves or sheets can mimic the tent, as well. Try and find faded red to add to the vintage theme. Banners with alternating flags are another simple yet effective decoration. Luckily, balloons are inexpensive and fit beautifully into a Circus theme. Hang balloons from the ceiling and pair with white lights or scarves for a simple, yet gorgeous setting.

If your budget is a little higher, you could have marquee letters with lights spell out “CIRCUS” (or maybe the name of the guest/guests of honour).

Invitations are really fun for this theme. Create and print postcards announcing “The Circus is Coming to Town” with all of your event details.

Refreshments

What foods do you love at the circus? hot dogs, or candy floss? All great ideas for your Vintage Circus party! Set up a self-serve table with all of your favourites and let your guests take their pick. Or if you’d rather have someone else take care of the details and add an element of authenticity, try bringing in a company to provide candy floss hot dogs, and more.

If your party includes a cake, there are tons of amazing designs out there. Professional cake decorators can help your vision come to life, or simplify things with a cupcake tower instead! Just frost them in your theme colours, add a printable toothpick flag, and you’re set.

To dress up your food table a bit, print labels in a fun “Circus” font.

Party Entertainment

While it would be amazing to have an elephant in your backyard, it’s not entirely probable. That doesn’t mean you can’t have awe-inspiring entertainment at your Vintage Circus party! In fact, some of our favourite types of corporate event entertainment live in this category. If you have the space, Aerialists put on some amazing shows in the air above the party. Jugglers, Fire eaters, and Acrobats can also take advantage of the area and keep your guests mesmerized.

If space is a little tight, try up-close and personal entertainment like Mind readers, Tarot Card Readers, or Street Magicians Have some kids at the party? Balloon Moddlers and Face Painters are always a great addition to Circus parties!

Is it edge of your seat entertainers you’re after?

Posted on by

Jugglers today can juggle almost anything from fire to dangerous objects with their complex routines that has been practiced and practiced over and over again.  Have you ever wanted to learn the art of juggling? If you needed a juggler for a children’s party or a grown up event then look no further than our choice of fine jugglers that are very professional and can put on a good show for your special event.  You could be launching a new product, having a private party, corporate affair which will get the attention your event needed to be a success.

Ariel Performers are a master of grace, (making it look easy) but in fact these trained professionals have put many hours in perfecting this unique and breath-taking act for any event that you had in mind. They can perform as a solo act or in a team using ropes, ribbons or hoops. Perfect for a Wedding reception to entertain your guests. A little more graceful than ‘edge of your seat’ but none the less quite an art. 

A Knife thrower is very entertaining and if you were thinking that this would be a good way to get rid of your boss at this year’s annual party – think again as we have the most professional Knife Throwers advertised with us here at Red Masque party and event entertainment directory. This act is terrifyingly dangerous and you will have one eye open when you see the Knife Thrower in action.  ‘

A sword swallower is the most jaw dropping, show stopping, act that you could possibly see but nonetheless we still want to see it – it’s extremely clever and obviously well practiced and these guys are obviously a master in their field. From regurgitating, to swallowing razor blades we find it almost impossible to comprehend but ever so fascinating to watch.

If you are having an event which would be worthy of such an act then we have the best Sword Swallowers, Knife throwers and Jugglers on our books which is guaranteed to be talked about for many months to come.

If you wanted to mix it up a little but still incorporate juggling and sword swallowers a tightrope walker can sometimes do this whilst balancing above your head!!  

So go on dare to be different and hire some fantastic acts like these.  You have to admire their courage and sheer determination to enable them to do what they do.

All the fun of the fair

Posted on by

A fair is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated travelling carnival or travelling funfair entertainment. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary; some last only an afternoon while others may last as long as ten weeks. Activities at fairs vary widely. Some trade fairs are important regular business events either where products are traded between businesspeople, as at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where publishers sell book rights in other markets to other publishers, or where products are showcased to consumers, as for example in agricultural districts where they present opportunities to display and demonstrate the latest machinery on the market to farmers.

Fairs are also known by many different names around the world, such as agricultural show, fete, exhibition, or state fair, festival, market and show.  Flea market and auto shows are sometimes incorporated into a fair.

Fayre is an archaic spelling of fair, used mostly from the 15th to the 17th century. This spelling is now confusingly used for both fair and fare, the latter in the sense of ‘food and drink’. In itself, the word means a gathering of stalls and amusements for public entertainment .The alternative spelling is an old-fashioned affectation and is used in order to remind revellers and participants of medieval fayres and markets. It is mainly used for fairs that are essentially leisure rather than business events such as trade fairs and rides.

The fair is an ancient tradition and many communities have long had dedicated fairgrounds; others hold them in a variety of public places, including streets and town squares, or even in large private gardens. Fairs are often held in conjunction with a significant event, such as the anniversary of a local historical event, a seasonal event such as harvest time or with a holiday such as Christmas.

Now anybody can hold a fair, it could be a few fairground rides or a grand affair.  At Red Masque directory you are able to choose from a range of fairground rides and stalls.  Let your imagination run wild and hire at much or as little as you’d like.  Amaze your guests with the ‘fun of the fair’.

Spring surprise

Posted on by

With spring is well and truly upon us and with the circus being a visual performing art and tents popping up over this period Red Masque will be looking at the history of circus….

The Bailey & Cooper circus was well known across Australia and New Zealand, touring to various islands around Oceania between 1876 and 1878. James Anthony Bailey then teamed up with P.T. Barnum to bring ‘the Greatest Show on Earth’ to Europe. Barnum died before being able to see the European reaction to the huge tents so well-known in his homeland; although impressed, many were bewildered and the venture was met with only muted enthusiasm

Menagerie owners were the main people to react to ‘the Greatest Show on Earth’ most favourably, sensing an opportunity to enhance their fading businesses. With this ‘new’ idea of combining animals with circus acts, they enjoyed renewed success for a few more decades, with the equestrian circus falling by the wayside and the travelling circus reaching the peak of its popularity between the two World Wars, most notably in Germany. With the larger cities still housing permanent circuses – Paris still had four – circus manufacturers strived to create comfortable seating that could attract the city folk away from the furnishings and production values to which they had become so accustomed.

The biggest innovation in the 1900s occurred within Russia after Lenin nationalised the Russian circuses in 1919, leading to an exodus of the country by many western performers. With the Russian performers needing to be trained, the government established the Moscow circus school, which developed training methods that incorporated gymnastics. The result was a free-flowing, innovative performance that proved to be a hit with crowds abroad, where any Russian-based circus was known as the Moscow Circus (a generic name adopted by travelling Russian circuses to this day).

Resistance to the changes of the modern world led to a decline in the industry throughout the 1960s, but by the 1970s and 1980s, circuses such as Cirque du Soleil had restored the flamboyance and spectacle to proceedings, ushering in the idea of circuses as performance art to sit alongside the more traditional travelling circuses, which continue to endure great popularity across Europe. A surge in teaching has also led to a circus revival in recent years and it remains to be seen quite where this interest shall lead.

Why not hire your own circus and have your very own ‘front seats’ the possibilities are endless for example if you would like to learn a few ‘circus skills’ then let Red Masque introduce you to some fantastic acrobats, aerial performers, and circus artists that are advertised on our website.

What’s best for you?

Posted on by

Events are an intriguing proposition. Depending on the stage at which you are at in life, certain acts may be perfectly suited to you. Others perhaps less so. You’re hardly likely to book a wine tasting for a child’s birthday party and the less said about the ‘Happy 75th’ bouncy castle booking the better. With that in mind, we thought it may be useful to run through a few ideas you may wish to have a look at depending on the life stage within which you currently reside.

Who can forget childhood? A time when you were completely carefree but were still liable to be dragged along to events at your parent’s insistence. Thankfully, many times there were acts at these events that were tailor made for you. Ah, life was hugely enjoyable when you were being entertained by such acts like a hired balloon modeller (“a dog please”) and a children’s entertainer that you happily got involved, all memories of missing your favourite cartoon on television completely forgotten.

The most important part of your wedding day is undoubtedly the exchanging of the vows, declaring a lifelong commitment to one another. Everything else is window dressing but hey, you want the finest window dressing there is. To that end, splashing out for the V&A was quite the declaration of your love. And nobody will forget the reception at the Waldorf in a hurry. And booking stilt walkers and aerialists was a great idea. With the photo booth images providing a fun way to scrapbook your event, everyone went home happy– Wait a second! Was that the Queen in attendance?

Of course, many of the acts depicted here can’t really be compartmentalised and we have lots of ideas that you can look through on our entertainment directory. So have fun, pick some entertainers that would be a real surprise and make your whole event a magical one…

Entertaining the kids

Posted on by

So, the kids have stopped playing with their Christmas presents ages ago and they’re board (as usual.) Would you like some ideas on how to entertain them? We’ve come up with some great places to take them and also some DIY at home entertainment for you to hire.

A day at the museum
London museums open their doors again this weekend, and at the Science Museum there’s a fab exhibition on the birth of the space age; great for any budding cosmonauts.

But if you don’t fancy going out albeit only in the garden, build yourself a bubble-powered rocket fuelled by indigestion tablets. We are sure you will be able to find a great children’s entertainer that you can hire from Red Masque. The right entertainer will keep them amused for hours.

A Prima ballerina 
Make a budding ballerina’s dream come true with a performance of The Nutcracker by the English National Ballet.
Our suggestion: You can book ballet dance shows, with a prima ballerina teaching your child and her friends a ballet class, hair and makeup techniques and even giving a private performance. Move over Angelina mouse!

Ski Sunday
If, for you, a skiing holiday is as much about the après-ski as the slopes and wet stuff; it’s probably just as well this week. The European ski resorts are suffering from a lack of the white stuff, and you might spend more time perfecting your kids entertaining skills rather than your downhill! So, save a chalet-load of cash and take the kids to an indoor snow centre like Snow-Dome in Tamworth – other domes are available!), where they can toboggan, snowboard and freestyle to their heart’s content.

Red Masque’s suggestion: Hold a ski party! For inside parties, hire an ice sculpture and watch on a big screen some snow-boarding.  For outside events, hire an ice rink and even a snow machine if budget will allow. And, of course, you’ll need suitable music – a Snow Patrol tribute band perhaps?

Fun at the circus
Circus acts are definitely cool this year, and there are some excellent circus shows on offer this year. As Easter is fastly approaching Circus tents will be popping up all over the country which will include trapeze artists, clowns, jugglers, aerialists and acrobats.

Red Masque’s suggestion: If you think circus is impressive from the cheap seats in a tent, it’s utterly astounding close up! Hire an aerialist from Red Masque and all you’ll need is a high enough ceiling for their kit – they’ll provide the rest! Elegant, exciting and enjoyable entertainment for parties, promotions and more. Or for more circus for your cash, you can add jugglers, stilt walkers and acrobatic artists from us too.

Hopefully we’ve given you a bit of inspiration and made you think that next time, instead of you going to the fun; the fun can come to you… Have a great weekend!

Circus Entertainment

Posted on by
Why not bring on the circus and make your event entertainment the talk of the town. But don’t expect it to be all balloons and a silly costume because these days the circus has something special on offer… 
Young or old everybody loves a good circus show, you could hire the whole shebang, or If you needed individual circus acts then Clowns and Jugglers can be organised separately. Maybe your guests would like to learn the simple techniques of juggling and leave the more complicated techniques for watching only!! Todays circus performers can bring the best of the big top to you.

Acrobats are a great way to start off an event with fantastic displays perfect for any occasion. For bigger events you can hire more extreme show performances such as the high wire and aerial displays, but acrobats are just as talented on a small stage and a solo show by a professional performer can be an amazing treat for both the large and smaller crowds to enjoy. You could be launching a new product and want to promote it by organising an acrobatic group – it will definitely be a great talking point and your crowd will stop in their tracks to watch these amazing acrobats.

Find the best jugglers available for hire in the UK today. These performers can juggle just about anything from fire balls to furniture. Jugglers today really push the boundaries when it comes to what they can perform with. The days of the simple circus juggler who’s know for throwing coloured balls in the air are well and truly numbered.

Some people think of sword swallowing and knife throwing as a magic trick but there’re no illusions or magic involved with these acts. An act that is guaranteed to not only entertain but also shock and amaze your guests all at the same time. A great choice of entertainment for any party or event whatever the occasion.