- The calm before the storm shatters,
and everybody is immediately in full panic mode.
- There would be kids who would literally run
up behind me and smack my ass,
and I'm like.
- It's dark, there's red lights flashing,
the fog machines go off,
and suddenly Darth Vader marches out.
There's an audible gasp from the kids.
(regal dramatic music)
- Hi, my name is Connie,
and I was a Party Princess in New York
for like four-ish years.
It was honestly a really wonderful job.
This is one of those horror story moments.
So I see my contract for the day.
I pull it up, and big red letters across the top
of the contract, it has stamped on there,
"Difficult mother."
That's just to let me know that apparently,
mom has already had some problems just booking the party
in general through our company.
Now this party is for a little four year old boy,
and this little four year old loves Star Wars.
So I'm supposed to be coming as Rey,
but it's obvious that this kid likes
the dark side a little bit more
because we are going to also be bringing
two Stormtroopers and Darth Vader to the party.
What we do at our company is we always call the parents
to just give them a heads up that we're on our way.
Normally, my first thing that I do
when I look at the contract is I look
to see what the mother's name is,
so that I can call her my name whenever I pick up the phone.
But that space is blank for some reason.
It's not usual,
normally the mother's name is written very clearly there,
but it is not.
I go ahead, I call up, I hear that she picks up the phone.
She says, "Hello?"
I say, "Hello, this is Connie.
"I'm just calling to tell you that we are
"on our way right now,
"and that are so excited to be doing your son's birthday."
I normally have a nice two minute spiel
that I go into,
but she stops me immediately.
And she says, "Okay Connie,
"I'm just gonna stop you right there
"because I need this party to go an exact way,
"and I'm gonna tell you exactly how I need it to go."
Hey, she knows exactly what she wants.
That's not a problem, I am willing to listen.
So she starts going in depth into
what she wants to go down at this party.
She has certain phrases we are allowed to say,
she has certain moves we are allowed to do.
She wants to give me an exact play by play
of how this is gonna go.
Fine, after about a couple of minutes
of her going, and me going mm-hmm, uh-huh, okay,
she says, "Okay, now Connie, I need you
"to tell me, how do you think this party is gonna go?"
I say, "This party is going to be so great.
"It's gonna be such a great party."
And she says, "No Connie, I need you to say
"that it's going to be a perfect party."
I say, "Absolutely, not a problem."
She goes, "No, I need you to say that exactly back to me.
"Say it's going to be a perfect party."
And I say, "Yes ma'am.
"It's gonna be a perfect party."
So I think this is probably as scary
as this is gonna get.
And then I'm about to hang up
'cause I think we can't go any more
in depth on anything else,
and she says, "Connie, what is your sign?"
Takes me a minute really to catch up.
I'm from Texas, we don't really do this,
and so then I realize she means my sign.
I say, "My sign."
And she says, "Yes, your sign."
I realize she means my horoscope.
I'm not very into that stuff,
I don't know a lot about it,
so I was like, "Oh, I'm a Scorpio."
She says, "Oh, a Scorpio."
She says, "No, that's not right.
"I don't think that's right.
"You're definitely, I would have given you more
"of a Sagittarius, that's
"what I think I would have given you.
"But okay, okay, Scorpio we can work with."
So she tells me to go into the backdoor of the event,
and that the staff will greet me there,
and that is where I am supposed to stay.
So she ends the call without even giving a goodbye,
and I slowly put my phone down,
and I turn to see all the boys
with their wide eyes staring at me.
And I get all the boys into the back of the event space.
Now, what normally goes down at these parties
is normally the mother will come up,
she'll greet me, talk her through a couple of things,
just let her know that we're all there,
we're ready to go.
Now the event staff immediately rushes up to me.
There's a real frantic crazy energy in the back.
So two of the staff members, they come up to me,
and they start giving me a run down
of what exactly is going to go on.
So I set my boys up behind the curtain,
I get the fog machines ready to go,
my music ready to play.
So I rush out as Rey in my Resistance gear,
I run out and I say, "I'm Rey, I'm part of the Resistance."
I know the birthday boy is sitting in the front
'cause the staff has already told me.
Also, he's dressed as Kylo Ren, so he's pretty obvious.
So he's right in the front,
and I say, "I'm part of the Resistance,
"I'm here because we're going to escape,
"we're trying to escape from the Dark Side."
And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, actually they're here."
The curtains open up, I press play,
and "The Imperial March" starts playing.
It's dark, there's red lights flashing,
the fog machines go off, and suddenly,
Darth Vader marches out with two Stormtroopers
on either side, there's an audible gasp
from the kids, it's going really well.
The birthday boy loves it, he is so excited
that Darth Vader is there, so thrilled.
I'm like, "Okay everybody, let's all be,
"we're all gonna go up, and we're gonna meet Darth Vader."
We all go up, they're like talking with Darth Vader,
talking with the Stormtroopers.
I think somebody realized that
with Darth Vader coming out,
this was going to be the penultimate of the party,
this was going to be the most exciting part.
So somebody gets in their head,
oh, let's just bring the cake out now
because nothing's gonna top this.
So they decided to go ahead and bring the cake out,
so they roll the cake out, the candles are all getting lit.
I quickly press play "Happy Birthday" on our music.
We're singing through "Happy Birthday",
he blows out his candles, it's great.
Now the staff starts
to roll the cake away almost immediately.
I go, "No, no, no, no, whoah, whoah, whoah we need pictures.
"We gotta do pictures first, guys, one second."
So I roll cake back into the middle of the stage,
I get the Stormtroopers on either side,
and they're like standing guard with their phasers,
and they're stang guard over the cake,
and I have the birthday boy,
and Darth Vader is holding him from behind,
and he's like force shooting at the camera,
so I go over to the photographer,
make sure they're getting the shot.
They start taking shots, all these clicks,
all is going great.
All of a sudden I feel just a little top
on my shoulder, and I'm like,
I turn around, and there's a woman there,
and she's staring at me.
And she says, "You, did you do this?"
And she points at where the pictures are now happening.
I say, "Oh, yes, yes, ma'am, I did.
"I'm part of the party entertainers."
And she was like, "This, I'm very happy with this.
"What has happened."
She says, "You, you have earned my name.
"My name is Mandy, I am The Birthday Mother."
Now all clicks into place,
this mother didn't want to ever give out her name,
that's why it wasn't on the contract,
she possibly hasn't told,
doesn't want anybody to know.
So she's now given me her name,
and says that I can use it.
She says, "Connie, we spoke, didn't we?"
I say, "Yes we did."
She says, "You will be the only one
"that I will be dealing with for the rest of this event.
"I would like to speak to you and not the rest of the staff,
"and I would like you to convey to them what I need."
And I say, "Yup, I can do that, not a problem."
Probably say one of the phrases she told me to say,
because I know exactly what I am supposed
to do at this party to make it work.
The party ends up going so well,
and Mandy even brings me over,
and she pulls the photographer aside,
and she says, "Take a picture of me and Connie."
So me and Mandy take a photo with the photographer,
she has her arm around me,
we take a photo together.
Now what we're supposed to do at the end
of the party is we're supposed to get a contract signed
at the end to prove that we finished the event.
They sign a contract before,
but then they sign one at the end just
to say that the event was completed.
So I go over to where she is,
and I have my clipboard in hand ready
for her to sign off,
and she looks at me and she goes,
"Oh no, no, no, no, Connie, I don't do that."
I go, "Okay, not a problem."
I guess that's just gonna be what it is
'cause she does things a very certain way,
and she goes, "Don't worry, you'll hear from me again."
And she was not lying.
She did call my office,
gave me an insanely great tip,
and for the next three years,
I did this exact same birthday party,
and it all went fine, so just goes to show
just a little bit of understanding can go a long way,
and actually she ended up being a really hilarious person,
she was incredibly specific of what she wanted,
but she was very funny,
and we have four years of photos that we did,
that we did at all of her parties,
it was really sweet to see her kid grow up.
So really crazy but really good in the end
and really fun.
- Hi my name is Abby, I've been a Party Princess
for about two years now.
One day I was actually not a princess, per se,
I was a Fortnite Banana.
So I get to the studio and I get in costume,
and basically it's this morph suit,
it's a yellow morph suit with the Banana suit
on top of it, and then little Velcro eyes up here.
So I couldn't really see anything.
We had a party, it was about four hours.
We had two princess,
then we had I think five Fortnite characters.
And about four of them didn't have any face,
they couldn't talk with their costume.
So we walk in, and it was hectic from the moment we got in,
like, there was a DJ, there were shot girls,
there was a giant catered table,
there were guys at a carving station,
and I was just like, "This kid is turning 12.
"Is he, what's going on?"
It was actually a joint birthday,
it was a 12 boy and a four year old girl,
so two princesses were hanging out with the four year old,
and then me and all the other Fortnite characters went
out with the 12 year old.
That was when everything went wrong
because they saw us as basically punching bags,
which was not great for me.
So we started playing basketball for, like, five minutes,
and then they literally started going
and punching different kids,
and I'm just like, oh I'm not okay with this.
And so basically we found a very bizarre space
behind a pool house so we could go take breaks
because it was a four hour party.
And so we're hiding behind the pool house
every basically 30 minutes
'cause these kids were so much to handle.
They would be literally beating up one
of the characters who played Marshmallow,
and Ninja was also faceless,
so he would go back there and hide a lot.
First thing is me and Ninja were hiding back there
and drinking water, and a bunch of kids followed us,
and they saw the back of our heads,
and they're like, "They're real people."
And we're like, we can't acknowledge this.
So we we'd shoot back in really fast,
and we turn around, we're like,
"What do you mean?
"We're just in character."
And I'm like, "Peanut butter, jelly time."
And I'm like, I hate my life. (cries)
They had us on the dance floor for some reason,
and I'm like no one wants to dance with a banana,
but then I realized everyone wants to dance
with a banana.
Which was something I wasn't prepared to do
at a kid's birthday party.
I'm like, this is crazy, and I'm actually not okay.
So then after a little while of dancing,
I decided to go back outside
and see what the other entertainers were doing,
and they were literally beating
up the guy playing Marshmallow.
They were like punching him,
and Ninja was like, "I don't know what to do."
So I walk out here, I'm like,
"All right, let's go kids.
"Separate," and then I don't know
who figured it out, but they figured out I was a girl,
and that's when my day went way downhill
'cause they were all screaming,
"Let's peel Peelie,"
and I'm like, "Let's not."
I don't want this, I'm not paid enough for this.
There would be kids who would literally run
up behind me and smack my ass,
and I'm like,
buy me dinner first, excuse me.
I'm like, "You do not hit bananas without asking,
"that's just rude."
So I would frequently just hide in the bathroom
and just kind of sob a little bit
'cause I'm like, "I don't know what's going on."
The fun thing about this is
after that, the father of the party,
he actually decided to leave to get the birthday cake,
which is weird timing,
but he also apparently had all of the money
that we were supposed to collect,
and so we were all waiting on him to get back
for an extra hour,
and since the Fortnite characters didn't wanna go
and get murdered and assaulted again,
we decided to stay inside
with the Frozen party going on inside.
- Hi I'm Caryn, and I was a Party Princess
in New York City for four years.
So we are in a backyard in upstate New York.
Big huge open area,
and this family has ordered our deluxe package,
so we have everything.
I'm talking a bounce house, cotton candy,
snow cones, popcorn, DJ, everything.
I'm starring as Elsa at this event,
along with my attendant who has come with me
because we always go in pairs to parties,
and we are absolutely crushing it.
This party is going just swimmingly.
The little girl loves Elsa,
she never wants to let it go, ever.
And all of the kids are having just a great time,
they have so many activities to do,
they're all bounce houses, and snow cones,
and just living life, dancing, having fun.
Basically, nothing feels like it's gonna go wrong.
We have now reached the end of the event.
The way that we usually like to end events is
with cotton candy, so we basically give the kids the sugar,
and then get out of there so the parents have
to deal with the sugar high and crash afterwards.
So the attendant that I'm working
with today is actually doing just a great job,
it's actually her first event,
and the learning curve for party events is very steep
because we have a lot of machinery
that we're having to run along
with dealing with kids
and face paint and balloons, et cetera.
So there's a lot to do,
but she is doing great, in fact,
she's kind of an overachiever, which I really enjoy
in somebody's that's helping me out.
So while I am busy with the kids,
finishing up the magic show,
letting them pet the rabbit, that's right,
we had a live petting rabbit time,
it was a blast.
This girl is going and starting up the cotton candy,
which is amazing, we'll get out of here on time,
can enjoy our summer,
everything's going great.
The thing with cotton candy machines is
those puppies take a lot of power to run,
so if you've been doing parties for a while,
you'll know that you don't wanna plug those in
to a breaker that has anything else running on it.
You want that cotton candy machine running all by itself.
Unfortunately, being her first day on the job,
she did not know this,
and not only did she plug it into a breaker
with something else that was on it,
oh no, she plugged it into the bounce house breaker
One of the things that has the most power output
that we do.
So if you're gonna plug those two machines
in together, this party is about to end,
like full stop.
So with a huge smile on my face,
I'm turning over to see what my attendant is doing,
and I see her reaching to plug this plug in,
and I reach my hand out, yelling
"No," trying to stop her
from afar, as if I can stop this event from happening.
It's too late.
She plugs that thing in,
and all sound in the party stops.
Like, you could hear nothing,
just all the whirring and the noise and the DJ
and everything that had been playing, cut off.
You know something has gone devastatingly wrong,
and I look over, almost slow motion,
to see that the bounce house castle has now begun
to deflate, the turrets are starting to go down.
As parents now realize what I just realized,
the calm before the storm shatters,
and everybody is immediately in full panic mode.
Like red alert, red alert, alarms going off.
We are in crisis.
So I quickly put the bunny away,
and head right towards the bounce house,
'cause I know that's
where everybody's gonna be freaking out.
And parents are treating this like the Titanic is sinking.
Kids are just pouring out,
moms are screaming at the top of their lungs,
it's women and children first,
the ship is going down.
Now I'm trying to be very calm in this moment,
and get the children out as quickly as possible,
and be really chill because the thing that I know
that the parents don't seem to realize is
that bounce houses actually deflate very, very slowly.
So everybody's at full panic, full tilt,
but the bounce house is literally coming down,
like, inch by inch, we've got, like 10 maybe 15 minutes
before this all happens.
So everybody's gonna get out and be totally fine,
but I totally understand the panic,
so we quickly get the kids out of there
as fast as we can,
and then watch as it gracefully sinks
the rest of the way for the final five minutes.
Everything's fine, crisis averted.
We're back in business, I'm already talking
to mom, telling her, "Hey, the breaker is flipped,
"we're gonna have to switch that on,
"so we can get cotton candy back,"
And to full on fix it mode so that we can get outta here,
when suddenly a voice raises above the calm
that has now descended.
And yells out one sentence,
"Where's Kevin?"
And everybody is back in full panic mode,
and someone has decided that the only place
that Kevin could possibly be is trapped
within the bounce house,
which is impossible, but of course that's the conclusion
that everybody comes up with.
So everybody rushes to the bounce house again,
which is now completely flat,
so unless Kevin is flat, I know that he's not in there,
and we also waited for a good five minutes
as the rest of it fell down
after we had gotten all the kids out,
so I know he's not in there.
And everybody's panicking and freaking out
and yelling, there are just yells echoing all
throughout the back yard, "Kevin, Kevin, where are you?"
"Kevin, Kevin."
I hear a gasp from behind me,
we all turn, and silhouetted in the door is the shape
of a little five year old boy,
holding onto a red snow cone
that is just dripping down his face,
as he stares at the devastation
that is happening in this backyard,
and I hear someone say, "Oh, there's Kevin."
Turns out, Kevin had just been inside getting a snow cone
the entire time, it was completely safe,
and no children were harmed in the slightest,
so we made it through that party,
completely unscathed, even
though the bounce house went down.
It was pretty dramatic in the moment,
but thank goodness everybody still had a really fun time,
and we got cotton candy at the end anyway.
(upbeat playful music)