What to do in a mascot costume at a children's birthday

This is based on being in a mascot costume that does not have a cooling fan inside. Being in a full body covering costume can and will get hot in any case after a while. Having to perform for children, which involves moving around a lot, can cause even more heat issues.

Of the several times that I have been in mascot costumes at birthdays, the activities mostly included being there just for the looks and for photos. At times it was also taking part in games or just walking around as well as handing out gifts. There is of course the risk that younger children can get a fright, so being aware of it and backing back a bit is then required. Worst case scenario and last resort would be to take the head off to show the children that there is a human person underneath before putting it back on. This obviously breaks the entire illusion of the effect. Staying around for too long will also wear off the novelty, plus the extreme heat the whole time inside the costume can cause quite a loss of body fluids through sweating.

Usually for event activities it helps if the event organisers (usually parents), have some plan of what the person in the costume is supposed to do with a rough time schedule. The exact starting time is not always important, mostly the duration due to reasons mentioned above. Events can fall apart if children are doing all kinds of things and due to attention span, it does not help if there is some long or complex demonstration going on.

Finally not to forget, leaving and entering the place where an event is being held without children actually seeing the costume parts. This might cause nightmares for some and is also an illusion breaker.

Thirteen new costumes ordered

A total of thirteen new costumes have been ordered. This includes some children sizes and small costumes for women.
The list of costumes includes: Caribbean Buccaneer, Queen of the Pirates, Thing, Spider-Man 3, Devil Costume, Marie Antoinette, Madame Marquess, Viking Valkyrie, Spider-Man, Elvis Black Leather, Ancient Beauty, Pirate's Wench, Super Hero. Most of these costumes are for women and many are some are children sizes.

Bunny feet should also be arriving soon for the Easter weekend and possibly two black mouse costumes.

Costumes for women and children

Due to the increase in requests for children sizes as well as costumes for women, I am planning to see what costumes I can get hold of. Recently one of my suppliers started selling heavily discounted costumes because they are discontinued. I had a look at the list last night and several costumes look promising. If they actually will be requested or rented is another matter.

Desperate parents are looking for Barney costumes

I get a lot of rather desperate parents looking for adult sized Barney the dinosaur costumes for use for an average of fifteen minutes for the birthdays of their two or three year old children.

Unfortunately I cannot help them because of legal and brand limitation reasons that I have been made aware of recently. There should really be adult sized Barney costumes available to more or less look similar to the character that can be used for such purposes. I do understand that the company which owns the brand does not want the character image to be tainted by adults that get up to mischief while in the costume. The same can really happen with anything.