Our agency has been on the receiving end of quite a few Saturday morning phone calls from frantic people who have been suddenly stood up by Harmony the Clown and her pet monkey, Abby. The excuses given don't vary much. Illness is the most common excuse she usually gives for not being able to do her scheduled birthday parties. We do our best to try to find a replacement clown for these people and ae sometimes successful, but oftentimes, we have no clown available, at least not one that we can reach at the last minute like this. We feel so sorry for the poor helpless parents who have a birthday party scheduled and cannot get entertainment and don't know what they are going to do now!
We are NOT the agency that received the call from Beverly and booked Sugar Plum in Harmony's place on that Saturday October, but we did get a call from the agent who replaced Harmony with Sugar Plum! The agent was calling everyone she could possibly think of, trying to help this poor woman find a replacement clown. We had no one available on such short notice. We did suggest a few clowns, including Sugar Plum, and fortunately Sugar Plum was available and saved the day!
We have read the rebuttals to the original consumer complaints. We felt it only fair that we, as entertainment agents in Houston, submit a report telling the facts, as we see them. Harmony does cancel at the last minute, without finding a suitable replacement for herself. We have been on the receiving end of the calls from parents telling us about this bad habit she has. We don't know why she does this. We don't know if she truly is sick this often or not. We cannot help but suspect it is just an excuse to take a better paying job. We fault no one for trying to make a living, but we do fault a person for not prearranging a comparable replacement when they feel they must cancel a job for whatever reason! The replacement should be lined up in advance before calling the client to give them the news. This way the client will not have to go into a frenzy looking for replacement entertainment just hours before their guests arrive.
We are starting to see a pattern developing here. Harmony's reputation is tarnished all over the Houston market with a good many of the top children's entertainment booking agencies. We can only hope that all of these consumer complaintss will serve as a major wake up call to Harmony so she will stop this practice of last minute cancellations and start taking care of her business in a more professional manner. She is giving all clowns in Houston a "black eye" to the general public.
We do know that when Harmony performs at parties children love her and she is a good clown! This letter is not meant to trash her abilities and skills as a clown, it is intended to set the record straight from the standpoint of having been on the receiving end of multiple calls form parents, regarding her last minute cancelations in recent years.
0 comments