Thoughts on Prodigal Fun

We just had our big Prodigal Fun event. We appreciate everyone who came out and gave us some feedback.  I am usually pretty optimistic about juggling, but I would say everything went even better than I expected.  But now I want to look back at all the comments and figure out what we want to improve on.  I will be focusing on Prodigal Fun stuff, but I will try to put other goals for 2015 as well since January seems like the right time to try to figure this out.  If you didn’t see Prodigal Fun, this post probably isn’t worth reading. Out of all the posts I have ever done this will probably be the one that is most just for me.

First, I want to look at some positive things. We had all positive comments about the structure of the show. I was a little worried that it might be hard to follow, but it seems like that wasn’t an issue.  Also, we asked people what their favorite routine was, and every routine was picked by at least one person.

Our breakfast finale had the most comments about needing work, but it was also the most common reply for the favorite routine.  I think will work, but I would like to tweak it. Most of the complaints were about it not feeling like a finale. I messed up in the show, so maybe just not having the drop would make it a better ending. However, I still think it is missing something.  Maybe it should be longer. Maybe having more torches would be more exciting than six different objects or maybe having a knife in there would help. Maybe my three objects should be able to be used to do something at the end just like Darren is able to cook the egg with his objects. Maybe something needs to be happening while the egg is frying (maybe ladder or plate spinning). Maybe more dramatic music would make it feel like a finale. I don’t know but we’ll keep playing with this.

Some other negative comments were scattered throughout. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger got mixed reviews, but enough people really liked it to make me think it belongs in the show.  The hats and Frisbee routine could also use a better ending, but I think this is mostly just a practice and getting comfortable thing.  We could really use a better introduction for Midas Touch. There was also the question of why did we name the prodigal son Rudy. I loved this question.  I don’t have a good answer for this, but maybe this is an opportunity for a joke or something.

The last interesting comment that I can remember right now was that this was a good show for church groups but it would be good to see more of a personal or outreach focused show in the future. I don’t know when the next show will happen, but it’s never too early to start thinking about it.

One other issue was how to shorten the show for different venues. Bye, Bye, Bye might have to go depending on stages because we need to bounce so much for that.  We could get rid of Harder Faster since it is right at the end. I was thinking about getting rid of numbers since it is so long, but it seems like people really liked it. Hats and Frisbees or Welcome Home could be taken out since they are both about the party.

I have some other juggling goals for 2015. I want to learn to juggle five big balls. Also, I want to do something substantial for our 4th of July Challenge. I would also like to have some sort of non-juggling design project. We have had one every year for the last five years. We’ve made business cards, a website, brochures, a promo video, and the t-shirts. I would like to keep the streak alive, but I can’t think of anything else that we would really want. I have done a lot of driving this past year, so maybe I can design something that will get some more shows in the Quakertown area. I am sure there will be more goals as the year goes on, but that is all I can think of for now.