All right, you put together a show, now how do you get a contract? The consensus of opinion is that you need references and experience in order to get a booking. I suggest that you do public service shows or free shows for schools. If you are secure enough where you work, you can use your police credentials to gain an audience with a school principal or local PTA group. Scouts are another great audience.

You can also provide a free show for any group or audience and be paid for it as well. This method requires letting the school or scouts or any organization sell tickets to businesses. The businesses buy tickets to either give to their customers, or as a donation to the charity, the school or organization then gives the free tickets or allows open admission on behalf of the sponsor. You can keep all or a percentage of the proceeds as your fee.

If you want to sponsor a free show for a group, you must obtain their permission to have the show at their school or location, you also need to have permission to represent to businesses that you are performing a show for their organization and under their name, you would like a donation to cover the show expenses (your fees). You can give the organization a percentage of donations received or anything over a certain amount.

This all requires you to approach the project as a "fund raising" event.

Soliciting can be by the group, or you can call and approach businesses yourself. It is entirely up to you to represent whether you are a law enforcement officer or not, it does carry more weight.

The script would go, " good evening, this is officer Hesteni and I am performing a police magic show for your local school. We are asking local businesses if they would like to sponsor blocks of tickets for this event in order to provide seats for "underprivileged" children in the area. These are the children most at risk in this community and would benefit most from the educational content in the show."

"We will provide the show on your behalf, list your business as a sponsor on the program or on signage at the show site. You can also receive tickets to give out to your customers or charity."

Remember, a police magic show is a media event, a public service, and even good entertainment. If you can combine your positive message and get a community behind you, you can be a star.

Other great sources for shows:

Scout masters

Summer camps

Board of education

Parent teachers groups

Business associations:

Ie: chamber of commerce, local SBA, town councils, development associations

Civic groups: Elks, Eagles, Knight of Columbus etc.

And of course, PBA, even Law offices.