Live Children’s Entertainment and Puppet Craft Activities at Shopping Centres

“The girls had so much fun meeting Troggg and his friends. We laughed, danced and learnt what it takes to become a master puppeteer!”

Larrikin Puppets bring high quality Australian live theatre puppet shows to children and families. Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins, along with their zany troupe of funny puppet characters provide top quality live entertainment at shopping centres around Australia – including Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Toowoomba, Gold Coast and Northern NSW.

This exciting, colourful and interactive live entertainment has lots of fun characters, props and plenty of audience engagement. The show is 30 minutes of skits, songs, jokes and comical interaction with the audience. It is all performed live, and we incorporate our catchy, original songs (as heard on Spotify and Little Rockers Radio) such as “Dance Like A Unicorn” and “I Know All The Things“.

The style of puppetry is like The Muppets and Sesame Street, and we (two puppeteers) mostly perform from behind a puppet stage, but we do emerge as ‘humans’ during some of the interactive audience volunteer segments and dance segments.

The show is followed by a 5 minute demonstration about how all the puppets work. Elissa and Brett once again invite volunteers up to assist with a couple of the puppets.

We then have a 5-10 minute meet-and-greet and photo opportunity with the puppets. Parents love getting photos of their kids with the puppets, and sometimes even selfies of themselves with the puppets too!

All up it’s a 45 minute presentation including the “how the puppets work” demo and the meet-and-greet.

We also perform a Christmas-themed show which is perfect for the lead up to Christmas, as well as Santa’s Arrival events in shopping centres, introducing Santa and creating excitement prior to his arrival. It’s a very exciting and engaging live entertainment option for shopping centres!

Cost: Larrikin Puppets shopping centre puppet show prices are outlined on Rate Card #3. For more than one performance (for example – one or two full weeks of daily performances), we can give you a bulk discount for multiple shows in the same location. Contact us to discuss.

Cost Covers:
– 30 minute puppet show of songs, games, jokes and comical interaction with the audience, including audience volunteers to perform with puppets in the show’s finale.
– 5-10 minute Puppet meet-and-greet / Photo opportunity with Troggg and Marina.
– Time allowance for travel to and from, set-up and pack-down of the puppet stage, props, puppets and sound equipment.
– Rehearsal time prior to the event.
– Quality characters.
– Quality puppetry.

PLEASE NOTE: Events that require us to travel long distances (ie. flights from Brisbane or drives longer than three hours from our base on Bribie Island) will incur additional costs such as flights, excess baggage, fuel and accomodation. If your budget allows for this, please contact us to make arrangements.

Professional Development and Formal Training:
We’ve completed three months of professional development in the USA, which included advanced, formal training with Jim Henson puppeteers from The Muppets and Sesame Street.

Blue Card and Insurance:
We have current Blue Cards (Brett’s number is 1161011/3, Elissa’s is 690261/3) and are fully insured with Public Liability insurance through “Duck For Cover” entertainers insurance. These documents can be attached to an email, should you need them.

Stage Set-Up:
For shopping centres where we are set up for a full day, week or fortnight of live entertainment, it usually takes a bit over an hour to set up the puppet stage, props, puppets, sound equipment, and our pipe and drape backstage area. It’s a portable puppet stage with an overall height of 1.8 metres, and an overall length of 2.4 metres. The puppet stage is only a front-on facade. Behind it is our pipe and drape system which measures about 2.5 metres behind the puppet stage. This is where the puppets, props, and puppeteers go for performing. It works as a privacy dressing room and storage space.

Music and Sound Effects:
For music and sound effects, we use our own set of large PA speakers which we plug in an iPod and our wireless headset mics. These large PA speakers are great for shopping centres where we are set up in one spot for a whole day or a whole week or two of live entertainment. Access to power is required for this.

On the day of arrival:
Puppeteers arrive about 1 hour and a half before the puppet show’s starting time to park the vehicle, load in all of the equipment to the performance space, set up the stage, sound equipment, props and puppets. If it is a week or two of live entertainment in the same shopping centre, the puppeteers will arrive the day before to get everything all set up ready for a fresh start on Day 1 of live entertainment in the centre. The show (as described above) is performed for 30 minutes, followed by a “How the puppets work” demo and a meet-and-greet/photo opportunity. The puppeteers then pack up all the equipment after the final performance.

We know shopping centres like to give back to the community and so do we.
For every full week of shopping centre puppet shows (at least 1 show per day for at least 5 days) Larrikin Puppets will donate a free puppet show to a children’s charity in South East Queensland.

The children’s charity show would then be presented/sponsored by (for example) ‘Sunnyside Shopping Plaza’ and Larrikin Puppets. Charities are always very grateful for these sorts of visits, so a thank you to us for our free puppet show would also be a thank you to the shopping centre.

TV Work: Our most prominent puppetry performance for TV was on “Shake Takes”, which aired nationally on Channel 10, 10Play and 10Shake.

We also performed the puppetry in music videos for Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show (ABC Kids) and Illy (featuring Waax) (Sony Music Australia). In 2019 we worked on a TV pilot in Sydney for a puppet cooking show starring Chef Jason Roberts (Studio Ten / Ready, Steady Cook). Other television appearances have included Totally Wild (Network Ten) and The Bureau of Magical Things (Network Ten/Jonathan M. Shiff Productions). 

You can find more information about Larrikin Puppets on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok (where we have over 60,000 followers!)