Ready for the most unreal, 'real' career?
Get paid to dress up as unique characters and enchant children with memorable activities.
🕤 Takes 3 min

What’s the job?
You’ll dress up as unique characters and enchant children with memorable activities & games within 50 miles of your home.
You are paid for all training, travel to events, costumes, and supplies.
Why should YOU work here?
Dear future faerie,
If you care about showing children that real, authentic magic comes in shapes and colors far more varied than what you see in stereotypical princesses cartoon characters, you belong here.
Join our mission to empower children by introducing them to magical people (like you!), proving children can be as enchanting as Cinderella without having to look like her.
Why did Happily Ever Laughter decide this was our mission?
Time travel with me back to when I…(whoops, forgot to introduce myself…I’m Fae, the owner here).
Ok, back to the story.
16 years ago I took a chance and started playing with children dressed as one-of-a-kind fairytale characters.
That unique spin on children’s entertainment struck a chord, and more and more families have contacted us to give their children something truly special:
A playdate with a magical character whose greatest skill is making them laugh, not impersonating obsolete beauty standards.
That’s where you come in. I hope to see you apply to join our vibrant group of ‘ambassadors of magic’.
You’ll be, (if my math is right) part of making the 1,000,000th child giggle at the jokes of a Happily Ever Laughter faerie, princess, or pirate who is just like them…magical – no matter what either of you looks like.
I can’t wait for you to apply. You’re about to have the time of your life.
Ribbons and Roses,
Fae ‘Diddle Diddle’
Happily Ever Laughter CEO
aka the ‘Head Faerie’
What will I get for playing with children with Happily Ever Laughter?
You are right. There are companies that offer flat compensation like that.
The difference is that they pay for time worked at a gig (only).
That’s it.
This is because they pay you as an ‘independent contractor’.
Instead, we pay you hourly as an ‘employee’ for *everything* it takes to do the gig (driving, prep, supplies etc) AND the gig itself.
So, which is right for you?
Employee or independent contractor?
Here is what being an independent contractor requires:
You provide your own costumes
You pay your own self employment taxes (social security, state/federal etc)
You pay for your own insurance
You learn skills on your own time, unpaid
You pay for all supplies
You are responsible for finding people to hire you through agencies or advertisements
If you’re comfortable with those things, working as an independent contractor on your own is probably right for you.
If you prefer to have that ‘be your own boss’ feeling, but without all that risk, working here as an employee is a better fit.
As an employee here, all you have to do is tell us the days you want to work, and we take care of the following for you:
~ Pay you for the time it takes to drive from your house to the gig and back, and anything in between.
~ Pay you for the wear and tear on your car by mile
~ Save your time by booking clients for you
~ Provide all your costumes
~ Pay you for your time at each gig, including overtime
~ Provide safety and sanitary supplies (masks, sanitizer etc)
~ Provide all activity supplies (balloons, magic tricks, face paint etc)
~ Pay for your liability insurance (in case you break something at the gig)
~ Pay you for the time it takes to do your hair and makeup
~ Pay you to learn how to do all the activities we offer (balloon twisting, games etc)
~ Provide sick pay
~ Give you access to worker’s comp (if you get hurt at work)
~ Pay the employer’s share of tax payments (we take care of ½ of your social security, federal taxes etc)
We also offer you something that working one gig at a time as an independent contractor does not.
Community.
Here you’ll meet fellow quirky, playful, creative, intro-extroverts who love children, costuming, and a good party theme, just like you.
Working jobs that suck…sucks.
Don’t you deserve a better use of your time?
How much of your time is being wasted doing a job you don’t love?
It’s time to fill your life back up with the good stuff by applying to the most fun and rewarding job you’ve ever had today.
How does scheduling work?
What’s the hiring process like?
Get one-on-one time with a current performer here to go over questions you have..
approx 30 minAuditions do not require you to compete against other applicants - if you are a good fit, we'll hire you.
You'll play a few group drama games alongside other applicants.
Auditions are held in Santa Cruz, CA (near the Bay Area) & Los Angeles, CA 2x per year.
Start paid training with the most experienced children's entertainers in the industry.
Initial training takes about 40-60 hours to complete at $15/hr.
You can finish those hours as quickly as you want to.
Your wages rise to $30+/hr on average after your initial training is done.
You'll also start earning tips around $20/hr on average.
(How did we get that tip number?)
Tips happen around 50%-80% of shows and we averaged those amounts across all shows, giving you approx $20/hr in tips).
Up-up-up and away!
Did know that you can grow here?
Tap to see career paths here:
Tap 👆🏻
Is this…real?
Yeeeeep.
So much so that we just celebrated our 15th year reunion in 2021.
Which we played dress-up for (duh).
Have questions?
We figured 🙂
Yes. But they aren’t about how you look.
Happily Ever Laughter is unique because we do not offer impersonators (think Elsa or Cinderella).
Instead, we offer professional children’s entertainers (people really good at using unique activities to play with children).
This allows us to hire based solely on talent as opposed to appearance.
It doesn’t matter what your hair color, gender identity, skin color, disability, body shape, or career background is, if you have the skills to keep a room full of children giggling, we want to hire you. Help us show children that Fairytale Characters can look like them! Faeries (or elves!) from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.
Here is the only physical requirement:
You’ll need to be able to lift up to 40 pounds to move your supplies in and out of your car repeatedly and to easily stand up and crouch down multiple times an hour when you are playing with children.
You can work up to 8 hours a day.
If you aren’t able to be this physical, this job isn’t for you.
In order to help you transition into the job, your initial training (40-60 hrs) can be completed at your own pace during your first 30 days.
After your training month, we automatically book you up to 8 hours a day on Saturdays & Sundays.
“I have a job in the evenings on weekends – can I still do this job?”
It might work!
Just talk to us about the hours and we can see if we can work around it for you.
We understand how lucrative evening Lyft, restaurant, or babysitting can be.
We want this job to help lift you up and are flexible when we can be as long as you communicate clearly with us.
“But what if I don’t want to work every weekend?”
You don’t have to. Each month, just tell us the days you want to be scheduled.
We only require that you be available for 6-8 full weekend days per month.
“Why do you require 6-8 full weekend days each month?”
Because our clients mostly invite us on weekends so we had to set this minimum in order to take in enough work for it to be worth investing the thousands of dollars into your training and supplies.
“I won’t have 6-8 full weekend days each month available.”
No prob.
We hire twice a year, come back another time!
“I’m available on some weekdays. Can I work those as well?”
You can!
Each time we get a weekday inquiry, we’ll ask you if you want it.
“How will I know what my hours are on the days I choose to work?”
You’ll get your schedule every Friday with your weekend hours and any weekday work you agreed to in the next 7 days.
You will be scheduled up to 8 hours per day on the weekend days you choose to work.
We take this pandemic extremely seriously. On a level of 1-10 of ‘how careful are we’, we are an eleven.
Here are the ways we’ve updated children’s entertainment to be safe:
Absolutely.
You’ll learn how to keep groups of children enchanted with different activities.
From learning how to twist a pink poodle balloon, to how to successfully handle over-excited children, you’ll finish training with the tools you need to rock this job (and blow your friend’s minds when you show them you can make things disappear with magic).
We hire in different locations throughout the year.
Our 4 main locations are in California. They are:
~ Los Angeles and some of the surrounding area
~ The East, North, South, and Peninsula of the Bay Area
~ Sacramento and some of the surrounding area
~ Santa Cruz County
You are right. There are companies that offer flat compensation like that.
The difference is that they pay for time worked at a gig (only).
That’s it.
This is because they pay you as an ‘independent contractor’.
Instead, we pay you hourly as an ‘employee’ for *everything* it takes to do the gig (driving, prep, supplies etc) AND the gig itself.
So, which is right for you?
Employee or independent contractor?
Here is what being an independent contractor requires:
You provide your own costumes
You pay your own self employment taxes (social security, state/federal etc)
You pay for your own insurance
You learn skills on your own time, unpaid
You pay for all supplies
You are responsible for finding people to hire you through agencies or advertisements
If you’re comfortable with those things, working as an independent contractor on your own is probably right for you.
If you prefer to have that ‘be your own boss’ feeling, but without all that risk, working here as an employee is a better fit.
As an employee here, all you have to do is tell us the days you want to work, and we take care of the following for you:
~ Pay you for the time it takes to drive from your house to the gig and back, and anything in between.
~ Pay you for the wear and tear on your car by mile
~ Save your time by booking clients for you
~ Provide all your costumes
~ Pay you for your time at each gig, including overtime
~ Provide safety and sanitary supplies (masks, sanitizer etc)
~ Provide all activity supplies (balloons, magic tricks, face paint etc)
~ Pay for your liability insurance (in case you break something at the gig)
~ Pay you for the time it takes to do your hair and makeup
~ Pay you to learn how to do all the activities we offer (balloon twisting, games etc)
~ Provide sick pay
~ Give you access to worker’s comp (if you get hurt at work)
~ Pay the employer’s share of tax payments (we take care of ½ of your social security, federal taxes etc)
We also offer you something that working one gig at a time as an independent contractor does not.
Community.
Here you’ll meet fellow quirky, playful, creative, intro-extroverts who love children, costuming, and a good party theme, just like you.