We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rachel Margolin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

When I was 17, I was working for a children’s party company. They did not specifically offer character entertainment but had dabbled in it and I was hired on as a performer. During my time there, I had decided this was something I had wanted to pursue on my own as I had my own views and ideas I wanted to bring to life. I went to my Papa, my grandfather, who was battling Leukemia at the time and told him what I wanted to do and asked him what his thoughts were. He felt that if this was a dream I wanted badly enough, that I should reach for it and make it reality. One of his last gifts to me before his passing a couple of months later was a couple of my very first gowns for the company. While we n0 longer use these gowns, I still have them stored away to look back on every so often!

While waiting on these gowns, I had sat down with my mother, Debra, and we discussed packages, pricing, and the like. My best friend, Emily, had also become a part of the team as a co-manager and performer; the two of us started working out specifics such as package activities, add on options and future events we would both like to see.

This was all during the time of my high school senior year, while I was splitting my time between studying, preparing for my education beyond high school, helping my Mother take care of my Papa during his fight with Leukemia as well as my Mamah, my Grandmother, who was battling Parkinson’s. Which is a lot haha!

Over the next couple of months, we started our social media accounts, purchased wigs, took copious amounts of photos, tediously studied character animation, and started looking into where we could bring our characters to start our business. Shortly after our start, we got our first audition request and we hired a couple of additional performers to our team as well as partnered with several local businesses and events to help promote ourselves. From then on, we just began growing into the company people see now!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My company, Royal Events Princess Parties, provides high quality, character entertainment across Long Island for events such as birthdays celebrations, communions, block parties, holiday events, etc. We bring fairytale characters off of the tv shows, storybooks and comics into real life and right onto Long Island!

I am most proud of the fact that we are a small, family owned business and that no matter how much we evolve, our basic principles remain; make magic for everyone and anyone. We understand that it is not always feasible for families to fly to other states or countries to visit places where they themselves or their children can meet their favorite fairytale characters; so our goal is to make that magic local and affordable because everyone deserves to experience that.

We also feel that giving back to those in need is equally as vital. As someone who spent many years of my childhood in and out of hospitals and continues to battle various chronic illnesses as a young woman, one of our other main goals is to be able to provide magic for those who need it most. We have donated countless hours performing with non-profit organizations across Long Island to be able to reach as many families as possible.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Something that took many years for me to unlearn was that not everything is going to play out the way you hope it will but most times, it plays out that way for a reason.

As someone who lives with a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I, personally, struggle with change to pre-made plans and ideas. To me, a change in plans means that something will undoubtedly go wrong or end in absolute disaster. Being in a business where you work with children, parents, and behind the scenes, working with performers; means there are a lot of elements that can cause sudden changes, whether it be a performer is injured a couple of days before they are scheduled to perform, or the weather is looking like rain the day before a mermaid is scheduled to swim in someone’s pool. you need to be ready for anything.

After almost a decade in this industry, I do not think I can give one specific story to tell how I unlearned this thought process as it took many years to understand that just because you need to change something due to weather, illness, injury, or other reasons beyond your control, it does not mean that your entire company is going to go burning to the ground. After all the years of changes, it has showed me that sometimes a change is just a change. I have since eased up on bracing for impact after any changes to our regularly scheduled programs haha!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

During 2020 when the Pandemic hit, I thought our company was done for. How do you offer character visits when you can’t even leave the house? Parties cancelling, parties rescheduling and THEN cancelling after rescheduling time and time again as the months went on. A lot of companies refused to give refunds during this time but I did not like the idea of holding onto funds that families may need in a global crisis and so we offered refunds when requested; even when people would call up, screaming at me anticipating a fight and not getting one, just a simple “I can absolutely do that for you” was the not the ending they had been expecting. I am glad that in a time of such panic and worry, this was something clients did not need to worry about. We, however, did need to worry as it left our accounts in almost a state of complete emptiness. Regardless, we continued to offer refunds as needed.

Shortly after our closure, we received hundreds of calls and emails asking if we had virtual offerings; video calls, pre-recorded video messages, online story time sessions, you name it. We closed March 15th and began virtual appearances on the 18th. We offered live, online story time and Q&A sessions at 2pm on our Facebook Page with a new character each week followed by a private Zoom session that clients could request to join where their children could see and interact with the characters as opposed to just a live chat on Facebook. After that, we offered an additional Zoom session in collaboration with a local Non-Profit organization we worked with. All of our Facebook appearances and public Zoom sessions were done free of charge. We only charged for private online birthday parties or personalized videos. Other than that, we did not ask for anything. Not only did it make the children happy, I received so much feedback from parents telling me how these opportunities gave them and their children something to look forward to.

Our home had been undergoing maj0r construction at the time of the shutdown so work had been halted and we were left with a completely empty and mostly unfinished downstairs, which we used as our studio. We made magic using a pink bedsheet as a backdrop, a laptop camera propped up on an old speaker as a magic mirror into the characters world and a flood light from our garage (Only after we decided natural light from the windows wasn’t cutting it). We were able to eventually to upgrade to a using a sequined table cloth as a backdrop, getting a ring light with a phone holder stand attached for recording, but the laptop precariously perched atop the massive speaker was ever changed. It worked!

When we were finally given the go head to reopen in July of 2020; our town told us very specific instructions:

Outdoor appearances- no masks necessary unless closer than 6 feet.
Indoor appearances- Masked up at all times

It was tricky to tell children they couldn’t hug their favorite princess or to explain why their favorite superhero was wearing a mask but it was just something that needed to be done. We were just happy to be open! We did still offer pre-recorded messages and Zoom parties but mostly we received requests for our car parade packages. Characters would have a One on One meeting with children from 6 feet apart before masking up in a custom made mask to match the requested character and standing with them for their car parade, sometimes even helping hand out goodie bags to cars.

During this, we barely charged enough to keep the business running, we mainly focused on charging enough to pay performers as well as keeping prices low to make sure everyone could get a visit in these insane times. There was many times where I thought we would not be able to afford to keep operations running but by some miracle, we did.

I am so thankful to everyone who booked us, ordered pre-recordings from us, tuned into our LIVES or even just sent over an encouraging message. It’s because of that support that we wanted to push through to keep Royal Events alive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://RoyalEventsLI.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/royaleventsli/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/royaleventsprincessparties/

Image Credits

Photos by Royal Events Princess Parties and Brandon Lee Sang Photography