Fantastic plan for free kids’ fun

Tommy Balaam and Ricky Fox, aka Captain Fantastic, have been bringing fun to kids during lockdown.

Running children’s parties and glow-in-the-dark discos has been a real success for Tommy, and when coronavirus hit, the fun didn’t stop.

The Essex pair, who were putting on 200 parties a month, admit they had a tough time when bookings were cancelled but they were also worried for families.

“We were thinking about how can we just keep things going in this time, and give ourselves something to do,” says Tommy. “And give something to all these families who were suddenly trapped inside, maybe without gardens or lots of things to do. Or maybe they were worried about their jobs or couldn’t work and didn’t have any money.”

So they came up with the idea of giving free entertainment online, including a daily toddler club with magic, music and wellbeing.

“I remember for the first one we were watching the numbers, starting at 40, then 80, then 1,000 – in the end there were 10,200 people watching live,” adds Tommy.

That spiralled to doing 25 free live shows a week to thousands of kids.

“We had so much fun with it,” says Ricky. “We did a 24-hour live party with performers doing an hour each. And then we decided to do a Christmas Day on the 25th of May.

“I think we just thought, ‘We’re kind of all stuck indoors, no one knows what day it is, so why not have a Christmas Day?’.”

Now the pair are looking forward to getting their popular parties up and running again, with safety measures in place.