45min Interactive School Concert - Information Page

🎶 The concert itself 

Here’s a YouTube link to a playlist with a few songs that are likely to be included in our session. Feel free to play this on repeat for your tamariki, before and after our visit.

The concert will be 45-minutes long. Unless a specific theme has been requested, we will usually perform our “Favourites” bilingual music set. You can request any waiata of ours that you’d like us to incorporate in the concert. Please let us know asap, and we will do our best to add it in but can’t guarantee it as some of our waiata work better as part of a small group setting rather than in a concert setting (but we will definitely try!).

We will have the tamariki up and moving about, as well as settled times, to catch their breath. There will be plenty of repetition to help them learn any new kupu/words and some call-and-response waiata – a good combo of different styles to keep them engaged throughout. We finish with our breathing song and a lullaby.

We are happy to include props songs, if you’d like (depending on how many tamariki attending, of course!). We love to include a shaker and/or scarf song (more info on these, below). If you would like them included, can we please have kaiako help to hand them out to tamariki. We can hand out to those sitting near the front, but to avoid standing on little toes/fingers, we do our best to not walk over/through them, especially if they’re seated, if we can help it – thank you, in advance! If you’d rather not include props, then that’s totally fine, too. Please let us know, either way.

👫🏾The ideal group size

We are happy to have as many or as little as you’d like to include for a concert, from the Junior School-aged tamariki of your kura. Anything from 40-200+ is fine!

🎤 An allocated performance space

If you’re able to please allocate a performance space for us, we’ll set up our speaker and props when we arrive, which we aim to do 20-30 minutes before our start time.

A couple of points to consider for a performance space:

• The most ideal space is a large classroom, or school hall, and we are open to performing in an outdoor space, weather permitting and if set-up in a shaded spot. We are happy for tamariki to be seated as you would have them do in a normal assemply, with a bit of space between them to enable them to move fairly freely, but we do understand that sometimes spaces may not allow for that.
• Siu and I will bring along our own headset mics and speaker, and will need enough space for our set-up and some space in front of us to move around and interact with the tamariki easily. We will perform standing, so won’t need chairs and would love access to a powerpoint, if inside. We are able to be completely mobile (ie. no electricity) if doing an outdoor performance, but will just need to know in advance so that we ensure to bring along our battery pack.
• We usually have two portable trolleys that we take around with us that carry all our gear, so having a performance space that enables us to wheel them in easy enough would be great. However, we do understand that this may not always be the case and will figure out a way through! And no doubt there’ll be very helpful kaiako/kaimahi around to help us out with a trolley-lift, if needed.

🪇 Props – shakers and scarves

As mentioned above, we love to include a shaker song and a scarf song. Are you able to please supply enough of each for the number of tamariki that will be present for the concert? 

Ideally, there will be enough for one of each, per child. Please let us know if you don’t quite have enough and we can bring along extras to top-up your supply. We often don’t have enough time between visits to clean our props, and don’t have enough to supply if we have three back-to-back bookings, so having you provide your own enables us to continue including our props songs in a session, while also enabling Schools to continue using them with our waiata (and many others, I’m sure), after our visit.

Shakers can be made by popping small toys or blocks into a plastic container or bottle, or there are a number of DIY ideas available on Pinterest or YouTube. We have had Centres/Schools use their poi collection or whatever ‘noisemakers’ or instruments they might have available, so, not necessarily limited to your standard wooden maraca/shaker.

With scarves, the most ideal are square, light-weight, see-through scarves, especially for very young tamariki/babies, otherwise any type of fabric will work fine. Again, we have had Centres/Schools in the past use facecloths, t-shirts, baby blankets and regular scarves, so whatever you have available on the day will be fine.

And again, as mentioned, we are able to bring a small supply of shakers or scarves to top-up your supply, if you need. Some Schools have borrowed from local ECE Centres/Schools, also, so that can be option, too. However, if no props are wanted, kei te pai, we can accommodate that, too.

🌈 Additional Props – rainbow ribbons, poi or tī rākau

If you have any of these props (enough for one, or one pair each, in the case of Tī Rākau) and you would like to use them for our visit, please do let us know and we’ll replace either of the Shaker or Scarf songs to accommodate.

With the rainbow ribbon props, the most ideal would be ones that have six of the rainbow colours that are in our “Uenuku” waiata (see YouTube link, above), or some rainbow songs have seven colours, which will work fine, too.

Here is a video that we made during lockdown that shows how you can use materials that you may already have on hand, to make your own, and it also shows the triangular, ice-cream lid, rainbow ribbon props that we made for ourselves.

We have a supply of each of these to add to yours if you need, too.

⏰ Timeliness

We endeavour to arrive at least 20 minutes (but ideally, 30mins) prior to our starting time, in order to set-up and do a quick soundcheck before tamariki start to gather.

If we have a full schedule, we are confident that we’re able to get to each Centre/School on time. However, there is always the possibly that we hit delays, in which case, we will contact you to let you know (as soon as possible) that we’re running late, so, thank you in advance for your understanding.

As it will be an afternoon concert, we may not be able to linger the way we would usually like to, to chat with the tamariki afterward, as will need to pack-up fairly quickly to head off to do school pick-ups. In lieu of this, we’d love to leave you all with a poster and colouring-in pack for your tamariki to enjoy (if you let me know class numbers, then I can pop them in envelopes ready to be given to each class). We do like to end concerts by inviting tamariki up for a stamp on their hand, which is a lovely quick way to meet and greet them all, individually, and is usually the highlight of our visit!  ❤️  If split into two lines, then Siu and I can get through them pretty quickly, but if you think it’ll be too chaotic, then we’re happy to leave it, so will mention it and happy to see what you think on the day.

🅿️ Parking spot

If it’s not too much trouble, it would really help us out to have a carpark allocated for us, near the entrance, please. This will definitely contribute to a smoother transition between each visit, if we have a full schedule, and may even allow a couple minutes extra to have a quick kōrero with you all.

📖 Ordering our books and merch!

If you are not already aware, we have a 5-book ‘Rainbow Collection’ of bilingual children’s pukapuka (click on this link for more info about them), based on five of our original waiata, so tamariki can sing along while checking out the illustrations. Our books are printed here in Ōtautahi/Christchurch and were created by a mostly Ōtautahi-based team of wāhine (our graphic designer is Auckland-based, but we don’t hold that against her! haha!).

If anybody is interested in purchasing any (along with any merch), we would love to offer them to you at a discounted $20 per book (normally $22). Just click on THIS LINK to head to an order form that you can fill out and email back to us and we can either send it out to you, for $8 postage, or bring your order with us, on the day – too easy!

We may take along a few extras with us in case anybody decides to purchase them on the day, and we have an eftpos device, although pre-purchasing is the preferred option (due to potential time constraints).

🧾 Invoicing

If you would like an invoice, please let us know and I will send one through, via Xero.

If you decide to order any of our books and would like them added to the invoice, I can do that, and if you need me to add a purchase order number to the invoice, please send that through as soon as possible.

The session is $600*+ gst.

* travel fees apply, where relevant.

📸 Photos, videos and social media

You are welcome to take photos and video footage of us performing, during the session, or a group photo afterward. We are happy for you to tag us in any social media posts, also [FB: @LoopyTunesPreschoolMusic and IG: @loopytuneskidsmusic ].

We will always ask permission before posting or re-posting on our own social media pages, if tamariki are in any of the photos.

Also, we like to take a selfie of ourselves and the Centre’s sign as we leave so will tag you in this post at the end of the day.  😊

🗣 Feedback

We would LOVE any feedback from you about our visit, so we try to flick through a wee survey after our visit (just a heads up!).  👍