How Teenage Girls Can Earn Extra Cash from Birthday Performances as Hannah Montana

Hannah Montana/ Miley Cyrus is the RAGE among 'tweens these days. A teenaged girl with an interest in performance could do well to market her skills performing as a Hannah Montana impersonator at younger girls' birthday parties. Additionally, this is a job a teen could perform with parental supervision (she will need help loading her gear in and our) and during reasonable hours.

Here is what a teen girl would need to begin her "career" as a Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana tribute act.

1. A good singing voice and a lack of stage fright. This cannot be underestimated. Experience in school chorus or church choir is helpful, as is private vocal coaching. Mom and Dad might help their budding entrepreneur by offering a month of one-on-one lessons with a private vocal coach (found at music stores and in the yellow pages) so that she can develop her show as a real professional performance.

2. The Hannah Montana "look". This is simply achieved with a wig like the one Miley Cyrus wears as her Hannah Montana alter ego, some glittery pastel cosmetics and clothes that appear to have been purchased at Limited Too. Since she will be playing for younger kids, there is no harm in indicating who she is supposed to be with an actual Hannah Montana-logo shirt.

3. A karaoke cd featuring instrumental tracks of Hannah Montana songs. These are available at most stores that carry a large cd selection (including Best Buy, FYE or online at Amazon.com). The best ones feature about 10 of her songs, which would be enough for one performance. I would also recommend adding a karaoke track for "Happy Birthday to You," simply because our young singer will probably be asked to lead the song, or perform it as a nice, personalized ending to her set.

4. A clear sounding karaoke machine, or a small professional sound system that includes a microphone, powered head and speaker, with an input for a cd player or iPod that contains the instrumental tracks. Local music stores and national franchises like Guitar Center carry these items. Be sure when purchasing professional sound gear that you check prices and go to stores frequented by pro-musicians. Prices vary WILDLY, with small music stores that specialize in lessons charging as much as 4 times more than larger stores for musical equipment. Shopping around is critical to finding the best price.

Once she learns the songs on the cd and prepares a Hannah Montana cover set, she is ready to begin booking parties.

Word of mouth, flyers at schools or church, and/or a small classified ad in a neighborhood newsletter would be good ways to market this act. If there is a local party entertainment booking source listed in the phone book, they could be sent a recording a photo or a link to her website and could potentially offer her services to a larger audience at a higher price.

An upbeat, smiling teen with a good voice and good interaction with younger kids could pick up $50-100 per birthday party! Sure beats babysitting.