As a professional performer, I answered a craigslist ad for a costume character. Jeff herring answered me and hired me (without ID or background) to work an event, as the character Mickey Mouse. He said that he was in Africa, and that I was to show up at this address, and perform for an hour and then send him his cut of the money via PayPal. He then put me in touch with someone who used to be the performer, but is now moving out of state... I met with her and she showed me a crowded warehouse full of NASTY looking old smelly costumes. She said that these get shipped all across the nation and there is no way to actually clean or sanitize them because they will get ruined so when they come back, she just sprayed them with Lysol and put them back in a box until they get used again. She let me know that Jeff is very unprofessional, and that he is basically nonexistent she has not ever met him, but has worked for him for many years she said that there was a crackhead lady named Roxana, who usually does his parties, but she is a meth head . There was never any background check done for me or an ID even asked for from this guy, Jeff Herring, but he wanted to send me out to a kids birthday party. As a professional, who has done this for many years, I contacted the client the night before to make sure that I knew who the birthday party was, for what age what gender, and any details that I might need prior to my event. I reached out to Jeff after I spoke with the client to let him know that I had all the information I needed and that I would go ahead and pay pal him the money when I was done. He then told me to not ever contact his clients, and that he provided the number just for emergencies. Being that, I was already apprehensive about him not checking my background before sending me in front of children, as well as not asking for ID or any kind of information about myself not to mention the way that the smelly Costumes Work kept, and the crackhead looking person who showed me the warehouse paired with him being " in Africa"- I told him that I was not going to do the party I did not feel comfortable. He then began to harass me with hundreds of messages, demanding that I return the Mickey Mouse costume right away, and that he was going to press charges against me and call the police. After a lot of back-and-forth in which I let him know that he had the wrong person to be talking to that way, he sent a UPS label with his Santa Cruz address on it, and I sent back the Mickey Mouse costume. He continued to harass me and I wound up having to block him. He is very unprofessional, and I don't know why anyone would lie about being out of the country and needing to be pay pal the money, but the whole thing is weird. I did some digging and found out that Disney actually sued him a while back for using his characters unlicensed. This guy is a weirdo and very unprofessional do not do business with him. If you're looking for a costume characters tray, it's a party. They are way better, professional, and SAFE not a criminal crackhead.!! read more

Proceed with caution when dealing with the business owner Jeff of this company. This guy is definitely on some type of narcotics and/or dealing with a serious mental illness or perhaps both. I have attached screenshot pictures of all the text messages & threats he has made regarding going to the residence in which the costume (that are being sent back to him by the way that he claims is stolen and began harassing us demanding they be sent back prior to the party even taken place) was delivered to. Jeff has phoned us a sick amount of times from fake numbers. He has been playing on our phones and acting of someone with a mental sickness. When you attempt to converse with him by phone he began making weird strange sounds on the other line. Based off the other reviews, Jeff is used to sending threats to people. Jeff, we have clearly told you the date we will be sending the costumes back on (go and take your meds and allow yourself some peace while you wait to receive your trash) not to mention they were complete FILTH. In the meantime, if that's not ok for you, we welcome you to show your face to us (instead of sending threats) So does the neighbors of the residence to the address you haon file. It will be your final destination. UPDATE 11/12/20 Upon my arrival from my vacation. I sent Jeff & Julie Coleman back their costumes at 11:44am to be exact. At 2:00pm I received what appears to be a typed up threat letter from them with a filing of a police report number saying I owe them over $1200 and stating that I used a fake credit card. Lol. This is definitely bananas. Anyhow, Jeff & Julie Coleman states that they will cancel charges against me if they receive a tracking number in the next 24 hours. Although, I do have the tracking number (they will be receiving there items by Saturday 11-14-20 and a signature is required) I prefer Jeff & Julie Coleman to move forward with the court hearing so I can show the judge all the nonsense & documentation of the harm & threats of coming to my residence to show that they are "no to be played with". Jeff & Julie Coleman, I look forward to seeing you all in court. Updated They are on BBB yelling (using words in all caps) They are highly infuriated and for whatever reason feel as though they are superior. They keep insisting I stole their costumes... I don't know what would make them think I or anyone of the other customers that they accused of stilling (lol) would want to keep such trash. What would I do with it... frame it perhaps? Anyhow, they have over 181 Reviews that are not recommended here on yelp from a plethora of customers that they have treated poorly. Hurt people attempt to hurt people & based off of their reviews I'm sure they were a success at hurting unfortunate previous customers. They brag about being in business over 30 years which is a blessing but perhaps you all should simply give it up. It's killing you. You all have absolutely no joy & are full of hate. It must suck to be you Jeff & Julie. I can tell you hate your lives. read more

Just had a really great experience with this place. We were actually looking for something that is suuuuper hard to find where we are, which is an adult sized version of the Boots the Monkey costume from Dora Explorer. Trust me we could not find this thing ANYWHERE. We actually saw a version of it online from this really sketchy looking Chinese company, but after reading their reviews and also the fact that there is NO ONE you can talk to before booking we were like, no thanks! So did some more google and SO glad we did because it led us to funfactory. They had EXACTLY the Boots costume we were looking for, couldn't even BELIEVE it!! Not only that but honestly the company was a pleasure to work with. I left them a voicemail and also emailed them through the website and I got a response to BOTH right away, in like less than 12 hours for each. That's pretty awesome, especially compared to everywhere else we had tried. I felt really good about it, so I placed the order online and I'm SOOO glad we did! We got the costume in plenty of time for the party and seriously it was perrrfeeccttttt. Looked just like their online pic, fit great and super authentic to the real Boots. Couldn't have had an easier or better experience. The price was quite reasonable I thought considering they have to ship it in a bigger box and we are about 850 miles away. Plus they clean it after each use etc etc so for the price we paid I think it was quite understandable. Anyone who looks at this costume would definitely see it's not only a great looking, new suit but definitely looks like Boots. The bday girl 3 years old was so thrilled and it seriously made it worth it not only for the money but for the time and energy we had spent on researching and looking for where we could rent it. Now that I know about funfactory I'm bookmarking the site and for sure will order again either for another birthday or I saw they even have holiday theme outfits like Olaf or Snoopy for the future. Great job, great service and overall very happy with what we got. read more

My 4 year old daughter LOVES Peppa Pig, so we did her bday party with a Peppa theme. My friend had used Fun Factory before for a princess birthday character and had a good experience, so I had gotten their number from her. They have a really cute Peppa Pig costume, it looks just like the character from the show. I was a little worried how my daughter was gonna react to it, like would she be scared but it was fine. A couple of the kids were a little nervous when Peppa walked in but I think that's because it's kinda big and they aren't use to seeing something like that. But after a few minutes they were having fun. Peppa brought games and a stereo to play music with. The songs were good for little kids, like Hokey Pokey and Limbo. Some of the kids followed along, some just wanted to hug the character but either way it was fine. Kids that age don't really sit still for too long so it was good that everything was made basically for toddlers. We asked them if we could use the last 15 minutes to bring out the cake, do happy birthday and take some pics and the girl wearing the costume said sure, no problem. We ran into one thing where we actually asked her to stay another half hour but she said she had another party to go to, but she was nice enough to stay as long as she could, about 15 more minutes. I guess they do more than one party in a day so it was fine. The kids had a good time, which is the main thing. Just to see my daughter hugging Peppa and smiling was awesome. The party was 3 days ago and she's still going "Peppa, Peppa". It's cute how kids really believe it's real. She also loves ponies so next year we might do a pony theme and either hire a pony ride or get another character like My Little Pony to come. read more

We needed something to do for a boy's 3rd birthday party, unfortunately, it came right in the middle of corona quarantine. He's way too young to understand why he couldn't have a real birthday party like his friends did. It's kinda heart - breaking, but we didn't want to give up totally on finding some way to make his birthday special. My friend found this place online where you can actually rent kid's party mascot costumes and they send them to your house. You can wear the costume at your party or whatever and then just drop it off at a UPS store or post office to send it back. It turned out to be a really nice way to do something special for the birthday boy without risking breaking the quarantine and getting sick. We rented the Elmo mascot cuz that's pretty much his favorite tv character right now. He really loved it! As you can see by the pics he didn't seem to miss having a big birthday party at all. He was crazy about meeting Elmo in person, and he couldn't get enough of hugging him. It made us feel great, especially now when there isn't much reason to celebrate. Seeing this little guy running around with a huge smile on his face made us all feel great. If you're looking for some way to make a kid's party nice but can't go outside due to the virus, this might be a good option.  My only hesitation is that their ordering website is a little bit unclear. There are a couple options where you can put in your order but only one works for mascot rentals. I managed to clear it up with a couple emails to the business, but I think they could improve that system a bit. Other than that we were really happy with the service. read more

All I can is WOW - STAY AWAY - "Jeff" aka the Fun Factory SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to be anywhere near children. I set up an appointment with this guy in October for a birthday in December. After reading all his negative reviews, I would end up canceling less than hour later. He seemed cool with it as he refunded my deposit on my American Express minus $6 in credit card fees he had to incur. Fast forward to December, the day of my son's birthday... Jeff tries to show up at my son's birthday and when we remind him we cancelled, he demands gas money of $25. He would proceed to become very hostile, threatening to show up at my house to "deal with this in person", shooting of swear words after swear words - basically livid. Because of his threats, we called the police. The police showed up for awhile - it ended up working out great because the kids had a kick seeing the police and they were nice enough to hang out a little bit in case "pyscho Jeff" showed up. This guy is horrible, should not be around kids. Cops explained that its a common scam with these birthday party entertainers - even if you cancel, they'll try to show up anyways. Jeff's hope was that he would be the first Mickey to show up and screw the real entertainer we hired. If that doesn't work, they will then try to hit you up for a "gas fee" and feign that they were never cancelled on and go on a verbal rampage. Almost ruined our day, but not quite. Please, if you read this, stay away from the Fun Factory (aka psycho jeff). read more

We hired a pony and petting zoo rental to come to our daughter's 5th birthday party in April. I found Fun Factory online and called them. They got back to me within an hour (which did not happen with the other places I called) and were very helpful. They answered all my questions and found a package that was a good fit for our venue and the amount of kids we were expecting. I decided to book with them and put down a $75 deposit. They emailed me a confirmation right away and after that point whenever I had questions I got a fast response from them. On the day of the party their staff showed up a bit early to set everything up. They had everything up and ready to go about half an hour before the scheduled start time, so that by the time we were ready to let the kids play in the zoo it was totally ready to go. They brought food and kibble for the kids to feed the animals with. All the animals were clean and looked really cute. We had stuff like rabbits, sheep and little piglets which all the kids loved, especially my daughter. When they were done they cleaned everything up, which took about 20-30 minutes. When they left there was no trace of them, my yard looked the same as when they got there. Everything was handled really smoothly, I didn't have to think about anything, just let my daughter and the rest of the kids have a good time at the party. read more

We just hired this place to send out a balloon twister lady for a small event we had. It wasn't really a kid's event it was more for a company event but we told the staff that they could bring their kids if they wanted to. We ended up finding out we were going to expect about 20 or so kids so we figured we should probably do something for them since we had invited them. Otherwise it would be kind of boring because we didn't have any play equipment and unfortunately there wasn't any safe room for like a jumper or anything. The kids were too old for a party character and a magician was not really going to work with our space so we ended up getting a balloon twister for 2 hours, which was just great. 2 hours was plenty of time to get all the kids a balloon (and even a few of the adults!). The kids had fun just watching her make the balloons even after they had got one. Her balloons were great, she made tons of different shapes. Her outfit was cute too, she didn't dress as a full on clown but wore like a colorful outfit with rainbow themes and colors. Kid friendly, not all scary and cute.  I think we paid around $350 for the 2 hours and we tipped her $25.00 because she did a great job. Came right on time and called when she was getting close. Very professional and smooth, one less thing to have to worry about when planning a big event. read more

I had contacted this place for some help with where I could get a Poppy from Trolls costume character person to come out to a 4 year old bday party in April. Turns out they have the exact same model Poppy mascot costume that is used by professional places for big kids parties and events. They also have the Branch mascot but this time around we ended up just getting one even though it would have been cool to have the Branch there but it's too expensive for our budget to get them both. You do get somewhat of a discount on the 2nd performer if you get both but even then it was just more than we wanted to spend. Since it was a girl's bday party we just got the Poppy. They sent out a live Poppy character for a hour. She came out, brought a bunch of little kids games with her and some of the music from Trolls. She came ahead of time, got everything set up in advance and then came out at 2pm to do her little show. It was really cute and the kids had a great time and most important the bday girl was SUPER excited to meet Poppy Troll in person. Was a great touch for our Trolls theme party and the company did a good job and was definitely professional with how they handled the plans, reservation and everything right up to the party date. I would keep their number to use them for anything like this for other people in our family with kids. read more

I found Fun Factory when I was looking for a place to hire Paw Patrol birthday party costume characters for a 3 year old's party. She loves the Paw Patrols especially Skye, that's her favorite so that was the one we were hoping to find. Seems like Fun Factory has all the Paw Patrols available including Skye, which was great! The pictures of the costumes looked really nice and the party package seemed appropriate for the ages of kids we were having. When I called, they were very helpful and explained the whole thing and even sent me a link to where I could make the reservation online. On the day of the party the character showed up and the costume looked great! Just like the pictures on the web, which was a relief. I've seen some really strange looking mascot costumes in the past so I was really careful to make sure this was a good one. The kids all loved it and it really made the party. The games and activities she brought were just right for smaller kids with shorter attention spans. Easy kids games like the Hokey Pokey and limbo and stuff. All the kids were toddlers so it was easy for them to follow along. One thing I liked was the character went out of the way to make the birthday girl the center of attention. We got lots of great pictures and were definitely satisfied with the whole experience. read more

I found Fun Factory when I was looking for a place to rent a large size inflatable combo bouncer for our annual company picnic. We needed something really big because we were expecting 100+ kids to come. I called them and they were great. They went over all my options and choices and even emailed me pictures and info about each item. It made the whole process very easy. On the day of the event, they arrived early like 2 hours ahead of time. That was awesome because it meant I never had to worry about them coming, and also they had everything set up and ready way before the kids got there. So when the kids started coming, they could start playing on the jumper immediately. The bouncehouse they bought was great. Lots of kid - friendly colors and it had a bouncer with a huge slide attached. The kids just loved it. It was great for a mix of ages, too. We had kids from 1 up to 16 and they were all able to go on the jumper at the same time. Also it was clean and in like new condition. For the money we paid and the service we received, it way exceeded my expectations. I will definitely be contacting them for future events. Next year our event will be bigger so we will probably order a whole bunch of stuff including hiring a clown, a pony and a mobile petting zoo. Thanks again for making our party rock! read more

My daughter loooooves Minnie Mouse, so for her 4th bday we hired a live Minnie to come to the party. They did an awesome job!! Showed up on time (even a few minutes early), brought lots of cute games to do with the kids. Also they did a really good job of paying extra attention to my daughter, who just couldn't get enough of hugging Minnie! A couple of the kids got a little scared when they first saw the character but Roxie (the lady inside) was really sweet and patient and after about half hour they totally relaxed and were so into it. I didn't have any issues from the time I placed the order to the day of my party. Got a written confirmation by email AND text message which helped cuz I had a direct number I could call on my party date (I used a company last year that NEVER answered their phone ughhhhhhh very stressful when I couldn't reach them even 2 days before my party.) The games and songs they brought were a good matchup for the age group, even if the kids weren't into the games it was fun just having music. When we brought out the cake you should have seen the look on my daughter's face - priceless! Totally worth the money to see her so happy on her bday. As a parent, you can't beat knowing you gave your little one the time of her life on her bday. read more

I just hired this company to do an entire bday party for a 9year old girl. I was really stressed with time because I have a bunch of stuff going on at once with work, moving etc etc. I wanted to give her a nice party but also I just couldn't spend days and days on the phone calling around to different people. SO glad I found this company!! They were EXACTLY what I was looking for, I only had to make ONE call and they did EVERYTHING!! Super helpful for a stressed out modern party mom LOL. I was able to contract them for every part of the party including the catering (as well as creating an awesome personalized bday cake!), we rented a princess castle bouncer and also hired one of their children's magicians. Everything was great, super smooth and easy. Everyone was on time and each aspect of the service was well done. Food and cake were a hit, the bouncer was on time and clean and Marty the Magnificent did a great show for the ages of kids we had. The bday girl and the rest of the kids loved it and it was an amazing relief to be able to put together a great party for her with less than an hour's organization. If you're on a tight timeline and just want to make one call or a couple of emails, I can't recommend this place highly enough. read more

I booked a mobile petting zoo and a pony for rides to come to a double 5th year old's birthday party. I booked this in January for a June party. I paid the deposit and had all the cash ready to go. I called, left a message, and emailed Jeff Herring the day before just to confirm. He emailed me back finally, the morning of the party and said he was so sorry that they lost my reservation and would not be able to provide the animals! What?! This was Saturday morning, on a hot day, and I needed the animals from 1-2. So, I called around to many places, no answers! I finally talked to a nice woman who lives in Santa Cruz, named Dawn and after hearing my story, she felt so bad, that she took her day off to bring me a pony dressed as rainbow dash, and a full petting zoo with a pig, duck, chickens, bunnies, and a goat! She did face painting, balloon twisting, and had a lollipop tree game and she charged me the same price that Fun Factories was going to charge! She saved the girls day and was professional and amazing. NEVER book with Fun Factories. They don't even have the animals or clowns or princesses, they just book you and then try and find another company to fulfill the order for less money, but charge you more. SCAM company! read more

I booked a mobile petting zoo and a pony for rides to come to a double 5th year old's birthday party. I booked this in January for a June party. I paid the deposit and had all the cash ready to go. I called, left a message, and emailed Jeff Herring the day before just to confirm. He emailed me back finally, the morning of the party and said he was so sorry that they lost my reservation and would not be able to provide the animals! What?! This was Saturday morning, on a hot day, and I needed the animals from 1-2. So, I called around to many places, no answers! I finally talked to a nice woman who lives in Santa Cruz, named Dawn and after hearing my story, she felt so bad, that she took her day off to bring me a pony dressed as rainbow dash, and a full petting zoo with a pig, duck, chickens, bunnies, and a goat! She did face painting, balloon twisting, and had a lollipop tree game and she charged me the same price that Fun Factories was going to charge! She saved the girls day and was professional and amazing. NEVER book with Fun Factories. They don't even have the animals or clowns or princesses, they just book you and then try and find another company to fulfill the order for less money, but charge you more. SCAM company! read more

I booked a mobile petting zoo and a pony for rides to come to a double 5th year old's birthday party. I booked this in January for a June party. I paid the deposit and had all the cash ready to go. I called, left a message, and emailed Jeff Herring the day before just to confirm. He emailed me back finally, the morning of the party and said he was so sorry that they lost my reservation and would not be able to provide the animals! What?! This was Saturday morning, on a hot day, and I needed the animals from 1-2. So, I called around to many places, no answers! I finally talked to a nice woman who lives in Santa Cruz, named Dawn and after hearing my story, she felt so bad, that she took her day off to bring me a pony dressed as rainbow dash, and a full petting zoo with a pig, duck, chickens, bunnies, and a goat! She did face painting, balloon twisting, and had a lollipop tree game and she charged me the same price that Fun Factories was going to charge! She saved the girls day and was professional and amazing. NEVER book with Fun Factories. They don't even have the animals or clowns or princesses, they just book you and then try and find another company to fulfill the order for less money, but charge you more. SCAM company! read more

I booked a mobile petting zoo and a pony for rides to come to a double 5th year old's birthday party. I booked this in January for a June party. I paid the deposit and had all the cash ready to go. I called, left a message, and emailed Jeff Herring the day before just to confirm. He emailed me back finally, the morning of the party and said he was so sorry that they lost my reservation and would not be able to provide the animals! What?! This was Saturday morning, on a hot day, and I needed the animals from 1-2. So, I called around to many places, no answers! I finally talked to a nice woman who lives in Santa Cruz, named Dawn and after hearing my story, she felt so bad, that she took her day off to bring me a pony dressed as rainbow dash, and a full petting zoo with a pig, duck, chickens, bunnies, and a goat! She did face painting, balloon twisting, and had a lollipop tree game and she charged me the same price that Fun Factories was going to charge! She saved the girls day and was professional and amazing. NEVER book with Fun Factories. They don't even have the animals or clowns or princesses, they just book you and then try and find another company to fulfill the order for less money, but charge you more. SCAM company! read more

I booked a mobile petting zoo and a pony for rides to come to a double 5th year old's birthday party. I booked this in January for a June party. I paid the deposit and had all the cash ready to go. I called, left a message, and emailed Jeff Herring the day before just to confirm. He emailed me back finally, the morning of the party and said he was so sorry that they lost my reservation and would not be able to provide the animals! What?! This was Saturday morning, on a hot day, and I needed the animals from 1-2. So, I called around to many places, no answers! I finally talked to a nice woman who lives in Santa Cruz, named Dawn and after hearing my story, she felt so bad, that she took her day off to bring me a pony dressed as rainbow dash, and a full petting zoo with a pig, duck, chickens, bunnies, and a goat! She did face painting, balloon twisting, and had a lollipop tree game and she charged me the same price that Fun Factories was going to charge! She saved the girls day and was professional and amazing. NEVER book with Fun Factories. They don't even have the animals or clowns or princesses, they just book you and then try and find another company to fulfill the order for less money, but charge you more. SCAM company! read more

We recently had a little company event for our staff for the Easter holiday. We wanted to keep it non - denominational because not everyone at our company celebrates Easter. But we also wanted to try to do something fun for the kids because everyone was bringing their families to the event so there was about 50 or so kids. Since it was mostly an Easter theme we decided to do something not too over the top and we rented a couple of bunny mascot costumes. That way it doesn't have to just be about Easter but if the kids want to meet a bunny mascot they can, parents can get pics and it's not a huge deal.  We shopped around a bit and then found this place, they have several different sizes and styles of bunny type costumes for adults. We rented two different versions for variety and also for the sizes of the staff who was going to be wearing them. I think they looked really cute and the kids definitely seemed to enjoy them. For the price we paid it was under $400 to rent BOTH of them and it was for the whole week so you can't really get much of a better deal. Depending what you want to do, if you're looking to just rent a mascot this would be a good place. They have good selection and the ordering process is very easy. read more