Member Profile

By Ed Avis

Sometimes a business does better when it does more than just one thing. That’s certainly the case with Penguin Point Productions in Oviedo, Florida, which has developed a combination of related businesses over the past 15 years. Today the operation encompasses a costume shop, theater classes, a theater venue with four companies in residence, a summer camp program, and, since May 15, a vintage shop.

“We now have five stores back-to-back in the Oviedo Mall,” explains Kay Gonzales, who manages the costume part of the business. “There is a lot going on, and we are bursting forth with job opportunities.”

James Brendlinger, Penguin Point’s owner, taught high school theater in the area for 24 years and operated a costumesharing program that outfitted community theaters throughout central Florida. He started Penguin Point Productions in 2005 as a theater education program, and he frequently shopped at Madge Elaine’s World of Entertainment, a costume shop owned by Gonzales.

“He was my best customer, and when we closed in 2010, James bought about two-thirds of my rental costume stock,” Gonzales says.

That stock became part of Brendlinger’s vast costume collection, which also grew with donations from theme parks, theaters and other businesses. When he left his high school teaching post in 2018, the principal of his school told him to leave just a “normal high school-size collection,” so most of the costumes ended up in his possession. He realized they could form the heart of a costume business.

“He called me out of the blue in January 2019 and said, ‘Hey, I’m opening a costume shop, come join me,’” Gonzales says. “I told him I had a corporate job with insurance, and I didn’t know if I wanted to get back into the costume industry that had changed so much.”

But Gonzales’ corporate job was becoming uncertain because the business was moving her division to Wisconsin. The moment they offered her a severance package, she called Brendlinger and told him she would join him in his new costume venture.

At first, she volunteered. Then, in January 2020, she became the full-time manager of the costume business, which was part of Penguin Point Productions’ space in Oviedo Mall. At that time, the business occupied three side-by-side stores at the mall – one for the theater, one for a dance studio/classroom, and one for administration and the costumes.

An essential part of Penguin Point are the four companies in residence. They include the Young Company, which is older high school and younger college students; the Wildfire Players, which does slightly edgier shows; the Ensemble Company, which is community theater; and the Still Got It Players, for over-50 performers.

All of the companies receive their costumes from Penguin Point’s collection, and the costume shop also supplies local schools and community theaters. Business was picking up in early 2020 when COVID hit.

“We were closed for two months, and then we reopened with all the precautions for our summer camps,” Gonzales says. “Everyone had to wear masks and be socially distanced, and we had to regularly spray everything down. But the kids were so happy, and we’ve been fortunate not to have any breakouts.”

About 300 children attended the camps, which ranged from one week for kids in Kindergarten through second grade to three weeks for middle schoolers. Each group produced a show at the end of their camp. “We did some wonderful shows at the summer camps – The Secret Garden, Charlie Brown, and James and the Giant Peach,” Gonzales says. “I designed the costumes for Charlie Brown, and we’ve rented it six or seven times since then.”

In addition to the costume needs of its in-house productions, Penguin Point’s costume shop also provided the costumes for various community productions, including the 166 costumes needed for a production of Spamalot at the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in Sanford, Florida.

At the end of the summer, a fourth space opened in the mall, and Penguin Point snagged it to open a more formal costume shop.

“It’s 5,000 square feet, and we moved the costumes from the back of the first space to that,” Gonzales explains. “We are mostly rental, though we do have some sales with accessories and children’s costumes.”

Many of Brendlinger’s costumes are vintage, and they did not rent particularly well.

“When we did rent them, people were pretty brutal with them,” he says. “For example, people were taking vintage costumes and removing the zippers and putting Velcro in. So we decided we’d be better off selling the vintage stuff.” Thus was born the idea for Penguin Point’s most recent venture: a vintage shop. Brendlinger says he was talking to mall management about a small space when a sporting goods store beside his current stores suddenly closed. The space is 6,000 square feet, but he has enough vintage goods to fill the store and has three months’ worth or refills in storage. The grand opening was May 15. The vintage shop is called DUCKIE’S, an homage to the character played by Jon Cryer in the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink. The name is fitting given the store’s focus on vintage clothing from that time period. “The shop sells clothing from the 1920s to the 1990s, but definitely it’s mostly from the ‘80s and ‘90s,” Brendlinger says. “We also sell records and lava lamps. I did a production of Julius Caesar that was set in the 1960s, and we used lava lamps as footlights. So I had 50 of them left over. And for the records, I’ve been a DJ since college, so I had a storage unit full of them.”

DUCKIE’S officially is a non-profit venture, and the money raised supports the Penguin Point’s educational theater programs.

“So far sales have been very encouraging,” Brendlinger says. “I think as long as we can keep the stock coming in it will be a big fundraiser for the theater.”

By Ed Avis

Costume sales and rentals are the business bread and butter for most NCA members, but some savvy costumers boost revenue by selling non-costume items, too. One of the panel discussions during the March 2021 NCA Success Summit focused on that topic, and we’ve collected tips from panelists Louella Torrence, owner of Drop Me a Line Costume Shop in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Dick Stoner from Stoner’s FunStore in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Jerry Bradley from Discount Costumes in Warner Robins, Georgia; Tushar Mehta from Camden Passage; and Susan Gray from Super Impulse.

#1 sell impulse items Your customers probably are visiting your store for costumes, so you if you want to succeed with non-costume items, you need to catch their attention. Small impulse items like toys, games, novelties and other lowpriced, fun items sell the best, catch the buyer’s attention, and are generally inexpensive enough to fit within anyone’s budget.

And sometimes impulse items simply satisfy a need. “As soon as mom comes in with a kid bawling his eyes out, mom says, ‘Here’s a toy. Be quiet,’” Gray says.

Some collectible items also can be impulse items—think low-cost comics Bradley sells at Discount Costumes, which range from $1.50 to $4. “It’s been a wonderful additional stream of revenue for us,” he says.

Gray agrees that tiny collectibles, including Halloween char-

#2 dress up your display One nice thing about non-costume items is that many are small. Nevertheless, they need to be well displayed. For example, Stoner devotes six showcases and the shelves behind them to his magic trick inventory. Counter spac, premium real estate for impulse items, is where Torrence displays many of them, including her Boxing Nun and chattering teeth. “I’ve always had my front counter covered with samples so people could play with everything,” she says.

It’s important to change displays frequently. For example, each morning Bradley selects a different handful of his comic books and displays them poking out of the boxes. “That way it’s eye-appealing when customers come in, and they just tend to gravitate right towards them,” he says.

Showcasing items on a display rack from manufacturers is another display approach. Super Impulse offers a rotating rack that holds the company’s “World’s Smallest Toys and Games.” In addition, several products, such as tiny Wacky Packages, come in colorful counter displays. Similarly, Camden offers cosmetic contact lenses in a counter display that holds 144 pairs in a space that measures about 20 x 10 inches.

Whatever non-costume items you’re selling, you’ll sell more if you can show customers how they work. “The main thing about selling magic is demonstrating it,” Stoner says. “The thing about magic that’s interesting is you do a magic trick, and they say, ‘How’s that done?’ And you don’t tell people how it’s done. The secret is sold when the magic is sold. They will want to know how to do it, and they’ll buy one, and then they have fun with it, and they’ll come back and buy more.”

Torrence also succeeds with demonstrations. “You give customers a shocking pen to sign their charge, and they will buy that pen,” she says. Another great seller over the years was fake dog poo. “We’d set one on the floor, and somebody would say to you, ‘Do you see what happened?’ And, of course, we’d say, ‘Yeah, sure, you can buy it.’ We sold tons of those.”

#4 cross merchandise Many non-costume products are related to costumes. For example, most of the comic books Bradley sells include superheroes in costume. “It’s been nice because what happens is people interested in comic books often get into costumes, too,” Bradley says. “We’ve got a room towards the back with our comic books, and we keep our superhero costumes there, too. So, they tend to complement each other.” Similarly, people buying Halloween costumes might be interested in little Halloween figurines, fake blood, trick-or-treat lights, and other such items.

#5 make holiday connections Selling noncostume items is a great way to generate sales at Easter (small toys and games for Easter baskets), Christmas (stocking stuffers), summer vacation (things for kids to read or play with during long drives and flights), Valentine’s Day (romantic gifts), St. Patrick’s Day (green pins, hats) and Halloween (scary figurines, books of ghost stories).

As Torrence says, summing up the opportunity non-costume items can deliver: “Just dive in and try a few items. You can’t lose!

Looking for ideas on the kind of non-costume items to stock? Several NCA members who participated in the Association’s March 2021 Success Summit offer these suggestions: Boxing nun Fake parking Shocking Buttons tickets lighters Coloring books Lollipops with Silly String Comic books crickets Squirt guns Cosmetic Magic tricks Stickers contact Mini arcade Stink bombs lenses games Switchblade Dashboard Mini board comb

Jesus games Small Toys Extend-o-Fork Mini Lite Brite Trading cards Face paint Mini Rubik’s Wind-up toys Fake dog poop Cube