Prime Mascots is a limited company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire which is owned and operated by founder, Ahmed Ben Hassoun who was born in 1987 in Tunis, Tunisia and moved to England in 2007.
At the age of four, Ahmed began his gymnastics journey and, by the age of nine, his passion had grown to the extent that he was back to back training for gymnastics, acrobatics, break dancing, kung fu and capoeira. At the age of 15 and 16 he won two consecutive gold medals in the kung fu choy-lee-fut martial arts national competition. He also performed in front of the then Tunisian president, Ben Ali, on Tunisian Independence day on 20th March 2005.
Ahmed struggled to enjoy education always knowing that he wanted to pursue his dream of becoming an international hotel entertainer. In the summer of the same year he searched for a hotel that would offer him a position to gain the necessary qualifications, what is referred to today as an apprenticeship. However, at the time, as he was not yet 18, he was advised to return to school to complete his formal education because, at his age, no chief entertainer would take employ him.
Determined to achieve his goals, Ahmed took one year course in Tourism then at the age of 18 he travelled with his best friend to Hammamet where
Finally, at the age of eighteen, Ahmed was able to begin to fulfill his dreams when he was given the opportunity to be a children’s entertainer at the ‘Mini Club’ at the Hotel Abou Sofiane, Port el Kantoui, Sousse, Tunisia by the chief entertainer, Mouki.
In 2007, at the age of 20, Ahmed married and moved to England following which he worked for several seasons as part of the Sky Line Gang at the popular Butlins holiday resort at Skegness operating Rainbow the dog. He then worked as a backing dancer/acrobat for James Aston’s JACKSON – The ultimate live Michael Jackson tribute and as a dancer with the Black Eyed Peas tribute act, the Black Eyed Teas.
In 2010 Ahmed performed as a backing dancer at the Brit Awards followed by work in hotels in Greece, Turkey, Spain and promoted to chief entertainer in Calheta Beach Resort Madeira throughout 2011 and 2012. The following year Ahmed performed with Britain’s Got Talent finalists, the street entertainment act the Faces of Disco, travelling all over the UK.
Following this, Ahmed choreographed and created a show for the Arab audience and was subsequently invited to visit Lebanon for Arabs Got Talent where the act performed by himself and his friend, ‘Mashahir Ala Hawa’ (Celebrities on Air), gained four yes’s for their performance. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Ahmed was unable to attend the live finals because his partner, Liam Collins, had been declared bankrupt, a fact he was unaware of until after signing the semi final contract. As Liam was not allowed to perform, this meant that the act could go no further.
Having tried various ‘normal’ jobs and struggling to find job satisfaction outside of the entertainment industry, Ahmed took the plunge and ordered a custom made character costume from abroad, sending a substantial amount of money to the Philippines via Western Union not knowing if he was ever going to receive the suit. The plan was to ‘busk’ in city centres as a self-employed entertainer travelling around the country to help fund his dream of owning several of cool cosplay costumes for events. Upon obtaining his ‘pedlar’s certificate’ from the police and having safely receiving his costume, that is exactly what he did. Alongside busking he also self-taught him self to make his own costumes using a particular type of foam super glue and Stanley knife seeking help from art and craft lessons from youtube videos and by following the structures from the Ironman War machine costume he had.
During this journey and having been approached by members of the public impressed with his performances, he was often requested to attend children’s birthday parties and various entertainment events and so, Prime Parties and Mascots was born.
Ahmed set up a page to offer his services and soon, having received 100% 5* reviews, the business began to grow and grow, all the time operating from a spare bedroom at his home. However, there remained quieter periods in the business and, in order to continue to fund his passion for entertainment, in 2015 Ahmed took up night porter job for Queen’s Hotel and worked with Murder One –a murder mystery company.
In January 2017 Prime Parties and Mascots was registered as a limited company and very soon the number of costumes had increased too much to be able to manage at home so another risky decision was made to rent the company’s own storage space, office and workshop at Roundhay Road, Leeds in July 2017.
Despite increasing bills, there had to be no risk of failure so Ahmed worked tirelessly for no reward, investing 100% of all the income generated back into the business. Fortunately, he realised that talent alone would not be enough to operate a successful business and so he completed courses in Business Management, Marketing, SEO, Safeguarding, Mental Health Awareness, First Aid, Video Editing and Social Media Targeting. He managed to achieve those courses while working as a night porter five nights a week at the Queens Hotel Leeds, all of which has served him well.
In the meantime, the service provided by Prime Parties and Mascots continued to be impeccable. Unlike other companies, Ahmed was not merely someone who stood at a gathering giving hugs and high fives, he was a professional with vast experience of working with children and families from all over the world with the ability to interact with all sorts of different people and able to bring smiles to absolutely everyone in attendance at any event, whether they be old or young.
Over time, more and more charitable organisations requested mascot character appearances , walkabout and tailored character performances in hospitals, schools and the parents of poorly children asked for mascots inspired by popular cartoon characters and super heroes to visit their fund raising events for free to support their cause. Businesses were getting in touch requesting appearances and some even purchased the Costumes Ahmed has learned and manufactured him self such as Transformers and Ironman . However, there was only so much he could do alone and Ahmed realised that investment would be required in order to expand the business and cope with the demand. The limited company achieved a turnover of over £30,000 in its first year which, being basically a ‘one man band’ with limited help, was a fantastic achievement and all of this was reinvested in the company.
As the business’s popularity increased, there became a need to use self employed contractors to work with Ahmed on events. So time and effort was put into choosing people who had the same high standard of passion, not only in their individual talents but as performers with integrity who would never let him down. He wanted the best of the best and paid his contractors very well to ensure that they are motivated to learn and progress. Furthermore, he paid them immediately after the job was completed so that they did not have to wait for their pay and Covered their cost for DBS, Host and pay for their training days also made sure that they are included in the Employer and public liability insurances, this proved to be a successful way of working with other people and gaining their respect.
So far, 2018/2019 has again shown massive investment by working with UK’s leading entertainment agencies. which resulted in expanding the base space, upgrading to Three Vans , renaming of the business to PRIME MASCOTS LTD and the registering of the trademark for the brand with the IPO also
The natural progression for Prime Mascots is to work with licensed characters and, to investigate this, Ahmed attended the Brand Licensing event in London. As a result of this, by the end of 2019, PRIMEMASCOTS.COM will be launched for international corporate partnerships.
Prime Mascots intends to work with a few select licensed characters rather than simply deluge the market for the sole purpose of making money. Ahmed wants to stay true to his principles and create unique and amazing shows and appearances for the benefit of the licensor and to uphold the reputation of Prime Mascots Ltd.
Prime Mascots enjoys competition, however there are currently no real competitors for what PRIME MASCOTS LTD has to offer. Although our dreams started small, we are now ready to take our ambitions to the next level. We guarantee you will never receive poor quality, stand in the corner character appearance who simply hand out high fives for the duration of their appearance. We will not bring you untrained individuals who are just trying to make some extra cash at the weekend and who are being paid little more than minimum wage as their pitiful reward. We never use agencies to hire any of our mascot operators, we know each of them well.
PRIME MASCOTS offers a prestigious service that perhaps not everyone can afford to pay for but we do try to make everything as reasonably priced as possible. Because of our integrity and professionalism, any business that has collaborated with PRIME MASCOTS LTD has had nothing but good things to say about the company although when we work with entertainment agencies we are often prevented by confidentiality clauses in our service agreements from speaking publicly about that work or sharing on social media.
� We provide unique and unforgettable appearances and performances with the best quality mascots.
� Our experienced artists are experts in operating mascot outfits making them appear completely realistic.
� The mascot operators are skilled in acrobatics and dancing and have excellent knowledge of party games and dances which are very entertaining for kids as well as adults.
� We offer a professionally structured process from start to finish which can be fully relied upon.
� We always prioritise the health and safety of our clients.
� Excellent hygiene standards for both costumes and operators
� Employer and Public Liability Insurance
� All our mascot operators are DBS checked
� We don’t work with cash at all but accept BACS, PayPal and card payments
We are in discussions with the very limited number of license holders that we want to work with.
We will be offering our services featuring these Licensed mascots internationally via direct marketing to corporate clients such as holiday parks, hotels and shopping malls as well as tailoring a separate service for schools where the Characters encourage children to be kind, helpful and active and to give them the confidence to stand up against bullying. As such, our presence will be inspiring and motivational. We will also be available to attend any events you are hosting – showcasing the characters with live appearances and performances.
This is only the beginning of Prime Mascots Ltd
Thank you for taking the time in reading this!
Kind regards
Prime Mascots Team
