Wacky Chad started the beginnings of his current act on a youth group trip to Ecuador when he was 19.

At the time, he had performance experience working as the mascot mouse character at Chuck-E-Cheese on and off for three years, but his trip to Ecuador marked his first time wearing clown gear.

Wacky Chad, whose real name is Chadd Deitz, booked his first gig performing as a clown at a birthday party shortly after. The experiences inspired him to further explore humor, performance and physical comedy.

“I went to a store and bought all the clown tricks. I wanted to try it all out,” said Deitz. “Once I had the equipment, I decided to start performing here and there.”

Deitz started reading books and watching other performers to build up his knowledge. As he booked more gigs and gained more practice, he improved and added to his repertoire.

“The more you perform, the better you get at making people laugh,” he said. With improvement in his overall show came improvement in his pogo stick skills.

It took Deitz three years to perfect his backflip pogo trick, and he recently competed in the 10th annual Pogopalooza. He said he has been able to land the pogo stick trick the “shaft grab,” in which you throw the pogo stick over your head, grab it and throw it back underneath your legs and feet, all within a matter of seconds.

“It’s only been landed once, and I landed it once,” he said.

Deitz attended college for television and radio, and after graduating, went on to work for Disney World in the Disney College Program for six months .

Comedy is something that finds its way into multiple facets of Deitz’s life. He said he generally sees himself as an outgoing and humorous person. During the holidays, he gets together with friends and family, rents out the Wise Guys Comedy Club. He and other funny friends and family members put on a stand up show for everyone else.

Deitz, like other street performers, supplements his street performance income by booking events. His overall success has afforded him opportunities like performing on the hyper-competitive America’s Got Talent, and has allowed him to travel the world.

“I performed in Bahrain, Canada, South Korea,” he said. “I found that people laugh at the same things.”

As a street performer, learning how to engage and keep a crowd is vital. Deitz recounted a conversation that he had with his landlord and friend, Faneuil Hall street performer Alakazam about building an audience.

“Getting your crowd is the hardest part, if you’re a street performer, obviously. Getting people to stop and watch you. And getting them where you want them to stand so they can see, so they don’t scatter, and so they can hear you. If they see and hear you better, they’ll pay you.”

Deitz spoke of the ‘format’ behind a good street performance, including creating a barrier with water or rope and asking the audience to step forward in order to draw them in and telling jokes to filter the audience down to those who will best respond to the show.

He also spoke about common misconceptions and challenges facing street performers, saying “People don’t realize the professionalism. You have to audition to be here, this is a career that I’ve been doing for nine years out of my life. It’s not only a real job, it’s a really rewarding career. If people knew how much work it is, they would appreciate it a little more.”

While Deitz, like his colleagues, enjoys the freedom street performing gives him, he also pointed out that being your own boss takes a lot of hard work and motivation.

“People say they want my life, I’m like, you do? Here’s a pogo stick, try backflipping on that. It took me three years,” he said jokingly.

Catch Deitz performing this weekend, October 12 to 14 at the Street Performer Fall Festival at Faneuil Hall.