Round and round in a magic circle!

It looks like I'm going to abandon both the expensive items I've seen recently.

Comments from business people on the rabbit costume have been pretty negative. The general opinion is that the initial reaction will be good but this will rapidly turn to 'oh, another kids entertainer'. When I'm working at a trade show, this is the last thing I want to happen! I'm supposed to be attracting adults to the stand I'm working on after all.

The shells and pea trick is getting a lot of negative feedback as well. Most people think it is too long and not intimate enough. Trade shows in the USA tend to attract large crowds around a stand quite happily but the English reserve dictates otherwise. The UK audience wants one-to-one magic tricks and doesn't want to get crushed into a large group. The other drawback is the space needed to do the trick. Most of the stands I work are pretty small and I have enough trouble finding a space for my 12inch cube tale which stands on a small tripod. There is no way I am going to get a space big enough for a table to move around three large 'walnut shells'.

Back to the drawing board for me.

May the magic be with you.

The End Of An Era - sort of

I'm feeling a bit low today as I've taken the decision to sell my disco and karaoke equipment.

The decision is purely financial as I really enjoy getting a room full of people off their bums and bopping about on the dance floor. The problem is something which every professional has to cope with - amateurs.

There are loads of mobile discos all over the country with equipment which isn't properly maintained and safety tested. On top of that, they don't carry public liability insurance. Some day soon this is going to give somebody a major headache. Take the scenario where you hire a hall for a family part and book a local DJ to play because he offers a cheaper price than anybody else. At the party, his equipment sets of a fire and damages or destroys the building. The owners of the building probably won't be able to claim on their insurance unless the DJ can prove his equipment was OK and tested regularly so they are going to try and claim from you. You won't get a lot out of the DJ as he doesn't have insurance. The end result is everybody loses. You make the DJ bankrupt, the owners of the building make you bankrupt, the building is useless until some money can be found to repair it. All because somebody tried to save a few pounds on the entertainment!

Although I'm using the disco as an example, this situation applies to any entertainer. Especially if they are using electrical equipment. How many times have you read in the papers about somebody in a band being killed by faulty electrical equipment?

Do yourself a favour when booking an entertainer. Find out if all the electrical equipment they use is PAT tested and find out if they have Public Liability Insurance. If they say no to either question, hire somebody else. If they say yes to both these questions - ASK TO SEE PROOF!

May the magic be with you.

Decisions, Decisions

My brain is doing mental press-ups today.

I've got a choice between two expensive tricks and I don't know which to go for.

The first is a giant-sized version of the old walnut shell and pea con trick. The 'shells' are about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide with the 'pea' being a 2 inch green ball. It's going to cost about £300 to bring in from the USA but I'm not sure how people in the UK will react to it. I've asked the people on my business network to have a look at a video on Google of somebody doing the trick and feed back their comments to me.

The second is a costume that I reckon will go down a storm whenever and wherever I use it. Imagine the standard magician carrying a top hat with a rabbit in it and then turn it around so the rabbit is carrying the hat with the magician in it! This is going to cost about £500 (gulp) and will be made-to-order so will take as long as the trick to arrive. The positive side is that I would be able to walk around at an exhibition and help to promote my client in a more direct way. The downside is that I don't know if the jacket has any pockets to store tricks or if I can store them in the hat or whatever. I'll just have to keep pushing the supplier for an answer. Perhaps the threat of losing a large sale will spur them into action!

May the magic be with you.

Websites can be a pain at times

I'm still trying to get to grips with my website. I've got some software that creates the site but I've been told that it isn't very search engine friendly. As I don't have an unlimited source of funds, it looks like I'm just going to have to make do with what I've got and update it on a regular basis.

With this in mind, I've just added another trick on my 'free magic tricks' page. Some time ago I helped out on a talking newspaper for the blind and partially sighted. They asked if I could put a trick or two on the tape and that really got the brain cells into overdrive. One day I was walking through the building to get to the recording studio when I noticed the resource centre. I went in and found several things that finally sparked off the grey matter and came up with something that was so far towards the back of my memory that I had forgotten I even knew it in the first place. It's a killer trick with a box of dominoes. The trick is pretty impressive for a sighted person but preformed by somebody with little or no vision, it's amazing. We had a lot of response from the listeners so I know they had tried it on their families and it seemed that the children, grand children and great grandchildren were all totally amazed. The full details are on my website so check it out for yourself. It is too easy to be true but, when you get down to basics, that applies to most magic tricks.

May the magic be with you.

THE START OF A NEW ERA FOR ME!

OK - in my previous life I was a bit of a techie but I left all that behind many years ago to concentrate on the love of my life - entertaining people with magic. All this blogging stuff is new to me so my apologies if it seems a bit of a mess for a while.

Things are a little bit quiet at the moment to be honest. Companies tend to plan their promotions well in advance so I'm having to fight my way into the marketing departments. The trouble is that magic is so visual that simply telling somebody what I can do is not enough. I really need to get together with them and show them what I can do. On top of that I have to convince them that spending money on my services will help them to stand out from their competitors. Having to hit somebody that hard in one session is never an easy job.

One former client recently had playing cards printed with his company details on the back. Great move as the cards were in plastic boxes and will last a lot longer then the normal cardboard box. I created a trick using his cards which left everybody open-mouthed when I presented it to them. I even managed to come up with a simple trick that I can teach to his prospective clients at shows so the staff can wander around handing out the cards and telling people to come to the stand to learn a trick.

I still do private parties and restaurant work but the enquiries I'm getting lately are for small parties that are a long way away from where I live. I have to quote a silly price and tell them why in order to keep my name clean.

I've just finished my weekly network meeting and it seems that many other people are in the same boat as me. The legal people and financial companies are up to their eyeballs in work at present but most of the other companies are tightening their belts in case the recession that we keep hearing about becomes a reality. The problem with that is the more we talk about the recession, the more we believe that it is there and the worse it gets. Can somebody please turn down the volume on the gloom and doom merchants?

May the magic be with you.