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The Effect

What they say:

What makes a Corporate Warrior? Over twenty years of performing thousands of shows for Fortune 500 companies! Bill Goldman has travelled the world performing at trade shows, hospitality suites, sales meetings and after dinner banquets!

This special two DVD set documents an incredible Inner Circle trading session between Bill and four working professionals. Bill’s conversation with Tim Noonan, Brian Irwin, Bram Charles and Jason Bird tip it all. You’ll learn the real work that only years on the road could teach you. The guys ask all of the right questions that extract every possible piece of information from the centre of Bill’s brain. It’s the stuff nobody ever talks about!

With a running time of 2 hours and 24 minutes, the two DVD set contains extremely valuable information on scripting, trade show pitches, premiums, length of performance, give-a-ways, stopping crowds, marketing, promo videos, payment strategies, and so much more. The presentation is in a refreshing conversational style that is often hilarious as it is educational!

Bonus – eight new routines, A Ton of Goldman Stories.

Cost

Around £60

Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

1.

Review

This is a nicely produced DVD set that is aimed directly at magicians who are looking to break into corporate and trade show performances.

As stated on the box, the format of the presentation is with Bill Goldman sitting at his close up table with the four other magicians sat around listening and occasionally asking questions and there are some nice stories scattered throughout.

The DVD begins with Bill telling you of his life story as a magician. How he got started with a lucky break and then kept going thereafter to become a very successful magician. This leads onto discussing a wide variety of topics again, just as it says on the box.
In between, there is a scattering of effects that are simple but at the same time, all are designed for maximum impact and are ideally suited to performing at trade shows. There are some real sweet effects that are Bill’s own creations and each is taught. There is also an example of how an effect is performed as normal and then how Bill would perform it at a trade show. Although a little corny, you will get the idea as well as the point that he’s making. Having worked trade shows myself and learnt a little through the experience, what Bill tells you about working a stand is spot on.

Some examples that stood out for me were when Bill was talking about performances and that he performs a 12-15 minute routine once every hour only which made me think that I’ve been working too hard. He also talks about the importance of repetition in your show and how your magic should contain as few moves as possible, almost self working so that little can go wrong including people saying “I know how you did that”.

Another important less on for me was pricing yourself and to ensure that you DO NOT under charge. The consideration is that if you need to pull out of the booking, then you need to have charged enough to get someone else to fill your slot. You should do this instead of leaving the booker in the lurch as ultimately it will be your reputation that suffers.

These are just two of the many examples of things that you need to know, but would not necessarily think about.

Overall

This is a fascinating DVD that will be invaluable to the target audience. I just know that some of you that arte still reading will think that this an expensive DVD and is over but in reality, it’s difficult to price a DVD such as this as what you are buying is knowledge and experience as opposed to a few tricks. The fact is that if you get one booking as a result of the content of this DVD then it will have paid for itself many times over and perhaps this is the bench mark on which to judge it.

You should make no mistake that there will be content on this DVD that you will use to market yourself, price yourself, plan your shows and a whole lot more. You could waste far more money than the price if you got some of this wrong!

Overall, I thought that this was reasonable value for a DVD of this nature and at two and three quarter hours it’s a marvellous resource.

This is a far superior purchase to Martin Sanders Corporate Close-Up DVD which has become somewhat of a benchmark.

I am not sure I agree with Bill's philosophy of doing only one show an hour. It sounds awful to me unless he is getting such massive crowds (say 100 to 200) that to perform too much would be a hindrance.

From what I understand however he only gets around 30 to 50 people at the very most. If this is the case then he should do at least two shows an hour.

I find trade show magicians to be a lazy bunch. Eddie Tullock had the correct way of working continually and never stopping. You have to watch the booth activity to see if you are being a help or a hindrance when you do this and I do recommend taking plenty of breaks. However if you are on a large booth where you are not in the way by performing continually then that is what you should do.

These guys tell me that if they worked continually they would have no energy. Tommyrot and fiddlesticks. They should sell svengali decks for a while. That would cure them of this nonsense. If you stop in that business you lose money.

The secret is water. Drink tons of it. You will go to the washroom a lot but that is the only break you will need. The water gives you the energy to work all day without stopping.

And that pulling out of the show reference makes me uneasy. If you are booked for a trade show only nuclear war should be a valid excuse for pulling out and substituting someone else.

I have not seen the DVD so have no idea. However I have heard negative reports about it perhaps justified or perhaps not justified. I suppose I shall have to see it for myself.

This dvd set is a difficult one to review.
For someone who really is getting into trade shows any information you can get to prepare yourself is helpful. You'll want to gather information from as many sources as you can. For that reason these dvds can be helpful. I've watched Tullock, the Hustle Hustle guy (name escapes me even though he gave some tip on how to always remember it LOL), and others. They all have very different styles and performing habits. The Hustle Hustle guy does big shows, Goldman's are smaller, Tullock does everyone passing by. Like I said, it helps to get info from as many experienced magicians as you can and fit it to you.
In this dvd, I actually found one of the guys talking with Goldman more helpful than Goldman. Goldman had a lot of stories, and often said don't do what I do... Or, "I just got lucky."
If you are not interested in trade shows, don't bother with this.
It was helpful in its small way for me.

Somebody in the know told me that Bill Goldman is always broke. Not that I am one to gossip of course. I must admit that I am biased against him because of some stuff he wrote in a magazine about pitchmen he met. The British term is grafters. These are the people who demonstrate various products at home shows etc; I think the average person would learn more from these people about trade show magic than the average trade show magician. Bill wrote with some negativity about them.

These are the books on the subject I consider the most valuable. With these three you don't need much else:

First and foremost is the Eddie Tullock book. His DVD is useful also. I do nearly everything Eddie says except stand on a platform. For various reasons I don't believe in that.

Second is a little book by Frances Marshall about the subject and I can't remember the bloody title. Very useful indeed and only slightly dated.

Third is a book by Seth Kramer. I forget the title again. However seek and ye shall find. And I get a vibe that the title will appear shortly. I AM psychic you know.

All these books will tell you what you want to know except the most important thing. How to get the trade show in the first place. There is a cursory attempt to tell you but I get psychic vibes that the authors don't really want you to know anyway.

However once you get going word of mouth potential is very good in this field. How you get going in the first place I am no expert on the matter. However I have had somewhat reasonable results with direct mail which is an art in itself.