talkmagic.co.uk

Just wanted to share a good experience with everyone.
I had a presentation to do- an hour long to the department that I'm working in. It had to have a broad interest and there were one or two in the audience with more experience in the subject than me.
So..........I thought I'd spice it up with a mentalism performance

I have Ian Rowland's Alpha series lecture notes and there is a piece in there that I'd always liked the idea of- about influence. I thought I could tie the influence theme to my lecture so I adopted and adapted this to my topic.

I didn't want to go too far out on a limb so I chose to adapt the routine to a card force.
Now I've previously used Mirage Pop Eyed Popper decks which I'd written on the face of the cards to get the same effect (and slightly cleaner handling) but I saw that Paul Brook had released a Double Blank Svengali Deck, so I ordered this and made it up.
The routine I used involved several people cutting the deck into 5 piles and then me "influencing" one of the departmental heads to choose the correct pile to match my printed prediction. There is a kicker which if you know Ian Rowland's routine you can adapt to any subject matter (he uses movie stars I used pieces of equipment) to suggest subliminal influence.

The end result is that the first bit of the routine got them interested and I kept the revelation for the end so it kept them hooked. I was pleased initially as the kicker got a murmur of interest however two days later a few people came up to me desparate to know how I'd done it. They'd obviously been thinking it over and couldn't work it out.

All in all, with a bit of work and planning and practice I was able to fit a mentalism routine into a work performance. Everyone enjoyed it and it added to the environment and my confidence.

If you are thinking about doing something similar then the DBSD is a great tool and a great resource

Cheers

Shanester

Anything that save us from Powerpoint!

The hard part, though, is maintaining the balance between subject matter expert with assumed gravitas and an entertainer.

I've tried effects with mixed results. I'd be interested to know if anyone else uses tricks to give substance to a lecture?