by bananafish » Nov 16th, '10, 16:51
Thanks for doing this at such short notice Paul.
As expected the lecture was a lot of fun, and judging by the chit chat in the pub afterwards enjoyed by all members and not just me.
Of course having seen one of Pauls lectures several years ago I new it would be good, but our younger members epecially loved everything he showed us and even the working professionals went home with something useful.
Paul's a fun guy and he encourages us all to get in close and offer feedback throughout, which made us all feel part of the lecture rather than being lectured at which happens more often than it should.
For a lecture that was all cards (Paul makes no apologies for being a cardician), it was always a possibility that it could alienate some people, after all not everyone likes card tricks, but talking to the members afterwards in the pub it most certainly did not.
I put this down to two things.
One is the fact that at the very least Paul was showing us some wonderfully entertaining magic, so even those that wouldn't perform any of the effects were at the very least entertained, and secondly most of the effects were relatively simple to do (self working? perhaps some), so I think that people that were normally put off by card tricks being too difficult were very encouraged to give it a go.
Certainly there were a lot of decks out in the pub with people going back through some of Pauls ideas.
A great success (and it makes me look good as the one who booked him), so certainly I would be happy to recommend Paul's lecture to any magic society