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It is my experience working in both restaurants, bars and wedding receptions that women make by far the best audience. Aside from the fact that your average bloke tends to be a bit more dismissive of "magic" and perhaps see it as a weakness to be entertained by it, has anyone any thoughts on the matter? I don't want to sound sexist or to over-generalise, but women do seem to "buy into" the whole concept of magic a lot more readily than their male counter-parts.

This is also true of the work I do as a pro reader. I have never been paid to do a reading for a man. It is always women.

PS I've been absent from TM for a while due to having been locked away in a darkened room with Docc Hillord's $1000 Seance. I have now emerged blinking into the bright light of day, older but very much wiser.

...ooh would you mind reviewing it please? i really like Doc...

i do agree with you, women tend to see it more as "magic" and thats their definition of it, yet blokes can sometimes see it more as "fascinating" then try and work it out logically...

perhaps thats the base thing behind it all - men are usually seen as more straighforward and logical, women are usually seen as more emotive and empathic...and good at hoovering *joke*

I must agree. The best reactions do seem to come from women.

A couple of reasons I can think of are:

1) The male brain is much more logical than the female brain. Therefore, regardless of how well something is performed, how invisible etc it is, the man in the crowd knows that there was something he didn't see or something sneaky you did. He refuses to believe it could have happened any other way, because logic dictates that certain things aren't possible. Such as a Triumph effect.
The female brain on the other hand is less logical. Therefore, it tends to be more accepting of what it can't understand. Cards are mixed face up and face down and one card remains the right way up when the rest of the deck is reset. There's no answer, so it must be magical in at least some way

2) Men have an issue about "being lied to". They don't like the fact soemthing just happened that they can't explain in anyway. So the brain sort of rejects it, and writes it off, because they refuse to have the wool pulled over their eyes so to speak.
Once again, this is less of an issue with women, as they don't see it as a trick, or a deception, but rather more like a piece of fine theatre, and they can be happy with just knowing that it was done. Which for some reason... men really can't.


Funnily enough, I have a few guinea pigs when I learn or invent something new. Typically I'll show them to one bloke, a good friend of mine, and one female - someone I genuinely met on the bus by performing magic.

The man says he respect me for my magic, because he knows I've been doing it a long time, am proud of it, and must dedicate a lot of hard work to it.
The woman on the other hand, merely thinks I sold my soul to Satan. Or have secretly been reading magical spell books or something.

Now thats for magic....

From what I gather, you're a mentalist. Something which I have started dabbling in...

Men, when being presented with a piece of mentalism, believe that mind reading is impossible, and nearly always try to write off mentalism as, again, some form of trickery.
When i do mentalist effects for men, I tend to disguise them in an NLP style patter. "I'm going to tell you a story, whilst I'm telling it to you, I want a word/number/card/name/place to come to mind. It's not like thinking of it. Just let it come to you... your subconscious will pick up on what I'm saying..." etc etc.
Then the bloke just think's you're a smart-arse.

Women on the other hand, are more likely to believe in that sort of stuff. So if I ask a woman to think of a name or number or somesuch, I wont bother dressing up the presentation as NLP or anything. I'll just ham up the bit whereby I read the information from them.
They believe it's possible... and they think i might be genuinely psychic.


So... to condense what i just said...

Men are logical, and know that something logical must have happened. Women are not, and accept what is told to them.
Men are less likely to believe in a psychic style effect unless you're just showing off how smart you are (think Derren Brown and his "And I get to feel ridiculously clever and smug" line...). Women are more likely to believe in that sort of stuff anyway. And why can't the weird guy with a load of star circle cross square and wavy line cards be reading her mind eh?

I agree. Men seem more prone to needing to explain things logically whereas woman are more open to mysteries. Thinking on, there's probably an evolutionary basis for it. Maybe the hunter/gatherer versus the instinctive nurturer.

abraxus wrote:...ooh would you mind reviewing it please? i really like Doc...

Will do! It's really good!

While I'm here, I just wanted to point out that I have had some very good male audiences. By the same token I've had some very difficlut male audiences! It is true thought that if you want the "Oooh!" factor, it's a female that will give it to you!!!

When I'm working I will always go for the small groups of women first, then the couples, and finally the groups of blokes. I sometimes force myself to head for the groups of blokes as a kind of training exercise - if I can get them to buy into my act, then I know I'm doing something right!

or do we just like to think they make a better audience, magic being a male orientated thing and all!
perhaps it's all down to us! as a male you're a lot more likely to be more friendly and flirtacious towards a female, therefor may make more of an instant connection/familiarisation that can lead to a better performance on your part. whereas performing for a guy you will act quite differently towards them and this will undoubtedly lead to a different, perhaps less personal, performance.
just a thought! now all i need is a pyche degree student to back me up, there must be one around somewhere, there always is!!

There's no great mystery to it guys... Women think and process information differently then men; at least that's the case in most instances, there are some interesting exceptions to this bio-chemical-psychological rule of thumb...

Try doing the same act with all the same lines for a group of Lesbians...

I'm not kidding; their reactions will be right on par to men more than it will be with the "typical" female reaction. You will find the very same thing in doing this experiment for an audience composed of gay men... they will lean more towards the common female mode of reaction and support than not.

It all has to do with how the two genders or "gender identifiers" allow the brain to process in-put. There are several other factors involved such as the performers own mannerisms, looks, etc. but this is the general rule of thumb.

For you fools that think magic is a great way for picking up chicks, let me give you a late news flash... act a hint effeminate with you talk and do your tricks and you will have even more women throwing themselves at you... It is a known fact that the more exceptionally good looking and horny young ladies of the world feel more comfortable conversing with a seemingly gay man than the average straight jock. This is why the era of the Metrosexual came into being; that handful of straight guys that realized healthy looking, well mannered and well groomed professional gay men got far more women then they and their rude, stubborn, beer guzzling jock friends did... which would you rather date, someone with manners and a bit of personal pride or someone that live down to the lowest of deffinitions associated with their "type"

Hey, what do I know about all this woman chasing c*** (not the best)

It's funny but sometimes when I'm doing my table-hopping routine I come across a lady who is really, really into the whole "magic" thing. Because of the nature of my routine ("I'm sensing a strong psychic link with you", "Let's see if by combining our minds we can create any more magic" etc. etc.) sometimes the husbands/boyfriends start to get a bit twitchy and jealous. They're not allowed to say so of course because I'm just a stupid magician and how can they feel threatened by some jerk doing tricks, but you can see them squirming out of the corner of your eye. V. amusing.

Women make the best audience because us men are so over our heads in trying to prove are bravado that we spend the whole time trying to figure out what is going on and we wind up missing the whole point. The female is a different, more evolved species.