talkmagic.co.uk

I was in Hamleys yesterday evening and naturally found myself wandering over to the Marvin's Magic department. The young guy that was at the podium waved a deck of cards at me and asked if I would like to see something "amazing". Of course, so I watched him perform some tricks with a Svengali deck. My first impressions were not good as he obivously needed more practice in handling the cards. So I asked to see something else, in case he was just having a bad time with the cards. So he produces Dynamic Coins which he proceeds to perform. By now, about eight people have gathered round to watch. He then goes into the worst performance of DC I have ever seen. His handling was appalling, to the point where he even exposed the gimmick to everyone; he just carried on as if nothing had happened. The last thing he performed was the Vanishing Handkerchief which was just as bad. When he vanished the hankie, it was obvious to all where it was because it was sticking out of the TT!! I was getting embarrassed at this point so went over to look at the cuddly toy display.

He was trying to sell a box of 50 tricks for £30 but no one even picked it up to look at it, never mind buy one. What's the point of having him demonstrate the effects if he obviously has no idea what he's doing? It really was the worst performance I have ever seen and I was disappointed and embarrassed for him.

HEY! THAT WAS ME! THANKS A LOT! YOURE A JERK! UGH, I HATE YOU!!!!!




no serioulsy though that sounds awful. Though it would be worse if you were there with a friend and you had just shown him a TT vanish

ah man - I worked at Harrods doing this stuff, and it was terrible! I hated it - people loved me, but I made it look impossible, so rarely got sales. I got crowds, standing ovations (bearing in mind there were no chairs )

but gah - i hated it. I quit

I saw somebody doing this at Harrods, and I think it got me truly into magic. god bless you harrods workers

I was in London last year, visiting the sites from up norf in Birminghamand visited Harrods only to see a double act of magic, lucky me!
I saw Dominic (from CBBC and 'Dick and Dom in da Bungalow') - who proceded to show off his magic trick box-set, as well as a massive array of card tricks and coin tricks from a marvins magic set.
Next, about 10 minutes later, I see Steven Mulhern (from TV's'Tricky TV'), he did the same, performed a wide array of amazing tricks, I'm guessing most were packet tricks from his box-set / TV show style magic set.

However, I was VERY impressed by both of them, they really sold the products and people were picking them up, looking at the boxes, they both answered questions about the sets - was amazing to watch them genuinly love what they were doing.

So, as many bad people there are, there are a fewgreat magicians

I think a point has been missed here and strangely enough Blapsing Beard has inadvertantly supported the contention that I am about to make.

It is NOT the job of the demonstrator to entertain you. Ovations and praise are of no use whatever. You are not there to amuse the public and especially not there to entertain busybody magicians who come in to criticise and publish your alleged sins on a magic forum for the world to see.

No. You are there for one purpose only and that is to deprive the public of their money and that can be done quite effectively in some cases by being incompetent because the potential sales prospect will then be confident that the trick is not too difficult.

Too much praise and glory from the public can actually result in less sales. If you are just entertaining people so much that you are giving them a free show then you are not doing your job properly.

Sales are the thing. The demonstrator is NOT in show business where your job IS to entertain people. The demonstrator is in the demonstration business where his purpose is merely to deprive the undeserving public of their money. Entertaining them is a secondary aim and if you do too much of it you can end up taking in little revenue as Blapsing Beard seems to have discovered.

It is true that in some cases if you entertain you sell but it many cases it certainly isn't and in fact it can often be a detriment. Magicians who come in to watch you should always be given short thrift and I actually snarl at them so they go away and not waste my time. They never buy anything anyway and are only there to criticise.

mark lewis, is your real name Jerry Sadowitz, by any chance?

While I agree that it is his job to sell products to the customer and to be a salesman, the nature of the product on sale lends itself to demonstration in order to help secure those sales. If he is giving a poor performance then he has failed to both demonstrate and sell the product; his performance resulted in not a single sale, at least while I was there.

And no, he is not just there to entertain potential customers, but by demonstrating these effects to anyone who cares to watch, isn't he entertaining them regardless? Part and parcel.

I disagree with your suggestion that, generally, a bad performance is better for sales. I have seen countless demonstrations in Davenports, International Magic and, yes, even Hamleys (!) performed by competent individuals which I have found very entertaining. And those same demonstrations even resulted in sales. As a potential customer, if I see a poor demonstration that exposes the method, then I have just witnessed the very thing they are trying to sell me - the secret. I then have the choice of deciding whether or not to part with my money in order to purchase that "secret", having the distinct advantage of knowing it before having paid for it! For any number of reasons, I may very well decide against buying it.
If, however, I witness a competent demonstration, then perhaps I will be more inclined to make the purchase because I am somewhat eager to know the method. I would suggest that a good performance is, generally speaking, more conducive to "depriving the undeserving public of their money". Of course, there are always exceptions.

I don't believe that "busybody magicians" who watch a demonstration are simply there to criticise the performer/demonstrator/salesperson. I think that is a bit of a sweeping statement, don't you? For one, I have not yet acquired a level of skill in magic where I am in a position to criticise others; however, even I know a dire performance when I see one.

What you consider a dastardly performance someone else may consider to be a masterful one. Besides it is none of your business anyway. I consider it very mean spirited to come on to a public forum and tear someone to pieces. Someone may do that to you one day, you know.

I abhor magicians who without provocation tear someone else to pieces in public. It ain't nice. Please note the words "without provocation" I will certainly tear into someone if they provoke me but if some incompetent wishes to learn his trade the last thing he needs is someone to destroy his confidence when it is highly likely that the critic is just as bad as he is.

Now I didn't say that it was necessary to do a bad demonstration to sell something. I merely said that a bad demonstration sometimes is good for sales. The fact that he didn't sell anything when you were there means absolutely nothing. The only way to judge these things is how much was in the till at the end of the day. And the only person whose business that is would be Marvin himself or one of his managers.

As for Davenports or International Magic that is a different situation entirely. They are magic shops. Hamleys is a different kettle of fish altogether. And time wasting magicians who don't buy anything are a distraction from sales anyway. Your presence would have been improved by your absence.

Your approval of his work should not be his concern. His function is to make Marvin richer than he already is not to humour time-wasters who come in to make judgements just to show how superior they are.

As the good book says "Judge that ye be not judged"

You appear to have blown this out of all proportion and entirely misunderstood the intention of my initial post, so I'll just leave it there rather than respond. At least we agree on one thing - that we disagree.

We do indeed disagree. I am not impressed that when he asked if you would like to see the svengali deck that you actually agreed. You should have told him straight away that you did magic and saved him a wasted demonstration.

Real svengali pitchmen (and there are very few left) do not like magicians hanging around because they are of no use to man or beast. They waste our time and never buy anything.

However I am glad to drop the matter. As anyone will tell you I am not the sort to indulge in arguments.

I have seen magicians performing at Hamleys about 15 times over the past 6 years.
The first time was when I first became interested in magic. I didn't know where to find magic, so I went to Hamleys as I thought that was the place I could find some. One of the effects shown was the split deck. He did explain that they had got mixed up during the day but tried his best and managed to make it work. I realised how it worked and bought them as I thought that was brilliant. That was before I had really got into magic, so it was through the eyes of an interested member of public. Recently, I have been more interested to see just how much they can get for some of their products, but that is another subject. What I did realise is that they have to demo products which might require a setup. They can't just leave it like you can in a table hopping gig etc. THEY HAVE TO SHOW IT IF ASKED, as they are being paid to sell them. however much anybody likes magic, these jobs must be a nightmare. Several hours of having to demo the same few props and persuasding them to buy them must be a nightmare. From what I experienced when I first saw them and what I have seen since, once you have the item and it is clear you are heading to the checkout, they will give you extra advice.

I would say it is hard to judge ability under these situations. I have seen the same person look good and look rubish, at different times.

It is not often I read Marks posts or agree. He did make some valid comments about the need for them to be demonstrating to sell, rather than to give a performance to entertain.
In their situation it is a bit like they have to talk through a script like they are reading, rather than acting it like an Oscar winner.

A mistake by them could let people know how to do something, but nothing which will harm magic, because these kits etc are available in so many places. If children and adults see how it is done and feel they could do it, they are more likely to buy it.

I would say that Davenports and International have a different client to Hamleys, who have people going in there for the name, then end up buying some magic sets they thought were interesting.

Sorry, having a bad reaction from agreeing with Mark. Gone for a lie down.

I have no objection to Darrel lying down. It is the getting up that tends to disturb me.

mark lewis wrote:I have no objection to Darrel lying down. It is the getting up that tends to disturb me.

There's some innendo in there somewhere....

well mr mark is correct, in ways. I hated it because I couldn't just perform, which is what I enjoy. I had to get the sales, but I am so practiced in flourishes and flawless presentations (bearing in mind they were simple effects, the presentation *was* flawless ) that they all thought it impossible. In some ways, the only way to get the sale was to reveal the secret in that it was very simple

I saw a cr@ppy magician sell more not because he messed up, but because his handling wasn't amazing...maybe he was actually the "better" magician in this sense, in that he achieved the goal he set out to...

Exactly. Sometimes the crappier you are the more you sell but not of course not always. However enought to prove the point.
I have seen it happen myriad times.

My best demonstrator was a lady who was not a magician and did all the tricks wrong but she sold more than anyone else. Every time she got the trick wrong she would slap her arm and say "Ann! You really are a silly girl!"

I don't think I ever remember a single occasion when she would show all the cards to be all the same and they actually were. Every time there would be loads of indifferent cards showing among the nine of hearts key cards.

She would sell 100 decks at a time in one day. And she never got the trick right once.

No. You don't necessarily have to be good at the trick to sell it.