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I have a large charity gig coming up and while my fee is going to be somewhat small, the organisers have agreed to give me 'publicity to all 1300 attendees'

I really want to use this to my best advantage and so wondered if you guys had any tips on this. Of course they will publicise the fact that they have a magician coming to the event on posters/websites but what else should i be asking/telling them to include?

many thanks,

Alex

If you have a website then make sure that they include your website site address or some contact details. I always take business cards with me so everyone can get one. That will really help in getting your name out. If there is a local paper coming down to take photographs then make sure you try to get in the pictures. Tell the reporter a liitle about yourself, they will probably put a small piece in the paper.

business cards, brochures, etc on every table....maybe a chance to do an effect infront of the entire croud to for one of the organizers...they then will need to do an intro and they can run through a quick bio....I am assuming that you are doing a roaming performance, and wouldn't be upfront with the mic anyway....if you are then what I said wouldn't make much sense to you.

Look at how the organiser is marketing their event and ask if they will include you in their ads as one of the attractions.

Business cards always but forget the flyers. Expensive and everyone always throws them away.

cheers guys - will make sure i litter the place with business cards.

Should I get posters made up and get a few of them on the walls near to the vicinity where I am performing? I say that because this event will be in a large building with many rooms - each holding different attractions. Will be some what wasted putting these into a room that no one can see a magi.

another point on posters - i think i may be able to 'make' the organisation create one for me. Its a student event and they will probably assign a particulary gifted IT/graphic person to design a poster - so mabey I could get a pro poster done as part of payment which would be up at the event.

Forget the posters is my advice Keep it simple and use the saved time that you would have spent designing one, to focus on the magic

A question of ethics - would it be unethical of me to demand @ this free charity event that they have no other magicians there? It simply is that it is quite large gig and there are at least a couple of students in my area in the same position as me ie branching out into semi-pro. I went to the trouble of getting the booking and ill probably be able to nab a reporter and simply for the purposes of competition ideally I wouldnt want someone else gaining lots of credability.

Perhaps this makes me a bad person, but hey - I got to eat

Also - I have a friend who is top editor of the epigram (student newspaper). Wouldnt mind asking him to do a 'report' on me as such but have no idea how these things work. Should I, say, do a few tricks to him on a random night out and then say - "hey, you know what would be really great..."

Cheers anyway

Persuade them that they should have a projector of all the people involved in helping at the event...and each persons logo details etc is on loop on a huge projector.........INCLUDING YOURS!

ive done this a few times, and it works really well, cos A. everyone can see your email contact details photo etc even if you dont get round to seeing them, and B you can use the big image as part of a trick....for example have a selected card be poking out of the pocket of your jacket in the big projected image of you...................

Usually a big organiser will go for this because its a good way for everyone there to see who was invloved and the other businesses will agree to it cos its promotion for free on a big screen with 1500 looking at it for free.............plus they will another 50- 100 thousand people cos they shud all have mates...............

-hope my lil rant helped







GET THEM PROJECTING YOUR AR*E !

I didnt literally mean project your Ar*e

I was thinking....GRAND SCALE EFFECT!

Surely the organisers will do a speach.
If so ask if you could do a stage effect involving the audience at that time (Tossed Out Deck)

If it's later on and you've already performed, you could draw a circle or something on the back of some of your business cards, and ask if anbody has a circle on the back of the business card they were given come up.
Grand mentalism thing on stage.

Just an idea, I think would go down well.

ALso, business cards and posters would obviously be good.