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Well, there you go, contradicting yourself!

I recommend Lommy wears a revealing top and stands just slightly too close to her spectators. Will work wonders for misdirection, feel free to muck up all your sleights!

you obviously don't have to get around everyone

This is wer Magicians fall down at the first hurdle!

The answering being "Yes you do" Your being paid to entertain that crowd of people, so gte booked for the correct time to do that....I stay longer and unpaid until Im satisfied that everyones happy...Its like paying for the cinema and someone turning the film off half way through...Ok some people might not want to see Magic but everyone that does must be performed to....And theres the classic line that I always hear

"well there was a Magician at the last event we went to, but we didnt see him"

or

"A magician? tonight? we didnt see one"

All the best with it Lady of Mystery, I am sure that you will sort it and do a great job.

Congratulations on getting a gig like this, all credit to you.

Please let us have a report afterwards.

Magic Chris wrote:

you obviously don't have to get around everyone

This is wer Magicians fall down at the first hurdle!

The answering being "Yes you do" Your being paid to entertain that crowd of people, so gte booked for the correct time to do that....I stay longer and unpaid until Im satisfied that everyones happy...Its like paying for the cinema and someone turning the film off half way through...Ok some people might not want to see Magic but everyone that does must be performed to....And theres the classic line that I always hear

"well there was a Magician at the last event we went to, but we didnt see him"

or

"A magician? tonight? we didnt see one"

A couple of years ago I was requested to do magic at the univeristy AU ball, with potentially hundreds of people attending. I turned it down straight away. I thought having another magician involved would be a good idea but we still wouldn't be able to get round everyone.
In the end we decided to do the gig and got them to put something like "magicians Lawrence and Ian will be in bar area all evening" on the schedule for the evening. People knew we would be there, if they really wanted to see us they could. We performed to well under half the amount of people that had attended the ball but felt that everyone had been given the opportunity.

Good luck with it!

Can I ask where you're doing it? I've been to a few RN mess dinners over the years, most notably at HMS Collingwood!

I'm sure you'll do fine my friend.

I wouldnt worry too much about getting round everyone, not only do people congregate when they see something going on other than general chit chat, but word of mouth gets round, and people have a tendency to exaggerate and will make you sound even more unbelivable than its humanly possible to be. So sometimes the people who you didnt entertain will do more for you than those you did.

YOU CAN'T LOSE!!!!

Lawrence wrote:I recommend Lommy wears a revealing top and stands just slightly too close to her spectators. Will work wonders for misdirection, feel free to muck up all your sleights!

It's amazing how many of life's little problems can be solved with a little top.

I don't usually worry about making sure that I see everyone if I'm doing a mix and mingle type gig, I've always found it's fairly impossible to do that because they're always moving around. What I do is spend some time in each of the main areas and make myself fairly visible. I'll then keep an eye out for people who are looking interested in me.

If it's table hopping then I think it's very important that all the tables are visited and I'll always make sure that I do that.

Lady of Mystery wrote:

It's amazing how many of life's little problems can be solved with a little top.

....or a big bottom??

(I'll put my shin pads on now shall I?)

that's not something I'd know about, Flash.

As a few people have asked me already, I thought I'd let you know how I got on on Friday.

Well it was quite an odd one really.

The all arrived for their champagne reception and that's when I got started. Mixing and mingling with a set that was only a few days old. Also a little nervous as I'd decided to move a little bit away from my usual pink and fluffy style and more towards some straight faced mental type magic. The set was a book test, my psychic cluedo routine (an idea I pinched from Abraxus Iain ages ago but have only just go around to finishing), my version of Aniverary Waltz, the good old noughts and crosses prediction and a 3 in the hand 1 in the pocket coin routine. Well it went down brilliantly, I was worried about using the mental rountines because the last few times I've tried them, they've fallen flat but not this time. It was great listening to all the theories about how I'd psychologically influenced them through verbal prompts.

So I went into dinner on a high and I was back in my comfort zone with my tried and tested, pink and fluffy set. First table and out with the sponge bunnies, they fell totally flat. Oh well it happens sometimes so the next table and my puppy dog AC, that went down like a lead balloon as well. The next few tables were the same, terrible reactions, they just weren't getting it at all. Well the mental stuff worker earlier so lets try that again. Suddenly I'm getting the reactions again, how odd. So for the rest of the night I stuck with the mental magic, but how odd that my usual work horses fell over.

I was wondering, perhaps it's a class thing? Or was it my change of style between the first and second parts of the evening that caused the odd reactions?

Maybe the coin and card stuff seemed to them to be a step back since you started with the mentalism. If they already believe you can read their minds then an ACR might not have quite the same impact - kind of like visibly sawing yourself in half and then for the finale pulling a rose out of your sleeve.

Perhaps because you were a little nervous/excited about the newer material - that came over in the performance and therefore made those people feel excited too?

And, as said - in all fairness and respect to any card or coin workers reading this. Anything framed within a mental-power/influence way; WILL provoke stronger reactions than an ACR for example.

But that's with the caveat of both performers being equal obviously.

If you asked me to choose between Lennart Green doing card work, and Jay Sankey doing mentalism. Then give me Lennart any day.

But i digress, you obviously gave them something to think on, which is always good. Well done Lady of Mystery.

All sorts of possible reasons for this.

The fluffy stuff might not suit people in the forces. It might be a class thing, but I doubt it.

It could have been the shift after you did mentalism for your opening routine. Maybe mixing the two really is a bad thing! It might be because they preferred the mind stuff, or because regular magic suffers after doing strong mentalism material.

If you hit on the answer before Friday Lady of Mystery I could do with your advice. I have a set which mixes the sponge balls, the straight card magic and the mentalist stuff that I am hoping is going to go down well for Halloween

I've been having quite a think about this and I think what's been said before is probabaly right.

I started off with the mentalism, which really went down well. When I started at dinner people were probabaly expecting more of the same kind of thing and perhaps felt let down that I'd suddenly changed my style. Kind of like going to see an opera singer but when she comes on stage she sings Abba (not that there's anything wrong with Abba of course, to be honest I think I'd rather listen to Abba then opera but you get what I mean).