talkmagic.co.uk

I DO perform corporate. Thanks for for tips

Oops - sorry No offence intended.

NO NO NO! None taken! Your suggestion was great. I am going to get my promotional pack ready and take it my local holiday camps. Many thanks for helping

Just a word of warning on the "holiday park entertainer" job - the resident entertainer team get minmum wage and work 48 hours a week. Oh, and then they take off rent etc for your chalet...

However...

Your best bet, if approaching holiday parks directly, is to go to independent holiday parks - those that aren't part of a chain... I think in the Yarmouth area you're looking at Potters (near Hopton, one seriously classy and posh joint - it's where they hold the crown green bowls world championship or something) and the Vauxhall Holiday park, JUST outside Gt Yarmouth on the way to Norwich.

Good luck with that, mate. You'll have a blast!

I'm thinking of doing some regular restaurant work next year.

How did you get the restaurant work ? How did you target which ones to approach ? How did you make the approach ? Were they all willing to use you or what excuse did they make not to use you ? Did you do any free shows before they committed to paying you ?

I too have had a very very good start, so many coming through it became hard to cope so i have laid back a bit (when i say so many i mean i had 2 last week, thats a lot for me as i work other places as well)

A big thanks goes to Happy Toad aka Ethan for giving me a good gig, Thanks Mate!!

i have slowed down a bit as there is a lots going on ie plans of getting married etc, but still gonna be doing some here and there to keep the experience going...


Jags

I'm pleased with myself for reaching a third freelance Xmas without going bankrupt, despite the Inland blummin' Revenue insisting they tax me on money I haven't earned yet, grrr!
.

I am pleased with myself because at the beginning of this year i knew 1 **** card trick, and now i know a few **** card tricks! Just kidding! Im just happy to be in the world of magic and am thoroughly enjoying myself! I might even start doing walk abouts and performing for a few strangers soon. Its great!

I suppose I'd better join in with the self-congratulaions....

Having decided to get into magic outside of church services (I'm a vicar person in the Church of England) I have just got through my audition for membership of my local club.

AND

Since deciding to get out and work have done my tenth gig since the end of September when I made the decision.

Well done to each and every one of us.

AND

I really enjoy being with such a nice bunch of people (so I'm smug about having joined TM too!).


Vic

TM is probably the best thing that has happened to me, magic wise

A big thanks goes to Happy Toad aka Ethan for giving me a good gig, Thanks Mate!!

No problem, glad to be of help

Thought I'd just raise my head above the parapit (what is a parapit???), and introduce myself as a new member! I'm currently trying to make a living with my magic. My bread & butter at the moment is kids shows, which are all well and good but I yearn to work restaurants. Have approached several and they've all made the right noises, but none have commited as yet. What do you find is generally the right amount of money to ask for? Money is obviously the big deciding factor with most restaurants. If I ask for the same as I get for my kids shows, they look at me like I'm insane!

I wondered if a nominal fee plus tips might work better? Of course then you have to encourage the actual giving of tips by the punters, but then who said it would be easy?!

Any ideas, tips? TIA

Personally I would never work for tips in this country, people here are just not geared for paying tips and it would make the approach to the table that much harder as you would need to make sure they understood that a tip was expected. The result would be a lot of tables would say they didn't want to see and that would look bad to your employer.
The next thing you want to look at is how long you would be performing in a restauraunt, I've found around 3 hours is usually about right. For you it might be good to try a family restaraunt as you could utilise your children's skills but still be taking the step into restauraunts. For price you need to be looking at around £150, which is less than you would make for per hour with children's gigs but you don't often get 3 hours straight of childrens gigs.
The key to getting restaurants is your selling ability, because very few of them have ever seen magic working in a restauraunt, so it's up to you to paint the picture and then go and exceed their expectations. In our case for example we provide table top tent cards and posters for them to use to promote the magic, we regularily get a press release for them, we also draw in extra people from the word go as we tend to get people that follow us around to watch us perform, or to check us out prior to booking us. So there is a whole package of things you must do aside from doing a great job of entertaining the tables.

Thanks Happy Toad, that's good advice. I spent much of this afternoon trudging around a decidedly wet Sheffield, going into restaurants to be told that the manager is in a meeting etc. A little disheartening, but people's eyes always light up when you tell them you're a magician, and that's always nice.

I must have approached around 12 restaurants over the past 48 hours, and not one has asked me to do a trick yet!!! How weird is that? However I'm beginning to suspect that my sales pitch might have more impact if after I'd introduced myself, I pull out a deck of Bicycles and say "Pick a card, any card..." and lead straight into a stunning trick. I think that might sell me better than any sales patter ever could! Yes - definetely try that Monday!

The best of luck to you. I am sure things will start to happen for you soon.