After a year of performing exclusively over zoom, I am now back to performing at actual real life events! Busy rooms full of happy excited and often drunk people craving some magic and then demanding more and more and more! Magic is an addiction and help is out there should you need it.
At the moment I am performing 50/50 virtual and in person events. To be honest, the in person events are exactly like they were pre-pandemic. Only at one gig have I had to wear a mask, and whilst I am ready to keep my distance from guests if needs be, I have found they are right up in my face most of the time anyway – most people don’t seem to bothered.
However with the threat of new variants and potential lockdowns ever present and in the case that a lockdown is enforced – then events can easily turn virtual.
This December I am looking forward to the mix of the two. Last year I performed between 60-70 events on zoom and in the years previous I would be running all over London from Christmas party to Christmas party. This year I have a lovely balance where somedays I am leaving the house and somedays I am not. There are even days when I am returning to my flat in-between In-Person events several times to perform zoom magic at virtual events.
This new medium of entertainment is here to stay I believe, and whilst I don’t know to what extent – it will always be a fantastic option, especially for companies and families who reside very far apart.
Nothing will replace a great party at a real location, but certain corporate social events are actually better suited to being online than in person. Requiring less investment from the attendees when they can stay at home and simply tune in for an hour or two, means higher engagement rates and personal interaction. In particular when you offer people something entertaining like an online magic show, it serves as a fantastic incentive to motivate them to come along.
Having said that, I have greatly enjoyed returning to in-person events also, it is lovely to be around people and to enjoy all the little one to one conversations you end up in, that don’t happen in the virtual world.
When zoom shows first arrived in the scene, many people were performing the same tricks. However after several years, we have all gone off on our creative tangents and very little crossover is now taking place. On top of this, the very best creative minds in magic are constantly coming up with new magical ideas, and the format looks set to grow well into the future.
One of my favourite ways to perform at an in-person event is a style called the ‘Mystery Room’. This is when a dedicated room in the venue is given to the magician, and people come into the room, one small group at a time, to get a private magic show before sending the next group in.
This is a fantastic intimate way to experience Magic. Everyone gets personal attention, the magic is seen close up, you can interact with the audience around you, and everyone gets to know each other like a little magical family. Once the show is over, the audience is asked not to tell anyone what happened, but they are allowed to tell people how it made them feel. This creates an electric atmosphere and soon people are queuing up to enter the room.
Magic has immense values in all three stages of it. Before, during and after. The anticipation of looking forward to seeing something magical, wonderful and incredible is intoxicating and should be savoured. The experience of the magic itself, assuming the performer is brilliant will be exhilarating and satisfying. But then the aftermath, when the experience becomes a memory is arguably where the real magic happens. This is when astonishment turns into anecdote, and what you have seen becomes a story you might just share with people for the rest of your life.
