Coventry Magician – A performance diary

I’m going to use this section of my website to describe some of the typical events I have performed at in the Coventry area over the years. Whilst I have every intention of keeping this updated, writing about my every performance (when I’m currently doing about 200 a year throughout the UK) will be extremely tedious and repetitive and I doubt anyone will want to read too much information. Therefore I will probably just describe one or two events.

Corporate Show Coventry Magician 

On Monday night I had the pleasure of performing at the beautiful Coombe Abbey just outside of Coventry. This is one of my favourite places in the country to perform, a stunning location with some of the most friendly helpful staff who kept offering me food and drinks throughout the night, I blame venues like this for the reason I’m struggling to fit into any of my suits. I need to learn to say “no thank you, I wouldn’t like another sandwich”. 

Enough about my ever expanding waist line. The booking came through a London based events company who were organising a corporate event for a large pharmaceutical company. We initially spoke on the phone where I made a few suggestions as to the type of performance I felt would work best for the event. It was for a small group of about 20 people. They’d be at the hotel all day, taking part in a sales conference. In the evening they would be meeting for drinks and a formal 3 course meal. My suggestion was for a close up performance during the drinks followed by my dinner show throughout the meal. Following a virtual meeting over Zoom in which I demonstrated to the client a couple of my mind reading routines we agreed to go ahead with the booking. I won’t bore you with contractual details here, all I will say is that I try to keep the paperwork side of things as simple as possible. I send over to the client a list of questions. Once I receive the details I will send over a booking confirmation and the all important invoice and that’s the boring stuff out of the way.

Before any show I will try and get as many details as possible about the client and the nature of the event so I can structure the show around the client, ensuring that every performance is completely unique. For events of this nature where I will be performing for a large group (as opposed to close up) I have four separate shows, this is mainly because I often perform for the same client again over the years and I can always guarantee they will see a different show every time. When it’s a brand new client I need to decide which show will work best for them. I will always take with me material and props for two different shows just in case I turn up at the venue and decide I need to make some last minute changes, this rarely happens but it’s always best to be prepared. The other main thing I do before any event is check out the venue and look at the room I will be performing in. This can generally be done via the internet and by the speaking to the venues event manager. I like to see pictures of the room I will be working in so I can ensure sight lines are good and decide where in the room I will be performing. Where necessary I can find out what the venue has in the way of PA and microphones (I can supply my own where necessary). My requirements at a venue are fairly minimal, usually just a couple of tables to set up on (again I can bring my own where necessary). Over the years I have simplified the set up for a show to keep things as easy as possible for the client.

I always like to arrive at a venue early on the day of a performance this ensures I’m not stuck in traffic, panicking I won’t arrive in time and gives me plenty of time to set up, talk to the client, check if there are any last minute changes and relax before show time. On Monday I arrived by 4pm which gave me 3 hours to set up. I met with the client who showed me the room the dinner would be taking place in, there were no changes to the plans and the venue had kindly set up a table for me exactly where I needed it so my set up for the show only took about 30 minutes leaving me a couple of hours to relax.

At 7pm the guests started to arrive for drinks. As soon as everyone had drinks in hand and were settled in I started with a brief close up performance. This entailed mixing with small groups of people performing a few informal mind reading routines. Here’s a typical close up routine; I will hand someone a piece of paper, something has been written on it but it’s folded up for the time being. I will then ask someone to imagine an invisible pack of playing cards and taking one of the cards out of the deck. When they open the piece of paper they will see the name of the card they are thinking of was written down in advance. Following this I may ask someone to draw a picture I will then attempt to read their mind and reproduce the picture they have drawn (I’m a very bad artist so it will be a childlike reproduction). This is a very basic close up routine but typical of something I may perform in informal settings such as this. I only performed close up for about 30 minutes before the guests sat down for dinner.

The guests were having a three course meal so they show was divided into 3 acts of about 20 minutes each performed in between the courses of the meal. It’s always important when doing this to have made arrangements with the kitchen before hand to ensure they know how long we require between each course. Nothing worse than the serving staff arriving with plates of food just as I’m reaching the finale of my act. It’s also imperative that I run to time so as not to anger the chef by making them wait until they can bring out the food. Coombe Abbey is probably one of the most efficient places I have performed so their timing was perfect. My preference is for the first act to be performed once people have set down, before the first course, the second act between the starter and main course and the final act before desert. Some clients request a the final act after desert but I often find by this point people want to get up, stretch their legs, go to the toilet etc and so it can be much harder to keep people seated. 

As for the show, this is probably the most important part and the area I’m going to give the least details on. I prefer to keep this secret so it will come across as a surprise if you ever get to see my show. Throughout a performance I will include the entire audience. Some routines will involve every audience member others will require between 1 to 5 people at a time who will be called up front to help me. It’s hugely important to me that any audience member who helps me is treated with respect, nothing I hate more than a magician who thinks it’s funny to embarrass an audience member. The show is made up of mind reading, psychological illusion, making predictions and demonstrating the amazing abilities of the human brain. There is a narrative throughout the show which leads up to a dramatic finale which I was very pleased to receive a standing ovation for on the night. The show was a huge success to the extent that the client booked me again for another event later in the year, which is always my favourite compliment. After the show I will always stay later to chat to the guests about the show and perform a few more close up routines for anyone who wants to see more. Then it’s a case of packing up (my least favourite part of a show) and back on the road to my next show.

Hopefully the above will give you some basic idea of what booking one of my shows entails. If you’re interested in booking a Coventry magician for your event please get in touch for more details.