Your Inner Circle Newsletter October 2008

INNER CIRCLE NEWSLETTER
October 2008

--INTRODUCTION--
September was busy, and October is going to be too. In September I performed in Barcelona and Salou in Spain as well as the usual UK corporate events, so I did get a little bit of sun.

Good news - PRICE DROP you will see that I have dropped the price of EVERY e-book by £5. So if you were ever interested in getting hold of the chair test, the drawing dupe or a book on my entire impromptu mental act it is now £5 cheaper to do that. Good times. See the links to the right for Exclusive Product Lines.

What else has been happening? Well this month I decided to re-examine my show and look at who I am, what my performance space looks like and how I can make it more dramatic, more amazing and engaging for everyone. It's something I feel must be done every now and again so I am still playing with what to have on stage with me to make it look 'pretty'.

--TALKING POINT--
It just came to me - do I always use this section to have a moan? I'm actually incredibly positive in my life so I don't have a clue why I tend to moan in this section of the newsletter. Something that I've been thinking about a lot recently is the problem that most performers suffer from and its the one thing that makes the difference between a really good act and a pretty good act - what's more it is something I struggle with myself, yes I am dealing with it but its a slow process.

The element I am alluding to is the character you portray vs how you actually look. Many performers of mentalism and magic in particular have one character in their mind and yet that is totally polar opposite to what we are looking at as an audience. I am the prime example of this problem, and I know it.

In my head I am a 24 year-old mixture between a sort of Bob Cassidy with his brash remarks and a helpful, polite young man. My physical appearence says that I am a 19 year-old guy with bright white spikey hair. This has good and bad results. The good thing is that when I deliver one of my harsh lines it's almost like "I don't beleiev that just came out of his mouth" but the other is that I can come across as an arrogant little ass. Which is far from desirable.

In the UK today there are many young guys who in their minds believe that they are Derren Brown, they talk as if they are in the region of 40 years old yet they have a physical age of just 17.

In my not so distant past I was an actor (trained and everything!!) and one thing that is drilled in to you is the difference between actual age and acting age. Your acting age is the age that you LOOK. This is what I think as performers we all need to look at. How do we look, what is a believable history to our characters?

Just for completeness, the way I am starting to overcome this problem for myself is by addressing my age right near the start of my programmes. I say something about my youthful looks, and tell them my real age. I follow this with a quick explanation of how I realised I could do this stuff.

At first I was reluctant to include my 'story' in performances because I thought that it was merely taking up time that I could be filling up with other routines. WRONG, as soon as I began taking 6 minutes out of my show, right at the start to tell my story I went from being a lad doign tricks in to someone who just might be doing this for real. It created context and explained exactly who I am so that the audience can believe along with me. In that openign speach I address the fact I look young, where my skills came from and inject humour to introduce my personality. It's worth thinking about.

--BUSINESS--
Do you perform 'public' shows? By this I mean, do you ever book a venue and sell tickets to it? If you do then you might find this month's business idea useful. If you don't do this then perhaps it will give you the inspiration to start.

It is often a lot of very hard work to fill those seats and make public shows worth the hassle. So any tips or pointers to making it work are very useful. This is something I did and had great success with it.

Let's start with a question. When you perform for a company, a private engagement or whatever what do you do after your performance? Do you keep a record of them, who they are, where they live etc? I do and it proved very useful when performing public shows.

Once someone has seen you show and enjoyed it, and I am sure they will have, they are sold on you, they trust you and your product. So if you go in to your database and look at the 20 mile radius of wherever it is that you are performing your public show and send an invite to that show to people who have already seen you perform in the past you have a much higher chance of them coming along.

Taking this a step further, I send the invite to the individual who made the booking with me and their invite is a free ticket. Its a small way of saying thank you for trusting me with their company event back in (whenever) and you'd like them to come along as your special guest. The response from this is very high and it fills a lot of seats and for two very good reasons. First of all they will tell everyone about your show because they got a free ticket. Second she (or he) will not want to come along alone so will invite other people to come, who will pay for their seats.

All of this just by keeping a database on who you perform for and where. Of course its important to stress that this is an all new show of demonstrations that go way beyond what you showed them last time, how excited you are etc etc.

--RECOMMENDS--
I read a really great book this month by Tony Eye called The Write Stuff. This is a really great approach to double writing, so great in fact that master mentalist John Riggs offered to write for foreword to it. That speaks enough on it's own.

Its available in e-book and physical format. I went for the e-type because I am one of those people who hates to wait. The book sis full of colour photographs showing the many techniques and variants on them from many angles which gives a fantastic understanding of what is going on.

Then along come the routines, some really fantastic ideas which have the gray cells fizzing around. A really nice piece and very affordable. Available from Leaping Lizards Magic (here's the link).

As usual I have been re-reading some of the things that have been on my shelf for a while. This month I re-read Larry Becker's Stunners PLUS!. Heck there are some absolutely amazing pieces of mentalism in this. How long is it since you read yours? Get it out and read it again. Of course some of the pieces in this have now become classics in their own right - and for good reason. There are still some over-looked gems in there that are not quite so commonly thought of including Out of Body II which I think is just phenomenal.

--IDEA OF THE MONTH--
This month's idea is just one of the solutions emailed to me by Wayne Rogers, it's a fantastic routine idea!

First, the specs draw on their cards and hold them face down.

Next, the performer shows 3 envelopes each with a post it note ”covering a number”. ie the envelopes are numbered and the numbers covered.

Each spectator is handed an envelope and told to drop their picture in it and seal it in. One spec mixes the envelopes and hands them to the performer.

Performer fans the three envelopes and asks one spectator which number envelope they want. If they say, “One” performer lifts each post it note to find

no. 1 and hands it to the spectator.

The other second spectator selects another number and is given that envelope.

Last spectator gets the last envelope.

Recap what has happened. Each person drew a picture and sealed it in an envelope. They each chose either 1, 2, or 3 and received that envelope.

All three spectator’s open their envelopes and they have somehow selected their own picture.

Solution: There are no numbers under the post-it notes. They are nail written on when the choices are made. You have secretly marked each envelope and know who it was given to. When they make their choice, select the correct envelope, lift the post it note to “check the number” and write the chosen number in before handing the envelope over.

NB I would be inclined to use some post-it glue stick in addition to the normal glue on the note pieces, just to be sure that they are not accidentally lifted to expose there is no number underneath.

Any further ideas? An opinion either email me or post a comment below.

--TO CLOSE--
So, some amazing ideas shared with me this month, if you have one let me know. Once again the £5 price drop is effective on every product under the Exclusive Product Lines on this page.

If you have something you'd like to say, an article you'd like to write, please do email me or prost a comment below.

Until next time, do take care!
Kennedy

"Do you have suggestions, an idea you want to share on the
newsletter. Email me info@mindofkennedy.co.uk!"