What does a successful event look like?
I can't answer that question.
At least, not without knowing more about your event.
There's no generic, one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on your expectations and, more importantly, the expectations of the people counting on you to plan this event.
What are they hoping to achieve?
Maybe the goal is to bring people together who don't normally interact. Maybe it's to give everyone in the room a shared experience. Maybe it's to celebrate, reward, impress, welcome, thank, or simply make sure that when everybody goes home, they're glad they were there.
That's where we start.
Not with, “How much magic do you want?”
But with, “What do you need to achieve?”
And you don't need to have that all figured out just yet. We'll figure it out together.
The entertainment has a job to do.
A room full of people isn't automatically a room full of people having a good time.
They arrive, find the people they already know and form little islands around the bar, waiting for dinner, waiting for the program, waiting for something to happen.
Cocktail hour is supposed to be social.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes everybody finds the four people they already know and sticks with them.
Putting entertainment on the schedule doesn't necessarily solve that.
The right entertainment can.
Good magic isn't just an entertaining way to fill time. It can connect an audience, turn strangers into friends, create a shared experience and leave your guests with something to talk about.
So before I can recommend a solution, I need to understand what the event actually needs.
Usually, that comes down to some combination of three things:
Connection. Engagement. Flow.
Connection
Give people a reason to talk to each other.
Close-up magic gives me a reason to move through those little circles.
I can break the ice between guests who might not have otherwise interacted, and by the time I move on, I've given them something to talk about that keeps the conversation going after I'm gone.
Engagement
Turn a crowd into an audience.
Attendance isn't the same thing as attention.
A stage performance gives the room a common focal point, but your guests aren't there just to sit quietly and watch me do tricks.
They're part of it, and their thoughts, choices, decisions and reactions become part of the performance.
Individual people get impossible experiences, while everyone else gets to share in them.
That's the difference between everyone being in the same room and everyone sharing the same experience.
Flow
Keep the event moving.
Dinner ran long.
The CEO needs another ten minutes.
The next speaker isn't ready.
The auction finished early.
Anyone who's planned an event knows that what's scheduled on paper and what actually happens in the room are not always the same thing.
That's where my role can become more than just the entertainment. I can also be the host.
When something changes, tell me what you need and I'll help get things back on track.
The planner owns the run of show backstage, while Michael Andrew owns the room front of house.
You make the decisions, and I’ll work with you.
Because the entertainment shouldn't become another problem you have to solve.
By the time I grab the mic, we're already friends.
I can start in the room, performing close-up and meeting your guests.
I create little moments throughout the room that bring people together. I learn their names, and I get to know them.
Then I take the stage. Now I can call back something that happened during cocktail hour, recognize somebody by name or bring someone I've already gotten to know into something the entire room gets to experience.
And if I'm hosting, that relationship carries through the rest of the event.
I don't wait until I have the microphone to start hosting. By then, I've already had a chance to meet the room, learn the room and connect with the people in it. Taking the mic is just the next part of the job.
Where do we start?
Maybe close-up magic makes sense to get people talking. It can happen while guests arrive or during cocktails, with me moving from group to group and performing right in their hands.
Maybe the room needs a comedy mind-reading act that brings everyone into the same experience. The performance can be built around the time and space you actually have.
Maybe the event needs hosting to keep everything moving when the schedule changes. I can introduce speakers, make announcements, bridge one part of the event into the next, fill time when it needs filling and get time back when it needs getting back.
Maybe the best answer is some combination of all three.
You don't need to know that yet.
What's happening? Who's coming? Why are they there? What are you hoping they'll do, feel or talk about afterward?
Because once we know what the event needs to achieve, we can figure out what the entertainment needs to do.
The idea is to support the event, not make the event work around me.
And perhaps most importantly:
When the event is over, what needs to have happened for you to say,
“That was a success”?
That's enough to start figuring out the rest.