Debunking Criss Angel – Know Your Audience 2
This month, rather than trying to discuss “theory” about the business side of things, I figured I would attempt to lead by example. Continuing our theme from last month about knowing your audience, below is a story of a gig I had where I had to put together a very specific set for a very specific audience. It’s actually an old blog post I wrote several years ago, but that blog is now dead, so I thought I’d move the post to the magazine. I’ll let you read the story and learn what you want to learn from it. Enjoy.
I just recently had the strangest gig. I had a youth group leader who had some young men who were “believers” of Criss Angel. This may sound harmless at first, and maybe it is. However, the concern that this leader had was that these young men really believed that Criss Angel had real power and could do real “magic.”
If you’re a fan of Angel’s, you’ll note that he himself admits that he has no real power. So this youth group leader hired me to do a show/lecture to prove that Criss Angel does not have real power. Of course, I didn’t want to come across as an Angel-hater, so I structured the show to have three main phases:
- Magic isn’t real
- A mentalist Show
- Brief lecture about magic not being real
The first phase, “Magic Isn’t Real,” is where I spent a brief amount of time talking about the concept that, just as in a movie, there are special tricks and effects used to create a moment, feeling or emotion, etc., so too does magic use similar techniques to create similar events.
Magic Uses principles like misdirection, psychology, sleight of hand, gimmicks, and lots of practice. So, much like when you watch a movie, you suspend your disbelief and pretend that superman can really fly, let’s suspend our disbelief for the next half-hour or so and pretend that magic is real.
This really set the stage for a great show. The audience seemed to be much more interested in experiencing the moment rather than trying to figure out how things were done. I’ve since testing added this intro to my regular show. I had a show a week later where I used this same intro.
The show was pretty much my standard show with a few modifications. I tried out a couple of new effects from Sankey’s DVD, Hemispheres. Here are some of the effects:
- Lee Earle and Larry Becker’s “Ace Revisited.” – A book test with a dictionary
- John Archer’s Komedy Killer (my own modification of it)
- Finding Your Inner Superhero – An effect I created – basically a prediction of a chosen superhero
I did a few other effects, but they are ones I’m keeping to myself for now. Anyway, I usually do a different book test, but at this gig, I tried Larry Becker’s Ace Revisited and it killed. After the show everyone was talking about it.
The Archer thing I’ve been doing for years now, and this show, was the last show I’ll ever do it. I love the effect, but it’s just not playing the way I want it to, so until I can come up with a better presentation, it’s out.
The superhero bit has been a staple in my stand up act forever, and this particular show it played better than it ever has. The reason being is that I worked with a script/presentation consultant to improve the performance.
The Sankey effects that I did played well also. I just wanted to comment on the idea of constantly monitoring your show. This particular gig was a turning point for my show. There are new effects in and old effects out.
In the final phase, I briefly talked about how many of the things I just did, as impossible, as they seemed, there was some trick to it. In addition to the practice, I used psychology, sleight of hand, gimmicks, etc. I then spent some time talking about the fact that even Criss Angel himself admits that he has no power. Part of the presentation included an interview with Criss on the Penn and Teller show.
So the point of all my ranting is that by taking this particular gig, my show was taken to the next level. First of all, I was able to get a new introduction to my show that has now served me well for a couple of shows. Time will tell if it will hold out, but I think it will.
Secondly, I gained a new trick-set that is better than my previous show. I was able to test some new patter that worked well and thus improved my show.
Finally, as much as I’m not really an Angel fan, I gained a new level of respect for him after listening to the interview. So keep on giggin’ and keep on trying new ideas, and constantly improve your show. What did you learn?
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