Awkward Moments at Lecture LandInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

On a scale from one to ten, with one being the lowest number and ten being the highest, I so dislike that awkward moment at the end of a lecture when the speaker has to transition from teacher to pitch-man.

It is so inelegant.

Many of the lecturers on the circuit today are such great teachers and such wonderful resources that one (that being the lowest number and also an adjectival pronoun for “me”) wishes they had the confidence to simply end the lecture and walk calmly to the sales table. Nine times out of ten (approximately 90 percent with rounding errors) we would follow the lecturer to the table and buy exactly those things we would have bought with the pitch.

Read On . . .

I saw Duane Laflin’s lecture and reviewed it very favorably here. Now, as we sat in the backroom at the finest shop in these parts, Garden City Magic Shop run by Carlos Blades, we all saw not only the lecture but also the extensive sale table inventory. The items took up two long tables and half of a third. There were bins upon bins filled with great stuff. Silks were flowing, palmo balls were palmo-ing and flags were mis-making before our eyes well-before the end of the show.

But Mr. Laflin, perhaps because of historical precedent or because of genuine insecurity based on real life experience, gave a short sales pitch for the items shown in the lecture. For me and those around me, the sales pitch was actually an impediment to spending our hard-earned credit limits. We were ready to spend. It was ten o’clock and while not all of the magicians surrounding me had to be back for curfew at the half-way house, it was late and any delay seemed interminable.

But, you may fire back, “What if they didn’t do the pitch-man shuffle towards the table? What if they lost one or two customers who expected the transition? For a lecturer, that is losing a significant portion of their income.”

It is so inelegant.

Read On . . .

I nod silently, sip my Diet Coke, take another wad of Red Man, scratch my arm to see if I still have a sun burn and nod again. That’s the problem with age-old traditions. For most lecturers ? in fact, all that I know of ? it is the sales from the table that make a stop worthwhile. It certainly isn’t the lecture appearance fee. If you took the appearance fee and divided it over each mile traveled to get to the appearance, you would exhaust your funds well before getting to the first truck stop.

Maybe there are some in the Inside Magic world that can provide insight into the need to pitch. It would be interesting to know if it has been empirically proven to provide sales that would otherwise be lost.

But we started out talking about the awkwardness of the moment. The example I gave was Mr. Laflin’s wind-up. His transition was smooth, made sense and wasn’t horribly awkward. The worst transition is found with lesser talents. In some cases, the transition is so embarrassing that you feel the fight-flight mechanism kick in. You are either going to buy something to make the lecturer feel better and provide some income or you’re going to run very far, very quickly.

We had a lecturer recently that I will call Mr. Bumble. You know him (he’s male) and you may have seen his lecture. He is in the B-grade realm of magicians/lecturers. (I would be in the D-grade so I am not being elitist. I only give myself a D because I usually bathe.) He presented his first half and made slight mention of his sales table. He pointed out that his traveling companion was watching the till and that she could take some credit cards.

It was very understated. I thought there was potential. His traveling companion was perhaps 20 to 25 years younger than him and did not look to have traveled in the same vehicle as Mr. Bumble. Her skirt was well pressed, her blouse looked to be free of Burger King Whopper spillage and it was clear she had a mirror available to her during her dressing/make-up process. Mr. Bumble looked as if he woke recently, fought some demons, ran water over most of his head before splashing it into his face, chewed half a pack of Dentyne, and then decided to just have a clump of hair of the dog that bit him.

He was a mess. She wasn’t.

His lecture was pretty good. It cost a little more than I am used to paying but it wasn’t being held at Carlos Blades’ Garden City Magic Shop. Actually, it cost a heck of a lot more than I am used to paying.

The lecture ended on a sour note. He flashed the gimmick on a “trick I’ve been working on” and then reset the trick, flashed more of the gimmick this time and was about to reset for the third time before he said to himself what many of us were thinking, “screw it!”

Despite the fact that the gimmick jammed twice and was exposed both time, and that the trick was one that Mr. Bumble was working on, he had it for sale.

“Well, that didn’t go like I thought it should. But you get the point. I’m still working on that one but I think it really makes a nice ending. It’s visual, big and, when the gimmick works, surprising to the audience that thinks it knows how its done.

“I think I told you before, about Deborah. She’s my traveling companion ? she sets up all the tricks before the lecture, so it’s her fault it didn’t work ? but she looks pretty anyway. I told you about her before now, right? She is playing cashier tonight and we have all of the tricks you saw tonight for sale.”

He proceeded to recap every trick presented. Not most of the tricks, not some, but every single trick he had performed. He explained what the tricks were made of and who inspired their production and how expensive it is to produce them. He told us the “Magic Shop Price,” his regular “Lecture Price,” and then his “Special Price” for tonight only.

The final trick came without the essential prop but that prop could be bought separately. I am being vague but imagine if it was a Cut and Restored Rope or Dye Tube Routine or Thumb Cuff Escape without the rope, silks, or thumb cuff. It was still the effect, sure, but you were left paying for a specially made outer thing-a-majig that did not work with his props much less the ones you would have to buy. I wish I could be more specific.

But he wasn’t done yet. You could also buy effects he did not teach or show ? or for that matter invent. He had some Michael Ammar Videos and DVDs, a scattering of Magic Makers brass stuff, packet tricks from all over the known universe and books by important magic authors. His lecture was a lead up to a flea market.

If you wanted his lecture notes, you could buy them from Deborah for $5.00. They were wonderfully photocopied onto 8-1/2″ X 11″ white bond paper. The cover alone probably took minutes to design, copy and fasten to the 17 pages of lecture material with galvanized steel staples.

I am being harsh. To be honest, he wasn’t as bad as all that but you get the point. The part about his final trick is true though.

So on a scale from one to ten; with ten being a larger number than one, and one being a lower number, this was a bad transition. Because this guy and his traveling companion are roaming the back roads of America with their photocopied notes and props belonging to others, looking for a place to set up their flea market table, people like Duane Laflin and Jay Sankey will have to perform their awkward transition.

Even if the lecture is terrible and ends with the now immortal words “screw it!” lecture attendees expect a pitch. Without a pitch, there is no cue to get up and walk forward towards the sales table as opposed to walking back towards the exit.

The great, then, are trapped into a routine established by the lousy. What a shame.