David Copperfield brings the tour to west Canadian fans with a scheduled stop in Edmonton to perform three shows over two days.
If there is one thing Mr. Copperfield does well — and he does many things well but he does this one thing more well than any of the other things — it is advance work for his show.
Tickets for the Edmonton show are $56.00 CDN to $86.00 CDN for seats in the beautiful Rexall Place.
Mr. Copperfield knows he can please fans in those seats but he needs to get them into the theatre first.
That is where the advance work makes the difference between his show and so many other truck and bus tours. According to The Edmonton Journal article, Mr. Copperfield’s hard work has paid him as much as $57 million in one year.
To put that number in proper perspective, assuming there was no sales tax or shipping costs, $57 million would buy (at retail) 1,900,000 D’Lite pairs; or pay rent on the Inside Magic office for 4,750 years.
That is some serious coin. He could walk into any magic shop, in any town, and ask to see the most expensive trick — maybe The Bengal Net (U.F. Grant’s) or Passe Passe Bottles (the nice glass ones) or one of those Black Art Tables with the cool top — and he would not worry one second about dropping said trick.
Say he used a Phantom Tube in his act; he could produce REAL FISH and give them to the Birthday Girl or Birthday Boy. He would not need to worry about the smell because he could throw the Phantom Tube away after every show! He would not need rubber or production fish because he could use new fish for every show! What a great segue into Fresh Fish Sold Here Today.
He would never need to pick-up the cards tossed during Six Card Repeat or The Memorized Deck. He would just leave the cards scattered on the floor.
He could write all of his letters on Flash Paper. For kicks, he could Rough and Smooth his walls and his jackets so he would never need hangers. If he wanted to, he could fill his bathtub with Fanning Powder and just pour his cards in whenever he wanted. Mr. Copperfield could do The Miser’s Dream in each show he performs from now on and give the champagne pail filled with the coins to the kid from whom he pulled many of the coins.
He could buy the lecture notes and all the special gimmicks offered at any magic lecture he attended — even if already knew how to make the gimmicks himself.
With that kind of moolah, Mr. Copperfield could actually give bouquets of Spring Flowers to his girlfriends; rather than taking them back to reload and use again on someone else.
He could use a Stripper Deck (a nice Bicycle pack) as his normal, every day cards. He could do Nickles to Dimes and never use a Bang Ring.
If he ever started doing balloon animals, he could buy a dozen of those cool, rolling tables that have the built-in compressor to inflate the balloons quickly so he would have a better chance of getting tips from the moms and dads in fancy restaurants.
Torn and Restored Newspaper? Don’t even joke about it. He could hire someone to do the set-up and even use a newspaper of recent vintage. That means he would never get high or be afraid to shake the client’s hand.
Sponge Balls? “Hey, look, you now have four sponge balls in your hand. Keep ’em as a souvenir!”
He would be able to buy a set of Tarbell Course in Magic (all the way through volume eight) for every room in his house — even the bathrooms!
Plus, he gets to perform magic every day in front of big crowds and with great assistants and very cool illusions.
But maybe Mr. Copperfield is a success because he doesn’t squander his money on such foolish displays of largess. Still, there probably is a part of him that cannot believe his good fortune.
Back to the show in Edmonton: Surprisingly, he does not intend to perform his Levitation on the tour as it is currently scheduled. The magician did not give a reason why the effect was dropped from the show or if there were plans to bring it back.
Mr. Copperfield never fails to end his interview with a humanizing, sincere flourish.
When asked what he would have done if magic hadn’t worked out, Copperfield goes back to his own youth.
“I started out as a ventriloquist with my dummy, Ven, at the age of nine. So I would have to say that would be it.”
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