With over fifteen years of experience as a professional magician Birmingham , I am going to tip you the real secrets of hiring a high quality magician for your event, and how to avoid the low quality magicians that could actually do more damage than good to your event.
Simple Magicians jargon, the three main types of magicians:
o A magician that performs card tricks, coin tricks and smaller tricks, ‘street magic’ style, up close, either around tables, or in a drinks reception/mingling environment is called a Close Up Magician, Table Magician, Strolling Magician or even a Street Magician.
o A magician that performs magic on a stage or in a parlour environment is simply known as a Stage Magician, Parlour Magician or Cabaret Magician.
oA magician that performs mind reading or ‘Derren Brown Style Magic’ is known as a Mind Reader, Mind-reader, Psychological Illusionist or Mentalist.
A great magician can be worth their weight in gold at any event, it’s crucial if you want to not only provide entertainment for your event, but to enhance the atmosphere and give it that unique edge, choosing the right magician can be a little more ‘tricky’ than one might imagine. A high quality magician with years of experience won’t come particularly cheap, so here are my top tips to ensure that you get the best value for your money. Where magicians are concerned – you really do get what you pay for.
Ask Google or any search engine for a magician in your local area, and it will unmercifully spew out a brain overload of prospective close up magicians, children’s magicians, stage magicians, entertainers, mind readers, comedy magicians, illusionists, jugglers and many more – but who do you choose? How do you choose them? And, how do you know they will be the vital ingredient for your event?
If you’ve already began your search for a magician you will see many advertise on their websites the same buzzwords such as ‘Unforgettable’, ‘Unique’, ‘World Class Magician’, ‘Absolutely Amazing’, ‘Perfect for your event’ etc etc, but how much of that is fact, and how much of that is fiction? You will soon learn how to separate the truth from the embellished truth.
Firstly, decide exactly what kind of magician you think would be best suited to your event. To help you search with using search engines for the right magician for your event use the ‘magicians jargon’ terms along with the following to help your searches become that little bit easier.
If you want a magician that can mingle with your guests in a drinks reception type environment you will need to search for close up magicians in your local area; if you need a magician for a ball or dinner the same search terms or table magicians instead of close up magicians within your local area will give what you need, having a magician work around the courses is no problem at all to the professional, but the amateur may have a difficult time with organizing their entertainment around the meal.
If you are looking for a wedding magician, again you really do need somebody that specializes in weddings, not particularly someone that does the ‘whole shebang’ as it where – as the old saying goes don’t spread yourself too thin. Magicians that claim they can do everything from close up magic to fire eating, and from illusions to children’s parties, probably haven’t dedicated all the required time to the specific area you need them for. I strongly suggest not hiring a close up magician that also does children’s parties, unfortunately there are many great children’s entertainers out there, but many think that the same rules apply to entertaining children as entertaining adults – in reality it’s a completely different ballgame. Both are highly specialist arts.
Many children’s entertainers will learn some basic magic tricks and try to piggyback close up magic work from their children’s parties. Ideally if you want a children’s entertainer, find somebody that specializes solely in entertaining children and if you want a magician for adults find somebody that exclusively performs high quality magic for adults. Perhaps you want a cabaret magician, or stage type entertainment, there are many genres here; mind reading, comedy, stand up magic, hypnotism, illusions, ‘Tommy Cooper type’ magicians and so on, think what would be best for your event and guests – If you think your audience would appreciate a comedy magician more than say a mind reader, search around for comedy magicians in your area, a big tip here is to make sure they have at least one video of them performing, there is nothing worse than an unfunny comedy magician!
If you know the type of people at your event are not the kinds that like to be in the limelight, a hypnotist is definitely not for you! Good stage magicians and illusionists are usually quite good crowd pleaser’s, but it’s generally old fashioned style entertainment that won’t suit everybody. Illusionists and traditional stage magicians are ideal if you have international guests as they have ‘non patter’ acts that are performed just to music. A good mind reading show can be extremely impressive, it can be completely baffling, entertaining your whole audience and even be very funny, however there is plenty of boring mind reading shows and not all of them are geared towards family audiences if there are children in the audience, again check references and videos.