Hospitality suite entertainment at the F1 Last weekend was again the F1 in Singapore. A lot of companies, especially banks take this opportunity to connect with their most important clients and invite them to a hospitality suite with great food and usually access to the race or the pre-qualifying. I have in the past provided […]
Last week I was hired as close up magician Singapore at a private birthday party at the Grand Hyatt. The person who hired me had seen me before at the Mezza9 Sunday brunch. It was a small group of 10 people in a function room at the Hyatt. I decide to do 30 min Parlor Show. This type of show is ideal for a smaller function that is hosted in a restaurant or at your home, like a private party or a company dinner event. The show is a mix of close up and effects that can be played for audience up to 80 people. I can be played almost any environment and the client does not have to prepare anything. The show went well and I had a great time with my audience.
Last week I performed for Greenlam at the launch of the new laminate collection. It was a cocktail event and they booked the roving magician package. The event was held at Bugis Plus in a theater on the 7th floor. I have been to that building many time but I had no idea that it has a great block theater in there. It was a cocktail event and my job was to entertain Greenlam’s clients while they were waiting for the launch. I created my usual customized card effect using the Greenlam logo. However the challenge the client had given me was to incorporate their new collection in a presentation as well. I came up with a mind reading effect using the 12 new laminates. I showed the participant a list with the laminates and an envelope. They thought of one of the laminates on the list. I opened the envelope and inside was a piece of paper with their selected laminate written on it. The client was happy with the customized presentation and I will add this trick to my performance at the Grand Hyatt using items from the brunch menu.
This week I was hired to do a stage show at the AOCC Commissioning Ball, at the W hotel on Sentosa. All guys in Singapore are called to serve the nation in the army, doing whatever guys are supposed to do best. At the end of the 2 year term the officer cadets have a ball. I was part of the event entertainment doing 2 sets of 20 min during the dinner. The MC that night was one of the local celebrities Chua Enlai. He is a Singaporean stage and television actor, best known for his work on the Mediacorp Channel 5 sitcom The Noose. The closing act was Hossan Leong a Singaporean TV Host and comedian. I enjoy other event entertainment acts, because it gives you the opportunity to see how they structure their show and how they communicate with the audience. Since I am a foreigner in Singapore I always try to find out what works and what doesn’t. I still have a lot of work to do for my stage act and it is not about the tricks.
Mind reading with an audience member:
Last weekend I did a show at private event at the Marriott Hotel in Singapore. It was a solemnization of marriage. The audience were all Singaporeans and some selected guests from China. When you work as a Magic performer Singapore you almost always have a mixed bag of people. Since I only speak German, English and some Japanese I face sometimes the challenge to have a table, like in this case where nobody speaks the language. For this reason I added a couple of effects to my my performance repertoire that are visual and do not rely on language. Sure the performance of these pieces is better when you can communicate but sometimes this is not possible and I see it as my job to be able to still entertain the clients.
This week I had a terrific performance. I performed at 16 tables and about 50 percent were requested. I had a bunch of repeat clients who brought friends to the brunch and see the performance – this is great for restaurant magicians because things like this keep you in business. I also had the pleasure to meet a client of mine who had booked me for other events in the past. She heard from my newsletter that I am performing at the Grand Hyatt Singapore and came with her husband and friends to see the performance. I recently created a new handout. It is basically my business card but I can attach a playing to the inside and I can write a personal message. I think that people rather keep that than just a playing card. Let’s see after I have handed out the first 500 what the responses are.
Axis Bank India was looking for corporate entertainment Singapore. They found my website and I was hired to perform at their Sales Award Dinner last week Saturday at the Swissotel The Stamford in Singapore. They flew in 300 of their top performers from India for a weekend in Singapore. Some of these guys had never been overseas and it was the first trip. I was booked to do a 20 minute stage performance. Since my act doesn’t use any big props but relies on audience interaction, a good sound an light equipment was essential. This was all top notch. The event organizer was Kaleidoscope from India and they handled it great. Axis Bank flew in their Master of Ceremonies as well. The reason was that the audience came from all parts of India and they need someone who could pronounce all the names correctly in the main dialects. The performance went ok but I realized that even so everybody spoke English a lot of my lines fell flat. I believe it due to the fact that the humor is different and comedy and comic lines are a lot subject to education and background. I want to re-script my program to be more descriptive and leave out some of the jokes. Lessons learned. Here is the picture (stage view) of the function room before people came in.
When you work as a corporate Magician Singapore you are sometimes booked for events that are not a regular performance like at party or corporate dinner. I am currently hired by MasterCard to support their launch of a new program called Priceless Surprises.
Basically I have to come out twice an hour and perform a quick bit for the current winner. I sometime think this is not ideal for Magic since you are used as gadget. However I believe it is your job to your best to perform a good show for the client regardless of the setting. During one of the performances I had 2 ladies on the platform with me and their faces were the perfect match for the tagline of the campaign a priceless surprise. I hope that the on site photographer got a snapshot of that. Basically it is important to have fun with any given situation this positive attitude transcends to the people watching and they ‘usually’ like what you do. I will do 4 more of these at Sentosa and at the MasterCard Theater at Marina Bay Sands.
One of my repeat customers My Private Chef hired me to do close-up/strolling/roving at a big event at the Gardens by the Bay at the flower field hall. My Private Chef specializes in high-end private and corporate hospitality events. What makes us unique is that they focus on the whole occasion from the menu, custom designed by one of the top chefs in their portfolio. The client was BNP Paribas a French bank and financial services company. They had about 300 invited guests for this cocktail event. Since I can cover about 100 people in an hour I hired another magician to perform with me. His name is Solomon a local magician with excellent close-up skills. We have done quite a number of events in the past and he fits the bill for corporate events, especially for an international crowd.
Restaurant magicians face sometimes the obstacle of smaller crows at their residence performance place. At the Hyatt this is usually no issue since they have an average of 250 – 300 guests every Sunday and in 2 hours I can cover at the most 100 people. However today there were only about 150 guests due to a lot of short notice cancellations and I could cover about two thirds of the tables. At the restaurant I worked prior to the Hyatt. we had usually between 8-15 tables for the brunch and it was easy to get around. The trick was to stay around longer and chit chat more, but that’s part of the job. I believe if you are not a people person you can’t do close up magic. Until next week.