“Should we book a magician or a comedian?” I get that question often, when someone has a date in the calendar and needs to find entertainment for the party. And it is a sensible question, because the two do not do the same thing to an evening. Here is what each of them gives a room, and why I ended up doing both.
What a magician does for the party
Magic creates wonder. Something very particular happens in a room when 40 people see the same thing and none of them can explain it. People look at each other, they laugh, and they start talking about it afterwards.
The big advantage is that it asks nothing of the guests. You do not have to dance, sing along or know the other people at your table. You just have to be able to be surprised, and most people can, whether they are 8 or 80. Magic is also flexible in practical terms. It can be a single show for the whole company, or right up close at the tables while guests arrive or wait for the next course.
What a comedian does for the party
Comedy does something else. It delivers the big laughs and the shared breathing space where everyone in the room laughs at the same thing at the same time. At a corporate party it might be an affectionate remark about something everyone recognises from the working day, and suddenly the mood has loosened up.
Stand-up, on the other hand, makes greater demands on the setting. The guests need to be able to hear, it needs to be reasonably quiet, and they should ideally be seated or standing together. If people are scattered around the bar in the middle of a lively party, comedy has a harder time landing than a trick that can be done for five people at a time.
Why you do not have to choose
I started out as a magician and came to comedy later, because I got a Christmas party booking where I suddenly had to perform for a whole room instead of a small group. I have written about that story in my previous post.
Today the two have grown together into one thing for me. A show is rarely only magic or only comedy, it is a mixture, and the balance gets adjusted to whoever is in the room. That is the biggest advantage of booking someone who does both: you do not lock the mood of the evening in beforehand. If the company is more subdued than expected, I can let the magic take up more space. If they are ready from the first second, I can turn up the comedy.
I do of course give it some thought in advance, but it is largely something I sense during the first few minutes of performing. If they are already laughing at the first thing I say, there is room for more talk and more jokes between the tricks. If they are sitting back, waiting, wanting to see something they cannot explain, I let the magic fill more and keep the talk and the jokes shorter. That kind of adjustment along the way is what decides whether a show lands with a room, or is merely delivered.
What suits your party?
It mostly depends on what else is happening that evening.
At a wedding there are often speeches, songs and a programme that is already full. Here, magic close to the guests works well, because it can sit in the reception. Otherwise a shorter act of 10 to 20 minutes in front of all the guests can fit nicely between courses without taking up a whole slot in the programme, and because it lands with both the bride's grandmother and the youngest cousins.
At a corporate event there is usually room for a single act with the whole company together at once. There the comedy side is typically more prominent, because colleagues have shared references to laugh at.
At a private party, an anniversary or a milestone birthday party a mixture usually works best. A little close to the guests first, while they are arriving, and a full show later, once everyone has settled.
Shall we find the right mixture for your party?
The short version is that you do not have to choose between wonder and laughter. You just need to work out what suits your particular evening.
If you would like to see what that looks like in practice, have a look at the video page or read what previous clients have said on the reviews page. And if you have a date you still need entertainment for, then write to me here with the date, the venue and the number of guests, and we will work out what suits best.
