Ring 216 kicked off 2023 with a special lecture by one of the Bay area’s top magicians, David Gerard. Due to continuing heavy rains and flooding, President David Martinez restricted the meeting to on-line only. The lecture, on January 11, attracted dozens of Zoom participants.
After an introduction by Colin Cloud, David gave an action-packed, no-holds-barred extravaganza of a talk on what it takes to be a magic professional and what he was doing to try to achieve his aspirations. With great energy he explained the essential marketing concepts he used, the need to identify one’s desired market and how to go for it, the necessary aspects of becoming professional – image, clothing, networking, web site, responsiveness, pricing. He emphasized the need to choose how one keeps score to know how well goals are being achieved, and how he imposed on himself the highest of goals.
In the second part of the evening, David focused on some of his favorite effects, those he did for attendees close up before or after his set show: a stunning card effect, an interactive coins across, and some classic mind reading. He enthusiastically went over what he had kept or discarded over time in the constant search to improve their presentations—to become memorable to those people who next need to hire an entertainer.
