Magicians are for a whole range of corporate applications – not just for weddings!

Corporate Entertainment Ireland - Shane Black

Most of us who have attended a wedding or two in recent times will have had the pleasure of seeing a close-up magician in action.

Whether performing as an icebreaker when the guest get back to the reception venue, or perhaps mingling easily throughout the day, the presence of a magician can add so much to the occasion, creating mini memories that will last for many years to come.

But what is less well-known is the fact that magicians can contribute just as much value to a corporate event – anything from a formal sales conference to a trade show or new product launch.

So if you’re the person in your organisation who’s tasked with making the next trade show more memorable than ever, here are some very good reasons as to why adding a bit of magic can be one of your best ever decisions.

Here’s why we think you should choose this form of corporate entertainer.

  • The people who turn up at your stand will most likely have visited dozens of stands already – possibly even hundreds. And in the vast majority of cases, they’ll forget them within minutes of leaving the stand. But what happens if you have a seriously good interactive element to your stand? Time and again, the research tells us that people are way more likely to remember your company – and the products or services that you provide – if they’ve enjoyed themselves during their visit. So by having a professional magician in attendance, you’re guaranteed to make an imprint on visitors that will repay your investment many times over.
  • In quite a few instances, people who visit your stand are doing so as part of their working day or week. So while they’re with you, they’re possibly checking emails or taking phone calls from the office. This is not a great state of mind when you’re looking to talk to them in a serious, eye-to-eye manner. However, by including an unexpected and entertaining element to your stand, you can jolt them out of work mode and get them into a more relaxed frame of mind where they’ll give you their full attention.
  • You can make the impact of your magician that much deeper and more meaningful if he’s fully briefed on your products or services. In that way, he can drop in the name of your brands, or reference some keypoints that you need to make about your company. It won’t come across as a hard sell – but will be impactful, nonetheless. The bottom line is that when you hire a magician as a form of high-impact corporate entertainment you’re guaranteed a fantastic return on your investment – and an event that will be talked about for a very long time.

  • Taking a stand at an exhibition can have a fair few different costs associated with it. There’s the cost of exhibiting, design and construction of the stand, hiring of promotional personnel, and perhaps printing of handout material. So when you’re investing this much in your stand, surely it makes sense to go the extra mile and make sure all that investment pays off by adding a sprinkling of magic?
  • Remember that you don’t need to let a magician or other entertainer off on his own to talk to your customers. He can be ‘minded’ by one or more of your sales staff, so they’re on hand to pick up on any opportunities that may arise, or zone in on anyone who’s from a company of interest.
  • Remember that a professional magician will often perform at weddings or other events where he’s talking to a dozen or more people at the same time. This means that if your stand gets suddenly busy, he can hold the interest of visitors until one of your sales staff is free to intervene.
  • Think of how powerful it could be if your magician uses one or more of your products as a prop! This would make a huge subliminal impact, and the use of ‘product placing’ in this way can be as discreet or as extrovert as you wish.

When you consider all of the above points, you can suddenly see that the small extra investment of hiring a magician to attend at your stand can make it one of the highlights of the entire exhibition.

Equally, if you planned on an email follow-up to your stand visitors, you could even add a short video trick from your magician as an attachment – reminding them of their time spent on your stand and how positive an experience they had there.

Shane Black
Follow me