What Time Should You Book Your Magician / Mentalist for?
If you are organising your event you want to make sure everything goes as intended, runs smoothly and you don't have to worry about things during your party. So let me take some of the stress away by telling you the best time to book your magician or mentalist.
Now let’s say you want a magician or mind reader to walk around tables or mix and mingle with guests before dinner to break the ice and build up some excitement before your party fully begins, obviously you will want to make sure they are there to perform early on to get the most out them but hiring them to perform for 2 or 3 hours as soon as possible might not be the best time. The evening will look something like this:
Dinner is at 7:00 (Cocktails at 5:30)
Say there are 100 people coming to your party:
5:30 - Maybe 5 or 10 people will actually show up at this time. These are the few that might not have been to many parties, might be a bit shy and are keen to show up on time and do not want to be late.
5:45 - Another 5 to 10. These are the smart people, they have done this before and know want time to get there to make sure they can beat queues for drinks, get a good seat and start chatting.
6:00 - About 10 to 20 more people consisting of couples will show up, they know when they want to arrive and get there whenever they like since they don't need to spend time finding people to talk to.
6:15 - A chunk or 20 or 30 people. Singles that want to get a drink and try some nibbles before dinner, there are definitely going to be enough people already there for them to talk to.
6:30 - This is when the “cool kids” arrive, they never show up early. This will be about 15 to 25 people.
6:45 - Everyone else that wants to get there before dinner, the stressed out portion that always seems to be late.
As you can see, most people will arrive 45 minutes after the cocktails are meant to begin being served. Most planners will want to book people like me to start at 5:30 when they expect people to start showing up, but this would be a mistake.
If you want to get the most out of your performer then leave time for people to show up.
You also do not want the close up entertainer to start performing to people as soon as they arrive, they just are not ready for it. Say they plan on getting to you party at 6:
They start getting ready at around 4:45. Head out at about 5:30. Probably arrive and start looking for the venue at 5:50. Park up, find the entrance and head for the party then start looking for people they recognise at 6:00. Say hello to the organiser / hosts at 6:05 then go line up for a drink at 6:10. Chat to their friends at 6:15 and then maybe they will be ready and relaxed enough get approached by the Mind Reader at 6:25.
Guests won't want to be immediately approached by a guy that can read thoughts as soon as they walk through the door, so give them time to settle and let some people arrive before sending in the performer.
So when should you book us for?
About 45 minutes after you want guests to start arriving.