July14: I value you

 An American magician friend of mine once sold me an instruction booklet on how to make money doing campground shows. In summary, my friend said that the magician should offer the show gratis to campgrounds with the understanding that he be allowed to pass the hat during the intermission. If done right, he said, the magician can come away from a weekend of campground shows with a much fatter wallet.

Well I followed his instructions to the letter and I made about twenty-five bucks.

"What happened?" I asked another magician friend after my failed jaunt. He pointed out to me that the instruction booklet came from an American magician.

"In America, the people are trained to reward someone who provides them a valuable service, like entertainment," he said. "That doesn't apply in Canada, where we feel entitled to everything."

In his instructions, the American magician recommended putting empty envelopes on all the seats in the auditorium. Printed on them were thank you notes and this powerful statement: "Most people tip $5."

At the end of one of my shows, one of those envelopes contained 25 cents. Someone had written on it "I'm not giving you five dollars because I'm a cheap bastard. But you entertained my kids so I'll give you what I had in my pocket."

Gee, thanks, arsehole.

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I still do campground shows in Canada but now I charge the campgrounds a fee. I'd love to have the necessary paperwork to do my shows in the USA but unless I save some prominent American diplomat's life, that probably won't happen.

So one Saturday, I had two campground shows. The first had agreed to pay my fee. The second said they would take the show for free but I could pass the hat afterwards.

The difference between how I was treated at each campground couldn't be more radical.

When I pulled into the parking lot of the first campground, I saw that the marquee was promoting my show. A couple kids on bicycles saw me unpacking and asked if I was the magician. They were delirious ti learn that I was. The campground owner greeted me, invited me in for lunch, took me on a tour of the campground to meet all the campers and invite everyone to my show. There were regular reminders over the PA system. People started gathering about 30 minutes before showtime. I had a full house that day.

At the next campground, nobody even knew that a magic show was taking place. It took about 20 minutes to track down the owner, who was sitting at a picnic table behind her RV, smoking a cigarette and surfing Facebook. When I told her I was the magician, she looked extremely pained and said she'd completely forgotten about the show. "But don't you worry, I put a sign on the bulletin board in our convenience store and a couple kids said they would go."

Well a couple kids did go to that show. That's pretty much it. They were accompanied by their grandmother who sat at the back of the room and read an old Harlequin Romance. I made a grand total of 15 cents from that show. Definitely the highlight of my career.

And I can only blame myself. When you do a show for free, you're telling people that you don't have any value for your product. You can hardly blame them if they don't value you either. 

Yes, I can understand some places have minimum budgets, but I'm still insulted when I'm asked to do freebies.

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A while ago, I decided I wanted to break into the trade show magic business. I found out about a trade show happening in Ottawa and I called some of the exhibitors and pitched my wares to them.

One lady asked how much I charged and I said that since I had never done a trade show before, I would offer my services for free.

"Why would you want to do something like that?" she asked. There was no kindness in her voice. Just condescension.

I explained to her that since I was new to that particular branch of magic, it might be prudent of me to offer my services gratis at first.

"Well then if we want a magician, we'll probably hire someone experienced," she said, and hung up.

Lesson learned.