If You Manage A Restaurant
You Need A Magician
You already know that restaurant industry is competitive. Along any Indy main street, there are plenty of options when it comes to going out to eat—even plenty of great options.
As a consumer how you do decide where to eat?
It would take a long time to count all the eateries that tap out every month on account of not being able to compete; and moreover the restaurants failed to offer their customers a good enough reason to use their services.
A professional magician does more than stroll from table to table entertaining guests at their table, performing close-up magic (this type of magic happens right in front of their eyes and even within their hands).
Having a house magician solves a dozen issues that a successful restaurant faces. A seasoned magician typically performs before the food is served or in between courses.
Now that I have that out of the way let me give you a few reasons why you need magic in your establishment:
Your Guests Will Thank You
Magic is in season right NOW.
David Blaine, Dynamo, Derren Brown, Criss Angel—the list goes on and on.
Magic is very popular with the general public.
Penn & Teller have just sold out auditoriums in Las Vegas with their stage show. TV shows have magicians all the time—do I need to mention Penn & Teller’s Fool Us, which received the nomination for Critic’s Choice Television Award for Best Structured Reality Series–plus more touring magic shows are happening now more than ever in the past.
People LOVE to see magic and are prepared to pay to do so. As a restaurant manager/owner this is something that you should take advantage of.
Close up magic is even MORE popular.
Of course, “close up magic” is the sort that is performed right in front of the spectator’s eyes and in Jon Finch’s case in their own hands.
As a magician, I frequently hear people say that don’t fully trust the magic they see on TV, but that when it happens to them they have a change of heart.
Close up magic is perfectly suited to a restaurant environment. You can have a magician going from table to table and your customers will love it.
Unlike a lot of other types of entertainment, magic is inconspicuous.
If you decide that entertainment would work in your venue, there are many options. However, just about every other form of entertainment has to be experienced by the whole venue.
One example is Karaoke. Karaoke can draw people into the restaurant–people specifically looking for that sort of thing; but it can also repel as many who dislike it.
Oftentimes people walk into a restaurant that has a Karaoke system set up, and they immediately walk out. If I wanted to eat there I HAD to listen to a couple of hours of terrible singing and I didn’t want to do that.
The same is true of singers, bands, accordion players, comedians – pretty much every other type of entertainment – either you’re forced to stomach it or you leave.
Magic, on the other hand, is unobtrusive. A magician strolls from table to table engaging one group with magic and then another one. If a specific group doesn’t like magic or they’d rather not participate, they aren’t obliged to (unlike most other forms of entertainment.
It means you can put on entertainment which most customers will enjoy but you don’t have to worry about driving away customers.
Magic gives you a competitive advantage.
As noted above, people have plenty of choice of where to eat–even places that have outstanding cuisine.
How can you differentiate your venue from the dozens of others within the same area?
Simply offer something unique that no other restaurant in your market is able to match.
How can you beat that?
Most folks these days don’t go out to eat every day. So when these guests do choose to eat out they want a unique experience and they want to get the most for their money.
If you were going out and there was a choice of two venues, both the same other than one was advertising free entertainment, which would you chose? More importantly, which would your customers chose?
One has outstanding cuisine, and another has outstanding cuisine and offers free entertainment as an extension of the eatery’s hospitality. It’s a no-brainer.
Magic encourages repeat customers.
Most restaurants I’ve worked with use me on a residency basis. This means that I go into the restaurant on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis. This is the absolute best way to use a magician if you REALLY want your business to increase. Why? Simple—magic induces incredible word of mouth.
You know as well as I that there are few venues you can go to in Indiana to see magic. This is even more true for close-up magic.
When your guests see a great magician entertain, they typically want to see more. More importantly, they will want their friends to watch as well.
I’ve been in restaurants before when the customer dining has called their friends to come and join them there and then because they really HAVE to see the magician.
Restaurants I’ve worked with on a weekly basis focus a great deal of their advertising on getting people in on the nights I am there.
You would be amazed at the amount YOUR guests will come back every single week to see the magic. They will even bring their friends and family as well.
Whatever your clientele, magic can work really well.
The great thing about close up magic is that you can adapt the performer or adapt the performance depending on the venue you are performing in.
When a magician is performing at a upscale restaurant he can use sleight of hand, mentalism, and effects engineered particularly targeted to a discerning audience.
On the other hand if you own or manage a family restaurant, the performances can be changed to appeal more to children and teenagers.
In fact with family restaurants there is the ‘The Child Decider’. Your child will choose where you go out to eat as a family. If you have children and have been to a restaurant where there is a magician doing magic tricks, when it comes time to pick where to go again, where do you think the child will choose; the place where there is nothing going on or the restaurant where they can watch the amazing magician?
You can totally eliminate walk outs.
If you own or manage a busy restaurant and you don’t need more business, then having a magician is even more important.
Don’t you just hate it when customers find out there is an hour wait for a table and decide to go somewhere else?
Long waiting line? Opportunity!
I’ve worked with a number eateries where their priority is for us to stop this from happening.
As customers arrive they are ushered into the bar and told the magician will be with them momentarily. Then while they are waiting they get to see live close up magic.
Before they know it, their table is ready and they go and sit down.
What if you could transform restless walkouts into raving fans?
By booking a professional restaurant magician, you have transformed a walkout into a happy patron.
Magic can help manage problems within the venue
Imagine you have a problem in the kitchen and there is a delay on food service. Depending on the customer this can be frustrating, for all concerned.
A good magician will work with the staff in the restaurant to ensure any problems are dealt with quickly and effectively.
If there’s going to be a delay, the magician can go to the table and explain the situation and then, while they’re waiting, he can make time fly (even though that’s altogether impossible).
Before the patrons know it, the food has arrived and they don’t have an issue waiting at all.
Magic is a great way to clear tables quickly.
Some venues like to turn their tables around as fast as possible.
The problem comes when there is one particular table that demands on staying for a long time after they have completed the meal. For a venue that likes to turn things around quickly this might be frustrating.
You don’t want to offend a customer, but how do you get rid of them?
I’ve worked with one venue that hired me to deal with this one specific problem. Basically the staff will let me know when a table needs moving on.
At that point the magician will go over, say Hi and offer them the private entertainment. The magician invites the patrons to follow him into the drinks area.
After everyone is there, they get the opportunity to experience magic–and the table can be turned around. Done!
Create a magical souvenir that is better than word of mouth!
A lot of magic tricks involve altering a normal object in an impossible way. For example, making a borrowed dollar bill fold itself in half in the hands of the spectator and then float into the air; or having two, signed playing cards fuse together into one card (for, say, when a couple comes in on their anniversary).
A great magician will perform tricks like this often when in a restaurant. That miraculously-altered object will be kept by the person participating in the trick as a souvenir.
You would be astounded at the number of people that take these magical souvenirs home and proudly show them around to their friends and family.
There is no way to buy the publicity that this sort of thing manufactures.
Many times a stranger I have never yet met asks, “hey can you do the trick with the dollar my friend told me about?”
But the bottom line is this: people will come into your restaurant because they want to experience this sort of thing themselves.
