The Magic Podcast (private feed for tesian3630@gmail.com)

Launch, Today.

Dear Full-Subscriber, We made it through 2021. Thanks for joining me for the ride. This post happens to be the final one before the new year. Now seems a better time than ever to start a new annual tradition — an end-of-year sign-off. So here’s me signing off.On December 10th, 2020, I mentioned to a friend, Josh Janousky, that I was considering starting a Substack newsletter. At the time, I was losing interest in magic, powered by the pandemic forcing magic and magicians into a very odd realm. The idea of writing about my time consulting for magic television excited me.Josh mentioned the idea to another mutual friend, Jeff Prace, who went away and found my Substack writer account without telling me. The following day I woke up to an email congratulating me on my first paying subscriber. I think I sent Jeff a frustrated sounding text; Well, shit, now I need to actually write the thing. Today, having written at least one post every week for an entire year and found a passionate group of dedicated magician readers — I need to thank Jeff. My story of how I accidentally built out this One Ahead community after a friend found its mock-up page and prematurely subscribed isn’t all too unusual. Derren Brown has expressed how silly it is that he must name his theatre shows many months before he even starts writing them. It’s why his live shows can have rather generic names — It’s because they need to sell tickets in advance. Eventually, Derren, along with Andy and Andrew, his co-writers, get into a room and go;Right then, “Miracle”… *rubs hands together* what could that show title mean, eh? James Acaster shared a similar story this week when Seth Meyers asked him how he came up with his show title. His agent was pushing him for a title so they could start selling tickets for a show he had not yet written. So, Acaster forwarded his agent a drunk text he sent to a group chat the night before. Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 is quite the show title. What I would like to say to you, as we speedily approach the new year together — is that whatever it is you’ve been putting off doing, well, I think you should launch it. I think you should launch it this week. Even if it isn’t finished, even if you haven’t started yet. Send one text to a family or friend group chat, and;Sell one ticket to that live show you always wanted to do.Sell one copy of a book you haven’t started writing yet. Sell a zoom show to a family friend at a huge discount. “2022 is going to be a great year. Let’s kick it off right together. I learned this past year that nothing motivates you to get started quite like prematurely selling the final product.”—Rory, rn. Some notes on 2022:PTO policy: This year, I will take four individual weeks off. During those weeks, you’ll receive no new posts. However, during other weeks, you’ll receive two or more issues. This way, you will receive at least 52 posts over the course of the year. The time off helps me recharge and write better stuff the rest of the year.The Podcast: We hit the 22 spot in the UK Apple Charts for our podcast category. Safe to say that the podcast is here to stay. One Ahead is a newsletter first and foremost. I’ll continue to invest the majority of my time writing the best content, and employing the help of AI Teller to read the newsletter. Socials: I’m going offline. I write the best content when I’m unplugged, fully detached from magic drama and focussed on writing. I will no longer be promoting the newsletter in Facebook groups, Instagram stories or Tinder DMs. I’ll rely on the quality of the content and the occasional share from you, the reader, to grow this community. Posting schedule: We tried a few formats in 2021. The best workflow was weekly subscriber-only posts (6-10 min reads). You can always access the archive whenever you wish and listen to the audio versions if you don’t have time to read the posts. I set aside time every week to reply to post comments. The price to join One Ahead went up several times during 2021. The rate will never be as low as when you joined. The good news is that you’re grandfathered in — which means you’ll always pay the reduced rate for as long as you stay subscribed. Now, something exciting; Following my own advice… I’m building a Secret Steno Library. You can save 100+ hours and download pre-built iOS indexes! Get instant access to a growing library of popular books. I’ll steadily add ready-to-go indexes for popular books to this library, and there are indexes in there ready to download today. You might want access to save the time and hassle of building your indexes from scratch. Maybe, you want to perform Steno at a moments notice with borrowed books? This impromptu, impossible, borrowed version excites me. I want to add well over one hundred popular books to the library, so you’ll be able to do incredible mind-reading anytime with books you find in most homes, offices, colleges and coffee shops. Due to the ongoing work involved, it will live separately to One Ahead. I’ve already paid $350 to subscribers who contributed indexes. It’s a one-time purchase for lifetime access to an ever-growing library. I’ve set a discounted price that will increase after the next batch of books arrives. This is the cheapest it will ever be for lifetime access. Give the library a look today. “Well, shit, now I need to actually build the thing.” — Rory, after sending this post. If you missed it, you can learn Steno, here. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Steinmeyer’s Strange Illusion Patents

We’re back with another episode of Patent Dive. In this ongoing series, we break down some of the most unique, infamous and interesting patents in the magic world. The goal of the series is to explore the many legal routes to protect magic tricks and how and why some of the best minds in magic have decided to patent their work. In the last post in the series, we dived into David Copperfield’s only magic patent. We hypothesised why Copperfield only has one magic patent out of all the illusions he’s created. And we figured out why that one specific illusion needed to be protected. Here’s a quick recap on patents: Patent applications are expensive. There’s no guarantee your patent will be approved. You must be able to prove you are the inventor. Patents are listed publicly in the inventor’s name.To patent a trick, you usually must expose the secret. Who is Jim Steinmeyer? Well, he’s one of the most prolific stage magic inventors of all time. Here’s some of his biography: Jim is responsible for popular illusions featured by professional magicians around the world, and special effects in theatrical shows from Broadway to Las Vegas. Through his designs and his writing on historical magic, he's been credited with creating the "defining illusions in contemporary magic:" deceptions featured by Doug Henning, David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, Harry Blackstone, Orson Welles, The Pendragons, Lance Burton, Mark Kalin and Jinger and many others.When he’s not busy creating illusions for stage magicians, he’s busy on broadway. In 2013, his illusions were featured in Disney’s Aladdin at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, where the magic earned raves from audiences and critics alike, with special praise for the incredible Flying Carpet. He produced illusions for the highly praised Las Vegas production of “The Phantom of the Opera,” and the critically acclaimed magical effects for the Disney / Cameron Mackintosh stage production of "Mary Poppins," which opened in London and on Broadway. Also in 2009, Jim’s magic was featured in the Mark Taper Forum Deaf West co-production of “Pippin.”Other theatrical productions have included the original Walt Disney Company production of “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway, where Jim devised the famous climax of the show, when the Beast was levitated into the air and transformed into the Prince. He designed the illusions for the 2002 James Lapine production of “Into the Woods.” You can purchase one of many books Steinmeyer has written about magic at his online shop. Patent Dive: Illusion Apparatus.Steinmeyer holds four magic patents. These were granted every three years from 2003 onwards. Each of these illusions has fairly nondescript names. This is the standard for patents of all kinds. But there’s something that Steinmeyer does with his magic patents that’s rather unusual. Something I have not seen before when researching magic patents. Steinmeyer’s patents are unique. You might remember how complex and detailed Copperfield’s illusion patent was. Well, this is the full description of Steinmeyer’s patent for the illustrated illusion above. FIG 1 is a perspective view of an illusion apparatus showing my new design;FIG 2 is a front view thereof;FIG 3 is a rear view thereof;FIG 4 is a right side view thereof;FIG 5 is a left side view thereof;FIG 6 is a top plan view thereof; and,FIG 7 is a bottom plan view thereof.The broken line showing is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of the claimed design.That’s the full patent description. There's no mention of what the trick itself is, or how the illusion is perceived. There isn't even a description of how the illusion looks. The patent description simply labels the viewing angles of the basic drawings included in the application. Now let’s look at the claims. Claims define, in technical terms, the scope of protection from a patent. The claims define which subject matter is protected. This is termed the “notice function” of a patent to warn others what they must not do if they are trying to avoid infringement liability. The claims are the most significant bit for prosecution and litigation.You might remember that Copperfield’s illusion had sixteen claims. Steinmeyer’s illusion patent has just one claim. It reads: The ornamental design for “illusion apparatus”, as shown.That’s it. It’s as simple as that. Let’s take a look at another one of his patents. here is the claim found in a patent named “Cart.” No mention of magic or illusion here. The ornamental design for “cart,” as shown.Steinmeyer does something incredible. He's doing his very best to protect his magic without actually revealing the secrets to the world. He isn't protecting the method, so he doesn't need to share the method within his patent application.Steinmeyer has been smart and looked at his illusions from a very specific lens. Instead of patenting the method, he's patenting the design itself. Usually, this would not work. Quite often in magic, there are no designs, and the only thing to protect is the method itself. Stage illusions are different, a lot of stage illusions rely on incredibly specific designs.It seems Steinmeyer has carefully selected four of his illusions that can only work with one very specific design or box shape. The only way to perform these illusions is with Steinmeyer's original designs. Which means that he's able to protect them without revealing their secrets.  How much protection this provides is unclear, but it will certainly act as a good deterrent. He's sending a strong signal that he's willing to put in the time, effort and money to protect his inventions the best he can.So Steinmeyer's magic patents are unique because he makes no attempt to protect or reveal their methods. Instead, he's found another crucial aspect he can protect—their visual designs.We'll look at another unusual way to patent a magic trick in the next Patent Dive episode.Btw, my friend Marc just released a new magic app called Inertia Pro. He’s the guy who built WikiTest, the trick made famous by David Blaine in Real or Magic. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Can NFTs Fix The Magic Industry?

Listen now | $13,000 For A Digital Playing Card Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

What do Michael Weber, Calen Morelli & Nate Staniforth Have In Common?

Happy Thursday. First, let me say a big fat thank you for all the positive feedback on the new book test, Steno. I’m a little overwhelmed by how many magicians have reached out with their thoughts and ideas for new potential uses. I’m building out a community platform so we can easily share uses with one and other. More, soon. The Magic Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.So, what do Michael Weber, Calen Morelli & Nate Staniforth Have In Common? Well, they all feature in Nate’s new limited course: Design The Impossible. You can learn everything Nate knows about creating and building great magic. Registration closes in six days, but you can claim your spot today before they’re gone. Weber and Morelli feature in the third session in the course, alongside Nate and Brent Braun. Get the full details and enrol via my affiliate link below…What do all of the world’s most successful magicians have in common? Well, they all perform their own material. Whether that’s Copperfield producing aliens, Dynamo putting phones inside bottles or Blaine skewering his hand — successful magicians happily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars working with the best minds in magic to design new tricks. But why? Why would magicians create their own magic when they can buy tricks ready to go from their favourite magic shops. Firstly, can we all address how weird it is that that’s even an option? I can’t imagine comedians selling their best working material for others to perform like their own. Musicians who perform music they did not produce themselves are called cover artists — we seem to have skipped this term altogether in magic. This is primarily because big brands ultimately control the magic industry as a whole. They run the conventions, bankroll the magazines and forums with their ads, and provide almost all available free content. It’s in their best interest to encourage you to believe you shouldn’t create your own magic — that instead, you should purchase all of your magic from them. But eventually, every dedicated magician realises that instead of buying pre-built tricks, it’s much better to invest in the tools needed to design and reimagine great magic. This point in a magicians career is usually pretty easy to spot as an outsider. Suddenly they stand out above the rest of the magicians of their generation, and we all collectively realise they are destined for success. I remember watching Justin Willman begin performing original magic in his YouTube series Magic Meltdown in 2012. I vividly recall watching Dynamo perform original magic in his Panasonic short series Dynamo TV in 2010. Nate Staniforth blew my mind with his Nate Staniforth Magician YouTube series back in 2013. These three magicians have all had quite the careers since. As always, if you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to add after reading this post, do leave a comment. I set aside time to reply to everyone. Why create your own magic? Let’s start with the obvious — it’s fun. You’ll fall in love with magic all over again when you create original magic. You get that same excitement as when you first discover new methods and magic ideas. Working on something from start to finish keeps you engaged. It’s because the longer you work on something, the better it gets. Working your way to a great new trick is similar to solving an escape room. I assume it’s how cavepeople felt when they first discovered fire. Now, the financials. IP holds value. Intellectual property is my favourite type of asset. It’s relatively cheap to create and can generate income in several passive and active ways. You might invest a humongous $100k into the stock market and hope to make $6k per year. Or you could invest your time, for free, into creating new magic that can generate passive income in the form of royalties or active income in the form of paid performances. I’ve worked as an assistant producer on late-night television and consulted on primetime competition television. I’ve seen performers get paid silly money, be flown first class, put in a fancy hotel, guaranteed multiple spots in the show… all because they have an original piece of magic that the channel or the producers love. There are hundreds of thousands of magicians performing double-cross. There’s only one magician turning into a scuba diver inside of a giant balloon—just one illusionist performing an extensive nightmare routine. Only one magician is being booked globally to fire a crossbow across the stage and through an apple perched upon a spectators head. And you don’t even need to be that creative with your IP. The act you create doesn’t need to be groundbreaking in method or delivery — it just needs to be unique to you. Trust me; my jaw has hit the floor many times after discovering how much we paid specific magicians to perform tricks any magician could pull off. The simple fact is that if you want someone to perform cups and balls with clear cups, you really do need to book Penn and Teller. How to create your own magic? Here’s the deal. Get over your fear of failure and just start coming up with ideas. If you have read my book, you’ll know I have a few strict theories on creativity in magic. Creativity is a muscle, and you need to work on it. One in every hundred ideas will be good, and one in every thousand ideas will be brilliant. The most successful magic consultants are the same. There’s no way to improve this ratio. All you can do is strengthen your tastebuds (get better at spotting the good ideas) and improve your speed (come up with ideas faster, and reach those good ones more quickly). Nate teaches you how to produce a new idea from inception to a finished working performable routine. That’s not quite my speciality. My role on most of the shows I’ve worked on is as a writer. My skillset is creating formats and ideas that hit well with specific demographics. So, before you deep dive into Nate’s course, I’ll let you in on some of my secrets to creating ideas that are winners to a wider audience. Some ideas just click with everyone. You say them out loud, and you watch all of their eyes widen slightly. You see their lips turn into a subtle, somewhat jealous smile. They imagine what you’ve told them, and they love it. I think the secret to a great idea is four ingredients; creativity, satisfaction, relatability, effort. Creativity We humans cannot help but reward creativity; it’s built into us, we are attracted to art in all forms. Note that when I talk about creativity, I’m also rewarding originality. You want that sense of “how the fuck did they come up with that.” Satisfaction I actually think that great ideas are not shocking at all. Instead, they are satisfying. You want that feeling of “of course!” and “how did I not come up with that.” Great ideas feel obvious to everyone in hindsight. RelatabilityRelatable ideas always come out on top. It’s why big blockbuster movies and songs are relatable to everyone. Don’t be afraid to dive into your niche. If your audience is punk rock Dads, make your content relatable for them. I wrote about wish fulfilment a while back, which is an excellent shortcut to relatable magic. EffortAnother thing we apes can’t help but reward. We love a good bit of effort, both mental and physical. You’re going to be more impressed by a piece of artwork hand-painted up the entire side of a building than you might be at the same painting on a canvas. We can’t help it. I also personally qualify effort as high stakes. Those are the four ingredients I’m looking for as I pitch ideas in TV magic writers rooms. Now, how am I pitching them? Like every good movie — everyone can describe good magic with one sentence. Any more than one sentence, and you’re out. Every good idea can be described in one sentence by anyone. But Rory, if you just give me a second sentence, I can describe my excellent magic idea to you. But Rory, it’s a brilliant trick; just give me thirty seconds to describe every step and the finale. No thank you. When I’m pitching ideas in a TV writers room, I’m playing a game of whispers, and triggering a domino reaction that will eventually lead to someone six months from now describing the trick in one sentence to a friend at the office. That’s it; that’s the end goal. They call it the water cooler moment:A significant moment in televison history that is discussed the next day in the workplace.I need to describe a good idea in one sentence if I hope to expect a random audience member to be able to tell the trick to a friend in five years successfully. By then, they’ll have forgotten the details, and they might be the third or fourth person in the chain to explain the trick. Justin Willman’s invisible man routine has creativity, satisfaction, relatability, and effort. So does Derren playing Russian roulette on live television. The same goes for Penn and Teller performing upside down on SNL. You can just imagine how someone will recall all of these examples to a friend years from now. They have all the right ingredients, and they’re easy to describe in one sentence. So the next time you come up with a good idea, write it down in one sentence. Then go ahead and circle the creativity, satisfaction, relatability, effort. If there are three or more circles in your sentence, you’re onto a great idea. Next, tell your idea to a friend and at a later date, ask them to recall your idea to another friend. How they describe your concept will help inform you if the idea is any good. Keep note of the keywords different friends use.I’ll leave it to Nate to take you step by step through the entire process. His course covers live performance from close-up to stage. Registration closes in just six days, so spots are limited. Nate will be hosting six live zoom calls as part of the already packed course. We’re friends and have produced television together, so I recommend you take a look at the course yourself. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Ed Sheeran’s Theory on Producing Magic Tricks

You can listen to or read this week’s newsletter. Leave podcast feedback here.I Wrote a Book About Magic Ideas I was in Los Angeles, about to travel back for a television project when it suddenly cancelled on us. That was that. It happens quite often in telly—three months worth of work gone overnight. I turned to my iPhone notes in a moment of potential madness and compiled trick ideas into a book called Only Ideas. Geraint Clarke told me the book needed an intro section with some magic theory, so I wrote that and added it. I spoke to some big magic companies who told me there was only a limited 100-300 magician market for a weird little book like this. I chose to self-produce, and at the time of writing, there are 1,434 magicians around the world with that little blue book. It even landed me a job working for Netflix. I am extremely grateful.Here were my thoughts on ideas1 in 100 ideas will be good.1 in 1,000 ideas will be great. You can never improve these ratios; you can only improve two things. Taste; How well can you identify a bad, good and great idea. Speed; How quickly can you power through the bad ideas to get to the good and great ones. Ideas are worthless; execution is everything. Share your ideas with everyone. Execution is Everything Execution is where the value is. And it’s also what a surprising number of subscribers want me to write about. And I will, in great detail, over several newsletters. Today, I’m going to talk you through my thoughts on producing magic tricks. Only, they’re not my thoughts; they’re Ed Sheeran’s. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it took me hours to find this clip, and I couldn’t even get you a video. Listen to the podcast or read the transcription below. “I kind of view songwriting as a dirty tap in an old house, because you switch on the dirty tap and it just spits out shit water for about ten minutes. There’s just mud and and grit and just all sorts of messiness flowing out. And then it starts flowing cleaner water and little bits of grit come flowing out. And then after a while, it’s just clean. And, when I first started writing songs they were terrible. And that was the mud and grit coming out, and I was unplugging and unplugging it. And I tried to write two or three songs a day for a while, just unplugging, unplugging and unplugging. Now and then I’d get a good song stick out. And that was the first bit of clean water coming out. And then once all the bad songs had gone, the good songs would start flowing. Now and then I’d write a bad song, but I think the key is that when you think you’re writing a bad song, just get it out of you. Because if you don’t, your next song will have a bad part in it. Just view it as a constant stream. Try and write a song a day, even if it’s terrible, just get it out of you. The best songs you write will be in five years time.” -Ed Sheeran Nick Popa has a fabulous beard. Nick Popa has a fabulous beard. It’s a wonderful, beautiful big beard. Over the weekend, a group of magicians like DK, Josh Janousky, and Ben Prime were all on a call with myself and Nick and Nick’s beard. For a laugh, I started pitching the group some beard based magic tricks. It was brilliant fun to revel in their laughter and see their faces as I pitched the most horribly, wonderfully terrible ideas. My favourite one was a gipsy thread with his beard hair. Getting a spectator to pull six individual hairs from his beard with tweezers. Then balling them up around one hair attached to his face, then restoring them together into one super long hair fixed to his chin. What a beautifully bad idea. My second favourite was building a money printer illusion into some hair straighteners. So Nick could run his beautiful brown beard through the straighteners, and it could come out the other end as beautiful beach blonde hair. Look at that, we just invented a colour changing spectators hair, with a proven method. These were only ideas. But this newsletter post was on my mind; I try to write the first draft of these on Sundays. I thought to myself. I love this. It felt like comedians laughing at each other’s terrible jokes and thriving in the process. I love building anything from start to finish: apps, companies, board games, television shows, musicals. I absolutely adore the process. I feel like I’m learning and challenging myself at every turn. I’ve learned more from the terrible projects than the good ones. The people who are the best in the world at producing magic absolutely adore the process, from start to finish. Learn to Love Building All Kinds of MagicHere’s what I have to add to Ed Sheeran’s thoughts on songwriting. Really embrace those bad songs. Adore every second, don’t stop because you think something is a bad idea; push through it. Get it out of your system. You’ll learn more from them or turn them into good tricks. Tom Elderfield is a great friend and brilliant at executing tricks from idea to reality. He won’t wince at all when he reads that he’s shown me some of the funniest, dumbest, stupid magic I’ve ever seen in my life. But he adores it. He knows how silly and stupid some of these are, and that’s why he’s showing me them. He learns by making them, even if he knows they’re maybe only fit for one TikTok or just a Whatsapp message to a group of magicians. Heck, I learn from watching these.Calen Morelli shared a story a while back about the number of tricks he’s produced and how many you have to produce to be at his god-like level. Whilst I do think he exaggerated his number. The number of tricks I have produced from start to finish is in the hundreds for sure. There are tricks I have spent days on and thousands of pounds of my personal funds that will never see the light of day. Eight years ago, I spent 42 hours of my life building a fire escape prop. I made the little man in the sign sprint out of the door on command. It took a few attempts. I had to drive the two-hour round trip to the store three times. I had to order lenticular sheets online and learn to use photoshop to animate the dude’s little legs. Then I figured out how to slow an electric reel such that the little man didn’t fire out the other side of the sign after running behind the door. Then I asked my friend Ollie to drive me into Bath, to a shopping mall. We glued the prop to a wall, and I filmed it from a few metres back. When I gestured my hand, he triggered the reel, and the little man ran out of the door. Not many magicians used electric reels then, and I’d never seen a magician use lenticular before. The trick was cute but a bit useless, and I think many people would say it wasn’t worth the financial or time cost. But I loved it, and I learned a lot. Everyone can appreciate effort. If a bad trick has clearly had a lot of work put into it, magicians will still take notice, and it’ll help you land consulting gigs for sure. Effort is universal. Whilst you and I might have different opinions on some artwork in a gallery, we can probably both look up in awe at any artwork painted up the entire side of a twenty storey building. The Best Tricks You Produce Will Be in Five YearsThe sooner you accept this to be true, the more you will enjoy producing magic tricks. Learn to love the bad songs. Produce magic for yourself because you love producing magic. So much about magic is a performance. And so if you create a trick and feel unable to show anyone it, it can feel like a disappointment. Find friends you can show the bad ideas to, who can appreciate the details or laugh at them with you. Produce magic all the time, even the bad tricks. The best tricks you produce will be in five years. How would you rate this week’s newsletter?I write ahead, so you’ll see your feedback reflected soon.Great | Good | Meh Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

The Best ”Pre-Show” Techniques

A Magic Consultant Explains "Pre-Show"  Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Uri Geller Bends Canal Boat’s Press Coverage Towards Himself

This is the free monthly post from The TV Magic Newsletter. If you like this kind of thing, why not subscribe? - Unlock subscriber-only weekly posts + the full archive 👌🏼Subscribers asked for a podcast, so we’re trying it. You can read this newsletter below or listen to it above. Please tell me if you listen here, so I know to record future posts. I Wanted To Write About NFTs This Week…Those viral non-fungible-tokens that are selling for millions and may just save the magic industry altogether. Goddamit. I suppose I’ll write about those next week. Why wait? Well, this week, a big fat boat got stuck in a canal, and amongst the press and Twitter storm surrounding said boat was a familiar name—Uri Geller.That’s right, that clever spoon-bending mentalist demonstrated his greatest ability this week—to get free press. Not only did he manage to steer attention away from such a big story, but in doing so over his career, Uri’s got millions of dollars worth of press. Here’s what happened, a look at magicians’ rich history with publicity stunts. What is a Publicity Stunt? Something unusual that is done to attract people's attention to a particular person, product, or organization. Magicians have always been brilliant at getting press attention. More so than any other form of entertainer. Here’s the thing, getting free press coverage is not hard, especially if you’re already a celebrity. We’ve all seen big headlines when famous celebs drop some gossip or pretend they’re about to sign up for OnlyFans. But it’s still possible without celebrity status. A magician friend of mine, Archie Manners, sent pebbles to influencers and pretended they were chunks of the moon. He got free press for that stunt and many stunts since then. He’s rather good at creating newsworthy headlines. Pranking influencers with “moonrock” gives the press a great headline, a good thumbnail and a conversation around what influencers are willing to promote with zero due-diligence. Magic and Publicity Stunts I think perhaps the reason magicians are so well suited to publicity stunts is two-fold. The big reason is that this is what magicians do; they capture your attention, imagination, and they tell great stories. The second is that some of the best publicity stunts magicians attempt have an absolute zero-budget, meaning they cost very little to pull off, so magicians can have many stabs at them. There are also quite a few readily available proven and tested publicity stunts any magician can do, anywhere. Predict the outcome of a football match or the lottery, perform an escape with local police handcuffs or perform a blindfold-drive with a local reporter. There are three key ingredients a good publicity stunt. Be Relevant - Make your stunt is topical to what’s already in the news cycle, piggyback on an already viral story or incorporate something relevant to your target reader. This might be a football game, politics, or a popular debate, or even just something nearby to your next theatre show. Capture Attention - Get those clicks. Your stunt needs to fit into a six-word press headline. Even in a world of videos and GIF’s, to get the attention of the press, you need a good headline. Cause a Conversation - They call it the watercooler moment. How do you get everyone and their Mom to talk about you at the office watercooler the next day? You need to make people who know your story feel smart like they have something to tell their friends about. If you want to go for gold, create an ongoing conversation. Modern Examples: OK, fine—this one cost Dynamo and his team a lot of money. What they got from this stunt was a great headline and a great photo. But you know what this story did? It started a conversation, who the heck is this guy? Why did he do this? The location mattered; he walked on the most famous British river, outside the government’s house of parliament. Of course, the walking on water illusion was inspired by the original master of publicity stunts, Jesus Christ, AIMC. Dynamo was unknown at the time, and that, in my opinion, was the crucial ingredient that lead to the press caring more about who he was than how he did it. Years later, a much more famous Dynamo levitated above the shard (a tall London building), and because we all knew who he was, the only ongoing conversation the press could create was “how did he do it”. Derren, you total maniac. I think shooting a gun at your head on live television is probably the most sure-fire way to get free press. Could you do it today? Nope.And would you look at that—Derren got himself a brilliant six-word headline and a lovely thumbnail. What’s the conversation? I hear you ask. Will Derren die? Will he really do it? Are you crazy enough to watch, and do you think it’s real? I mean, c’mon, this quite clearly is an interesting headline, a great thumbnail and a good dinner table conversation. He played into the press’ need for ongoing news stories and specifically gave the U.K. press exactly the kind of story they thrive upon. I think Young and Strange struck gold with this video. You can see why it did so well. Firstly, photo-bombing live news coverage has a track record of being funny and viral. This takes this to an absolute extreme. Secondly, by pranking the press harmlessly and entertainingly, the press enjoyed sharing the content. I think the reason I love this stunt so much is that Young and Strange are doing exactly what they usually do. It’s an illusion they already perform, simply in a different location. Sure, much work went into cultivating this stunt, but I like that they did not compromise their brand of magic and illusions. Not-So-Modern Examples: Harry Houdini was the pioneer of publicity stunts, and not just in magic. The guy knew how to get a headline. If you’re wondering how publicity stunts might relate to you—know that publicity stunts are not just for garnering international attention. Heck, they’re not even just for garnering national attention. You can use a publicity stunt to get local attention, too. Here are some absolutely stunning images of Harry Houdini performing publicity stunts. The mere fact that these stunts have so many impossibly wonderful photos proves how successful they must have been at capturing attention and conversation. So What’s So Special About Uri Geller?Uri Geller (born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions.I don’t know how he does it, but Uri has an incredible talent for capturing the news cycle even in the most trying times. I think perhaps the reason I admire Uri’s ability to create free press is that he does it so effortlessly. And I mean that quite literally. On this occasion, he posted a video encouraging his followers to focus their minds on moving the boat at a specific time. That’s all he did. He didn’t pay a fortune for a stunt or get on primetime telly spot; the man (who should be far too old to be wielding social media so brilliantly) simply shared a low-quality social media post. I mean, it quite literally looks like he recorded the video ten seconds after he had the idea. And that’s part of the reason it did so well. We live in a world in which less is more and organic is better. If he’d run along to a fancy studio with lighting and fancy cameras and microphones, it would have felt like a PR stunt. This didn’t; this felt genuine. The true secret to getting free press is giving someone a pay rise. Someone sat at home, working for a newspaper, is crawling on the internet in desperate search of a story that will get their boss to notice them. Consider what they’re looking for, and tick every box. You’re trying to get free press, they’re trying to get a pay-rise, and that’s the game you need to play. In a world in which it felt like half the world was banging on about this ship in a canal that supposedly responsible for 12% of the worlds booorrrrrring. The press needed a story that could satisfy the other half of the world, who didn’t really care about the technicalities or the politics. They needed a story that was more than just a compilation of memes. They needed a conversation. And at the end of the day, a big boat stuck in a canal is a captivating story. More importantly, it’s an ongoing story. If the press can get you in, regardless of that initial headline, they can get you coming back for updates for days and weeks. It already has a great thumbnail and a bang average headline. People who care about news and politics are reading the story. People who like funny memes are reading the story. Now the press needs a hook for the people who do not want to discuss the manufacturing and delivery repercussions and don’t fancy GIFs and memes. Enter Uri Geller. Well done, Sir. Some Local Stunts For Ya Congratulations, you’ve decided to do a local publicity stunt. Here are five low-cost ideas to get some local goodwill and press. Remember, these are only ideas… Predict the results of a local football game. Escape from handcuffs at the local fire station. Take a local reporter on a blindfold drive. Turn water from the local fountain into wine. Perform an illusion for animals at the local zoo. See you lot next week. How relevant to you is this week’s newsletter?Very | Kinda | MehThis post was, in part, inspired by something shared by Frank Thompson. Thank you Frank for giving permission to include your line in this piece. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.