When I was appointed to organize the corporate Christmas party for our division, I was not at all excited about it. It seemed like a hard, thankless job. If the corporate entertainment went off without a hitch, everyone would just get drunk and take no notice of me. If something went wrong, however, I would suddenly become the center of attention as the one who organized it. Either way, it was not much of a desirable situation.
I decided that I might as well go for novelty and hire a corporate magician. When I went to my super to get authorization for it, he gave me an odd look. He asked me if I was sure that corporate magic was the best thing for the party. Most years, they just hire a dj or a house band. It seemed that corporate magic was going out on a limb in a company that usually tries to do things as traditionally as possible. Still, the decision was made. I stuck with my guns. It would be corporate magic, or they could find a new party organizer.
I spent a lot of time looking at different online magic acts, trying to find the best possible pick for my fete. There were a lot of people advertised as doing corporate magic, but it seemed sort of like an uneven bunch. Some of them were into stage hypnosis, while others specialized in card tricks or sleight of hand. Some of them were great at close up magic, while others liked to do fancy stage shows. I had never seen a corporate magic show myself, so I had very little idea of what to look for. Finally, I just had to sort of hold my breath and pick the one who looked the best to me.
It turns out that I chose wisely. Rather than picking a very specialized corporate magic show, I chose one that had a little bit of everything. He started off by working the crowd, wandering around and doing card tricks and sleight of hand. Then, in the middle of the evening, he had a stage show. There was a demonstration of how to hypnotize someone along with the usual stupid human tricks. There was also some great conjuring and illusion work. He ended up by giving a motivational speech on what magic can teach us about the skills of leadership. All in all, it was a most amusing evening, and it seems like a lot of folks really liked it. Everyone got stinking drunk, but they were still talking about the corporate magic show well into the next week. I even got a few compliments on how well I organized the party.
9:54 AM