I keep seeing the "am I ready" posts here and as you all know I am blunt when asked this question. Now I have a question for all of you. There is NO RIGHT or WRONG answers, this is just a chance to look at ourselves and see if the attitudes for success are there. I will come back in a week and answer this myself.

OK here it is: What is your purpose for want to perform in restaurants? Added points, what is the main selling point to having YOU in that restaurant?

Paddy

Ok I'm new to the restaurant business so I've never actually did any performances as of yet.

The reason I want to perform is not only my deep passion for

entertainment and astonishment but also find something I love to do and

still making money at it. Don't get me wrong, a job like this wouldn't be

my primary source of income. It is more for the love of entertainment

and the need for me to show my skills that I've worked on for so long.

As for what I can offer to the restaurrant...I would hope my

performances would boost sales and invite reacurring clientel night to night

when I work. This would be from a business perspective. As a table

magician you have to fight with other forms of entertainment that are

more futeristic such as a live band. Magicians would offer something that

not everyone , or barely anyone would be used to seeing and curiousity

would boost sales...Curiosity would not keep them there though, that's

when it's my time to shine. I say this because there are no table

magicians that I know of within a 300 km radius of where I live as I've

searched for years even asking my restaurant managers how come they

don't have some sort of entertainment to draw in more people. There

simply isn't anyone where I live who likes entertaining as my island is

basically all hockey and potatoe farmers haha.

To keep it short, I would offer something that diners can not

get at any other restaurant keeping them entertained while boosting my

reputation, the restaurants reputation and both of our sales.

tell the manager you aim to boost sales and find yourself sacked the next week.

Why i do it-
Because I love performing magic. Stage or closeup.
Money
To get my buisness card into peoples hands

Why the resturant would want a magician-
To create a fun atmosphere
Entertainment for waiting customers and those waiting for there food
Make a memorable experince and get customers talking about your resturant. Make it stand out from the others.

I do resturaunt magic to get my business card out. I'm able to meet many new people, who are potential clients. Plus, getting the extra money is always nice, especially since I'm doing what I love.

My main selling point isn't to draw new business in, but to keep the returning customers happy and to keep them coming back.

Nice topic thread!

As for me, my real life job is in a factory... for 40 plus hours a week, I get entertained with all the same gossip, same problems, the same story being repeated over and over, and other aspects of lives I really don't feel they should be sharing in the work enviorment. As a magical entertainer in a restaurant, not only do I get to meet new people, make new friends, hold real conversations, I actually get to do magic (that gets frowned upon in the 40 hour day job). It is like a mini vacation from the mundane world for myself and hopefuly for my audience and to top it off, that mini vacation, it's paid.

Part of my job as a magician is also as a host, no I don't seat the guests, but I can and do involve more than one table with some of the effects. I have introduced this table of people to that table of people and opened up an avenue of possible new friendships. You may find that funny, but I do have some people that now come in in larger groups whereas before I performed, they were different tables and did not know each other.

I find working in a restaurant to be much easier for me than doing street magic. I really hate it when I hand someone on the streets my cards to shuffle and they take off with them, I am to outta shape to chase them down...or I borrow a dollar bill and turn it into a hundred... heck I loose $99 that way... it was their dollar bill I borrowed The people at the tables are somewhat captive for me

This is the biggest crock I have read. If you do NOT increase sales your done.

The ONLY reason a restaurant will let you in is to increase THEIR bottom line.

Thanks Peter, I was thinking the exact same thing ... they are not going

to hire you out of the goodness of your heart.

no, i meant if you PROMISE to increase sales, its next to impossible to prove you have done it. And if you dont say over a long period of time, some will expect it to happen within a week.

I wouldn't promise to boost sales, I would simply say that I could potentially boost sales...And I wouldn't be going for a restaurant for a onetime thing...I would be looking for a commitment thing...Don't get me wrong , if it was only one time and decided before hand, that wouldn't be a bad thing , but I don't think they would hire you expecting an exponential increas in sales within a one night performance that week...

I have a 6 page booklet that I give restaurants. The first page has the headline:
"Let us help you Increase Your Sales and have More Happy Customers"

page 2 headlines "What Applause Looks Like" then there is a number of quotes from references including this one
"“We get calls every day asking about when the ‘clowns’ will be here. Increased sales by a good $4000 a Saturday.â€

Wow that is pretty good...but it would take a while of building upon restaurant after restaurant to have enough qualifications and references to make your booklet good in the first place...What I want to see is any sort of video of you performing a trick...I never see a pro post a video of any sort on here.

I'M BACK!!!!!!! Got my new password and I am back as me again!!!

Paddy

Oh man I liked Peter1 he was much nicer. lol

LMAO, Hey Paddy, do you have any videos of you performing any effects, I want to check out your professionalism haha...