Mark Bennett - The Stand-up Lecture

24 November 2022

Someone else who has helped me improve my performance and given me ideas, this was a great lecture and covered:

Mind reading, coins, business, and a beaver- all in one lecture.

We started off the lecture with a brief history of friendship made over Magic from Simon. It is really amazing to see how much the art can bring people together and create relationships that span a lifetime.

After the introduction, Mark dived straight in by getting Andy to sign a business card that was placed inside his wallet (remember this moment, we will get back to it later).
He then proceeded to talk about his introduction to magic through Simon, how he was shown a card trick that made him say "fuck off". This was his spark to start creating magic and start performing magic to make other people say, "fuck off". Mark asked Simon to teach him the three tricks, Simon said
"no, unless you go and learn three tricks on your own"
To Simons surprise, Mark did just that.

Mark then briefed us on his brief history of starting in magic. How he began performing in nightclubs in Portsmouth.

He started the whole thing by negotiating with the barman saying he was there to do some card tricks and that was that, as he said, the day I was made redundant was the day I became a professional magician. He learned a lot from performing in nightclubs that it was great for testing magic for getting good hits, but it was bad for learning patter.
After nightclubs, Mark then called up several TV studios and eventually landed a spot on the tv show, Tricks and tracks. After the show, he stopped for a while in Southampton performing magic in a local Bar, by the cruise port. This was where he made his own work and had a signature trick of card to lemon with 18 or so lemons filled with cards. It was here where we learned how to make customers pay for drinks and keep them entertained.

He learnt from Heba Haba Al, how to keep everybody engaged by getting them to constantly shuffle the cards, while is controlling the ball and tricks all at the same time, with a simple and overlooked trick, using a key card.

After the brief history, Mark started performing his first trick of the evening, the Queens nose. The effect was simple in having two people choose two cards, with a kicker ending. The whole plot formed around, rubbing the Queen's nose, as in the book and TV show of the 90s of the same name. The kicker ending was when the second card chosen appeared on the tail side of the coin, simple and effective.

A great effect that hit a great variety of magic theory, include misdirection, transposition, transformation and goes through the classic plot line of building and releasing tension.

After the Queens nose, he pulled out the most famous duck known to magicians.

That is, of course a Dippy the duck. He explained that in his bar, dippy was placed high on the shelf, in a great focal point.

That only after the punters started buying drinks, would Dippy come out. Mark explained that he liked the idea of taking kids magic and making it naughty. Plenty of lines used in the performance that I will not divulge as it is something that you simply need to watch. A lot of clever wordplay, adult script and full of innuendos that suits a lot of different audiences.

Following Dippy, came another animal, the most hilarious animal I've ever seen a Magic besides Dave the dinosaur, of course. The animal in question, Marks magic beaver. His performance with this trick was an education in scripting and taking something that is one thing and turning into another. Again, taking a kids trick and making it appeal to an adult audience with clever wording.The plot was a card to impossible location- The beavers tail. Mark briefly explain that history came from Rocky raccoon that was something everybody was using at the same time, but he wanted to have something unique to himself. (I was crying with laughter).

After Mark put away his magic Beaver, another kids trick turned adult, making a wizard out of a guest- With a torn and restored hanky to wizards hat. I had the pleasure of being involved personally, and even though I could see behind the scenes and I knew the mechanics of the trick, It was still clean as a whistle. I could not see a single thing! A line he used, "If you don't know how to do something, don't fucking do it". Simple.

After the demonstrations of tricks he brought us back to the beginning of the lecture, referencing what Andy was thinking of before performing his mind map. (I told you to remember the wallet).This effect was absolutely bonkers, asking Andy to think of three random words unrelated to the word he
wrote down earlier.After this, he asked six different participants to think of a word relating to the three words chosen. So in total, he had nine random words on the board then made a connection through the words and then revealed the word that Andy wrote down at the beginning. I told you, bonkers. He went on to explain that he wanted to make the participants the magicians and involved, by basing the effect on "cue the magic" by Angelo Carbones. He continued, it allowed for everybody to get involved in some form of way and that you really have to work to make something out of nothing and it is
all on the fly, but still a great performance that allows you to lead the participants down the garden path to then go to the complete different direction at the end.

This was all made achievable by marks brand new effect on the market, Blindz. A devilishly designed peek wallet. Yes another one. But its design is simple and minimalist and works so long as you have good lighting conditions.

In the second half of the evening, Mark revisited the history of his performing life.

He went from "Tricks and tracks" to Portsmouth and even ended up on TV, in episode 111 of 150, in sky ones, "Who do you do", that featured the likes of Rob Brydon etc. After TV, Mark worked nightclubs and was potentially one of the only magicians working at the time. He talked about how, in the 90s, when the DJ called "a taxi", that was the cue for a show to begin in the nightclub, which was normal in the 90s.

Six or seven years passed, Mark said he missed the corporate window and clubs were changing. However, in his time at the clubs he learnt all the ins and outs. How the likes of the music forced drink sales, how changing the music change the crowd, which allows for a constant flow of the Bar. They even had celebs to come in and help with tricks.

Mark soon caught word of the "Aspen bar magic" book, which as it says on the tin, it is a book all about Bar magic. After reading this book, mark personally reached out and wrote to Doc Eason . wrote a business plan as he had a history in magic planned the first magic bar in the U.K.

However, he sat on the idea for years, it wasn't until he was working at waxy O'Connor's it was he sold a lot of red bull, which landed him at ski trip to Austria. After one of the days skiing, at the good old apres ski, he ended up getting behind the bar, performing magic to earn pints.

This was when he was noticed by this random man stood in the corner, the elusive Jeremy.

Jeremy approached and asked what he was doing, and what he wanted to do. Mark proclaimed that he wanted to open a Magic bar, that he had a business plan all worked out. Nothing more was said until he was invited to Manchester by Jeremy to look around at an empty unit.

When he walked in, it was announced that the bar would be his, his own (and first) magic bar. He was asked, "will this work?".

As it wasn't Jeremy's money, instead it was Richard Brandon's that was investing at the time. Mark was told that he was to quit his job, and that he will be the general manager of the venue which hosted 5000 in the nightclub and 80 in the bar.
Mark decided to open up as a Tom Mullica style magic bar- A long bar with a main performing area (on the bar), and on either side, bar people serving drinks. Assisted with a camera above to show everybody else that isn't close enough to see, projecting to screens around the bar.

When he opened Pure Magic Bar, he had the likes of: Magic Sam and Matthew Wright. On one occasion he was told that Richard Branson, the owner of virgin was coming to see how the bar operated however he came in and walked straight out. Mark was told that he was allowed to run after him and show a trick, and Mark said no.

From this, he learned that it was all about making money, so if somebody was sat, watching a Magic, they must have a drink in their hand. After all the bar doesn't pay for itself and being sat there without a drink doesn't pay for the performers.

Now in order for Mark to afford The purchase of the bar he actually remortgaged his house. After finding a venue, he designed the bar on a CAD software, made an offer and the rest is history. The year after the market crashed leaving the world in a financial dip.
However, Mark stated that bars are great for everybody, always: if you're happy you have a drink, if you're sad- you have a drink, and if you're broke- do you have friends, to pay for your drinks?

Once open, he made it a rule that if you are sat watching magic, you must have a drink in your hand. He also devised ways of having drinks in people's hands and used bar bets to help up sales. It took 11 years for people to start calling in to say they wanted to pay to come and watch what's the magic used to be free people always had to have a drink. Where is now people pay to come and watch a theatre show. In the beginning people said a magic bar would never work. However, he stated that if you don't push yourself beyond the limits you won't grow, and you will never know, and now look at what he
has created. Marks Bar allows for performers to come and learn to harness their skills.

Allowing performers to work on different skills, from openers, to stage presence, to crowd management. He literally has magicians asking to come to trial their tricks from all over the world.

He has used his time as a mentor to many different magicians. He talked about, how people do you not care who you are they do not know who you are and he quoted the typical anecdote of, "oh we had a magician at our event". Marks response- "What was their name?". which shows that most people won't remember who you are. That instead they remember the moments the feelings, but never your name. He continued, You are there to do one job and that is to entertain. He learned that you do not need to be overly critical and technical to make it as a magician. That if you can perform a relatable
"move", such as show a card spring, how to fan a deck, or do you simply a one handed cut, you would win them over as this is something that lay-people have tried them self. He's used this time to help better magicians not only with performance, but with business also.

Mark has had 4 bars one of which he opened, was an L out of shape he didn't like the layout, so he decided to knock down the wall and create a theatre, making it his own. After a while Mark went back to Manchester, when he reopened Pure Magic as illusions he was told that they could close at any time, as virgin, was looking to settle the building, and after five years, he had three hours to get out short notice.

At the end, mark opened the floor to questions and answers:

He was asked;
How do you sell out?
-Keep it small, not telling people who you are, but instead sell feelings, sell emotions, tell them what they are going to experience. Don't undersell yourself. The more you charge, the better quality of people you will get in to fill the seats. On the back end of that, If you're charging a premium, the lights, the cameras, the performers everything needs to be of top quality.

Do you have regular rotating magicians and do you have regular/repeat customers?
-Not really on the customer side:
some people come once a year. Some every three years. It is largely popular through trip advisor and is Bristols number one thing to do. As for magicians. We do have a couple of resident magicians as well as a few that rotate allowing for people to come and hone their craft.

How many does smoke and mirrors hold?
-38, however, once we had 52 people in there somehow.

What is next?
-I am really enjoying creating at the moment, as for the bars, at one point, I wanted a bigger premises, but I'm gonna leave that for someone else.

So keep your eyes, open Sussex magic circle ;-)

Overall, this lecture was amazing.
Covering only a few tricks and the rest was talking about business and performing and opening bars. Truly inspiring and top quality. A great wealth of knowledge and teachings came from this lecture. Thank you Mark!

What a nice beaver!
Compiled by Jonny Ritchie

Also a big thanks to Jonny for filming this lecture which will be available on the website by the weekend for those that missed it or want to re-watch.

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