Best Trick of the Trade Show
While working a trade show booth recently I found myself in a short lull — that time when there’s a big assembly of some kind and the traffic in the room is diminished. I was standing at the corner of the booth rolling a worn 1972 Eisenhower silver dollar across my fingers, biding my time and looking around for an attendee I could engage. Something distracted me; I don’t know what. Maybe my hip touched the edge of the display table full of brochures, candy, and tchotchkes. Maybe I saw movement at another booth in my peripheral vision. For whatever reason, I zoned out and the coin slipped. I felt it hit the back of my arm and I believed, in my sudden burst of adrenaline, that I had caught the almost-dropped coin against my body with my arm before it hit the ground. I slowly pulled my arm away from my body and… nothing. I didn’t feel or hear anything fall, or drop, or hit the carpet. At this point I thought the coin must have eluded me after all and had rolled away. I looked around the floor for a few minutes. Nothing. The assembly let out and the trade show crowd built up again for the end of the day rush. I reached into my bag, grabbed another Eisenhower, and chalked this up as a loss as I went back to performing. After everyone had left the booth that evening, I took my time packing up. I looked under the tables and the boxes stored underneath. I looked carefully around the booth, the nearby walkways, and other possible hiding areas. That coin was either buried underneath a box I wasn’t going to move, or had rolled into another booth that I wasn’t going to enter, or it had been kicked somewhere else, or it had already been found by someone else. The next morning I arrived early and couldn’t help looking around some more. Still nothing. Oh well, it’s just a dollar, and not a particularly collectible coin. I’ve lost more than that by picking the wrong gas station for a fill-up and passing a cheaper one five minutes afterward. Plus, I’ve surely got a dozen more of those coins in my basement. I let it go and had a great trade show. Yesterday I got home and unpacked. As I was preparing to take clothes to the cleaners today, I checked all my pockets.In the sport jacket I had worn on the day I lost the coin, in the inside lower ticket pocket, beneath the inner left jacket pocket, was that Eisenhower silver dollar. Somehow it must have hit my shirt and been caught in a position that, when I released my arm, allowed it to fall at some angle that landed it safely in the most unlikely of places. I don’t know if there’s a moral to the story. It was just a pretty #amazing moment to find that coin this morning and realize that I had fooled myself with the best trick of the whole gig! #magic #magicians #tradeshowmagic #tradeshowmagician
Joining the 2022 Magicians On Mission and Armed Forces Entertainment Magic & Comedy Tour
I’m honored to have been invited to join the Magicians On Mission and Armed Forces Entertainment Magic and Comedy Tour later this summer! I have hoped and prayed for an opportunity to use what I do to support and encourage our active duty military personnel deployed overseas. I’m beyond excited that this is finally going to happen! (NOTE: For security reasons, I will not be sharing the specific details of the tour locations until after we leave each base.)You can help, too! Visit www.magiciansonmission.org and click on the “Donate” option. You can make a one-time gift, or you can set up a continuing donation to become a sustaining partner. Even $5 per month would help us support one service member per year.If you know influential people, celebrities, or other people with meaningful platforms who might be interested in partnering with us, please contact me so I can introduce them to our founder, Chris Rose.Magicians On Mission is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.#magic #mentalism #magicians #mentalists #comedy #comedians #military #activeduty #armedforces #armedforcesentertainment #performingarts #supportourtroops
Another Day at the Office…
I recently had another event/giglife adventure. I was booked to emcee a charity gala, with a bit of strolling magic plus some magical material during the main show which was to be both in-person and streamed on YouTube and Facebook. Attendees would enjoy a buffet dinner and drinks, bid on silent auction items, then enjoy the main show. The underlying theme and primary activity of the evening was a vocal talent contest, with singers from around the country and internationally having submitted videos that were to be played live and voted on, as well as commented on live by two celebrity judges (one of whom was a Grammy-winning producer). This would be followed by a short live auction, some awards, then a live band and dancing. I arrived to a beautifully decorated venue, with a sunlit atrium with a grand piano and a young man playing some excellent background piano music. The banquet hall was all set with plates and centerpieces and electronic candles to enhance the ambiance of the room’s lighting. The stage was set for the band, judges, and livestreams. The staff had set up cameras and laptops and amps and mixers and lights and projectors and so on. Sound and video checks were underway. Contestant videos and ancillary videos of interviews and organizational promo were loaded into Dropbox and being set up for the streaming. A few minutes before people started arriving, the lights suddenly went out. Most of us immediately thought a breaker had been tripped by the amount of equipment. A breaker had not been tripped. A few blocks away, a car or cars had hit an electric pole and knocked out power for the entire area. There was no electricity, the WiFi was out, the cellular service was iffy, dinner was almost ready but not quite, and a degree of disappointment was quickly setting in. I approached the organizer and offered to help in whatever ways I could. (People were arriving by this time.) I had a full show in my car (from my show earlier this week in Chattanooga), and while the hall and stage were too dark for a show, the atrium was well lit and had good acoustics. Plus, a piano was available as noted before. We could move some chairs, set up a stage/performance area at the end of the atrium, and I could do a program (of any needed duration up to 45 minutes) there. This would ensure that even if the band was unable to perform, there would be some kind of focused entertainment event. This could be a “backup plan” if we got no power, or a “let’s buy some time” piece of the puzzle. Several of us realized the buffet could be set up outside, and there was enough light from the candles so that people could eat at the tables in the banquet hall, or in the sunlit atrium or courtyard. If we could not find a way to play the submitted videos, we had a piano on site and I could sight-read charts on my phone for people to sing whatever they wanted, so we could still do a “karaoke” sort of activity and stay on the theme: “So You Think You Can Sing.” The bar was fine — no electricity needed — so I suggested we let people get drinks, I’d do strolling magic, and we’d see if the power came back or if we could get an estimate on repair time from the power company. She agreed, so I tapped on a wine glass and announced the situation and that we’d be relying on everyone’s patience and flexibility, but that this was still going to be a successful night to remember. I began strolling magic while staff started setting up chairs for the atrium show. The kitchen started figuring out how they could move the buffet outside. We were advised that it would be at least 90 minutes before any power could be restored. (That was wishful thinking.) As I watched the sun move and the light in the atrium change, I advised that if I were going to do a show there, we needed to go ahead and start it within the next 30 minutes. So we announced it and about 10 minutes later I was doing a stand-up show with a little customized scripting to emphasize the fundraising need and the mission of the organization. As I performed I got word that dinner was actually ready, so I closed with a finale trick and people went to eat. At the very least, there had now been a show and a dinner. Most people got plates and went inside to eat at the candlelit tables. I got a quick nibble and checked on the status of things. I was told that in the time we had bought with the stand-up show, someone had rented a small generator from Home Depot and there would be enough power to run the mics, laptops, and projector. A garage floor worklight on a table became the stage light. We were “go” to do our program, albeit in dark and challenging conditions. I then went into onstage host mode, welcoming everyone and introducing the judges and other people. While there was no livestream, the in-person program went reasonably well in the dimly flickering banquet hall. People laughed and cried at all the appropriate moments. Some videos could not be shown, but all the contestant videos had been downloaded and were all shown and adjudicated. Donations were made, auctions were held, awards were given, and the band had enough power to play afterward. So the client and her team used part of my backup plan, and we all managed to cobble together the other pieces well enough to proceed with a “crisis-management” version of the original program. When I left the lights still hadn’t come back on. As I drove away I passed the emergency crew working down the street still surrounded by flashing blue police
Mississippi Moments: Interview by Marshall Ramsey
Speed and Swagger: Ten-Minute Trainer Guest Spot
Several weeks ago, I recorded a guest appearance on “The Speed and Swagger Ten-Minute Trainer,” a weekly podcast produced by Speed Marriott and Derron Steenbergen (aka Swagger). Their focus is primarily on issues relating to media sales, but with general applicability for sales and marketing. (I met Speed when we both spoke at the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters conference in January.) Click on the image below to watch the episode. #podcast #sales #media #magic
Interview in CanvasRebel
CanvasRebel is a web-based magazine that does spotlight articles on a variety of creatives and business professionals. They approached me for an interview several weeks ago and this is the result. CanvasRebel: Meet Joe M. Turner Note: I appeared in a partner publication interview a couple of years ago. That interview can be found here: ShoutOutAtlanta: Meet Joe M. Turner, Professional Speaker and Corporate Magician/Mentalist
Don’t Forget the Rest of You.
Don’t Forget the Rest of You. I want to share a thought that has been percolating in my mind, heart, and soul for a long time. I believe it’s important, and I offer it to you as a gift at the end of a year that has been full of incredible challenges and opportunities for me, both professionally and personally. Please hear this in the spirit in which it is offered. Don’t become so comfortable with a few of your most obvious characteristics that you ignore the many other things about your own life, interests, gifts, and experiences that make you a multi-faceted, intrinsically diverse individual. Don’t let others be so obsessed with a few of your most obvious characteristics that they demand to define you solely by the ones they select, ignoring the many other things about your life, interests, gifts, and experiences that make you a multi-faceted, intrinsically diverse individual. You are more than the things you are best known for, even to yourself. You are also more than the limiting boxes others wish to put you in, to give themselves permission to silence, or discredit, or diminish, or exclude, or even totally ignore you. Every individual person is a mosaic. Perhaps even a kaleidoscope. Don’t forget the rest of you. And don’t let anyone else, either.
Efficiently Changing Display Configurations with a Stream Deck
I love using the Stream Deck and OBS to manage my live broadcasts for virtual presentations and performances. I use Windows 10 and two monitors in a specific way, and I have been using the Win+P shortcut to get to the pop-up menu to choose my configuration. I have played with multi-step hotkeys to open that app and get to the configuration I wanted, but I couldn’t make it work because there was no way to specifically select the option I wanted as a hotkey. It wasn’t always “2 arrows up” or “3 arrows down.” I finally solved the problem. Maybe I’m just slow, or maybe I finally I had the time to search the right terms. Maybe you have already solved this. But in case this is helpful for you here’s what you can do: Use the Stream Deck app to create a button to “Open” an exectuable file. The file is the built in app DisplaySwitch.exe — which you will execute with the following command line arguments: Duplicate:DisplaySwitch.exe /clone Extend:DisplaySwitch.exe /extend PC Only:DisplaySwitch.exe /internal Hope this helps. It has surely expedited my set-up for certain situations!
The Real Magic of Message-Driven Entertainment Events | Interview on The Nonprofit Exchange Podcast
On 20 July 2021, I was interviewed by Hugh Ballou of The Nonprofit Exchange on the work I do and how it can benefit the leaders of nonprofit (and other) organizations. You can watch the interview here: https://youtu.be/_xf8FOVoUqo You can also find it in audio form on many podcast platforms. You can also visit the page directly here; that page includes a full transcript of the interview.
Upcoming Performance: Atlanta Magic Night with Eric Anderson
Just a quick note to share some good news. The show that Mark Johnson and I have co-produced since May 2014, Atlanta Magic Night, is proud to announce that Eric Anderson will be joining us for the August performance! I’ve been a fan of Eric’s work since I moved to Atlanta in the early 1990s. He is an amazing and inspirational person, and you do not want to miss this performance. Get your tickets now by clicking here. [Note that due to the recent increase in cases, the venue will require proof of vaccination for this performance. If that is okay, great — we’ll see you there. If that is not okay — hopefully we will see you at a future performance!]
