Simon Alexander Blog: Professional Magician

“That magician is worth his weight in gold.  I wasn’t going to stop at your stand but I’m so glad I did; my customers will just love your stuff.

Katie - The Tuck Box

So how did gourmet food wholesaler, Cotswold Fayre manage to compete with the likes of free vodka, bacon flavoured chocolate and chewing gum that makes your whole body smell like roses?   Enter your friendly neighbourhood Trade Show Magician.

My role was simply to stop people in their tracks and attract them to the stand with some branded magic.  I chose some highly visual card magic themed around “quality products”, and a fun repeating coin-production entitled, “money from nothing,” highlighting benefits the of the Cotswold Fayre customer loyalty program.

The shots below show some visitors enjoying the show.

As I learnt more about the business I was also able to “field” prospects to ensure that the sales-people were spending their time with the most profitable prospects.

So was it a success?  We finished the fare with an abundance of new business leads, a large percentage of which, Managing Director, Paul Hargreaves feels sure will convert into new customers.

Overall it was an exhausting but fun few days for everyone and I’m looking forward to being a part of Cotswold Fayre’s future marketing strategy.

You’d think that being a professional magician would offer fantastic opportunities to shoot really interesting and intriguing studio photographs, wouldn’t you?  The trouble is that it’s actually quite difficult to capture the “essence of magic” without using quite obvious imagery; and if you decide to forego the card fans, doves, rabbits and top hats, you’re often left with just a picture of a bloke!  It can be a real problem if you need interesting shots for promotional material that don’t appear cliché.

My good buddy Simon Kemp is a pretty talented magician who also just happens to be a multi-award winning international photographer.   (Oh well, at least I’m younger than he is.)

Because of his contacts with “the magic fraternity” Simon has shot promotional material for all manner of professional magicians.  On Wednesday afternoon I popped over to his Reading studio and we had some fun shooting a few additional shots for his new specialist web site Photography for Magicians. 

I’ve posted three nice pictures below.  He’s a clever lad, isn’t he?

Okay, so we did take some card pictures.

Afterwards we went to The Magpie and Parrot in Shinfield.  Simon was particularly “thirsty” and subsequently “got done” by his wife for skiving off on a work day!  He, he.