Audience Size Should Not Matter
Do you know the one energy-booster that can launch your performance to the stratosphere?
Okay, that’s one hyperbolic question that will not win me merit badges from the literati. But you get my point…
The answer to the question is this: audience size.
Yes, the size of the audience, or the number of spectators, can raise or lower your energy level during a performance.
The bigger the audience, the more pumped up you are.
The applause of a big audience is more intense, sustained and enthusiastic. Its laughter more hearty and prolonged. Audience members, among themselves, get electrified by their own reactions as a mass. Thus their enthusiasm compounds and builds up to a frenzy. As a performer, you feed on this mass enthusiasm, which, in turn, raises your energy level.
Conversely, a small audience does not give you the same spirited response. Even your best bit will only reap a weak smile instead of a guffaw, a feeble applause instead of a hysterical ovation, a stunned silence instead of audible gasps.
These muffled reactions do not necessarily mean the audience does not like your show. Only that, there are not many of them to show you a more vigorous reaction.
As a general rule, a big audience can pump your performance up, while a small audience can potentially dampen your enthusiasm.
And here is where audience size separates the pros from the amateurs.
The amateurs will wither even before the start of his performance at the sight of a small audience. The professional, on the other hand, will perform enthusiastically, energetically and vigorously regardless of audience size.
Yes, the professional magician would love to perform to thousands in an auditorium. But he will also perform for eight kids and two adults in a living room with equal vigor and panache—even though the reactions he gets is not as loud as performing for thousands.
I, too, have performed for small audiences and lost my energy. The energy sags when I have just come from a big show where the applause is thunderous and the audience response is in high decibels.
But I have disciplined myself to switch always to booster mode when performing magic even for small audiences. The hysterical audience reactions may not be there but the quality of the performance remains the same.
Magicians in the Philippines should remember this always: a professional must perform his best regardless of the size of his audience. Not easy to do, but who says performing magic is easy?
Stay magical,
Leodini
