pastmagic | Hypnosis and Faire (Reply)

Hypnosis is not something that can easily be accomplished on the grounds of a busy faire like KCRF. We found this out last weekend when the hired hypnotist came up MIA on Monday. Some friends of mine (both professional hypnotists) were out on Saturday to see the show because they were curious.

The following is their account as I recall it:

T & B sat through the first show. They both were surprised she didn't have a sound system at all. She was hard to hear and it seemed she wasn't very confident in her ability. She used a progressive relaxation induction which they said took 12-15 minutes and then for the next ten minutes did standard hypnosis gags. She then ended the show without any sort of hat pitch, just a "That's hypnosis and if you have questions I'll be over there..." She did a twenty two minute show in her forty minute time slot. All I can do is shake my head at this point.

Before the second show T questioned her about where she learned hypnosis and a bit about her background, without letting her know about his knowledge of hypnosis. When asked if she had done a show before she flat out told him she had never done a show before. He pressed, "at a festival?" her response, "never." Last weekend was her first hypnosis show EVER. That's right KCRF hired somebody with absolutely no performing background whatsoever. Turns out she took in a seminar in St Louis to learn hypnosis. T had heard of the guy and told us later he was respectable as a clinical hypnotist but doubted he'd done many shows himself. T asked how she heard about this guy and she told him, from her hypno-therapist.

For those of you following along at home: She is seeing a hypno-therapist, who tells her about a "Learn Hypnosis" seminar, She goes to St Louis, gets her "I learned Hypnosis certificate", then successfully gets hired by KCRF to do five shows a day, even though she's never successfully hypnotized a stranger...
Now I know that like anything involving the performing arts, you have to eventually step on to a stage to be called an actor, but this is ridiculous.

Anyway the second show involves her standing on stage talking about the benefits of hypnosis, and what it feels like. For about ten minutes...then sat back down. No attempts to put anybody under, nothing.

The next shows she didn't even bother to say anything except that there weren't enough people there to do a show. That's what we in the business call "phoning it in".

I should point out that during their conversation with us behind the Mermaid T didn't think she'd make it one more week and B concurred. Both were disappointed, and T made the comment that if anybody said they had seen the hypnotist at KCRF he would disavow any knowledge of hypnosis.

Some background on T: He's a trained Ringling clown, has toured all over the US doing his cowboy rope and gun spinning act, has toured with Brooks and Dunn as part of their Electric Sideshow, and has been doing hypnosis shows all over the country for the last six years at state fairs and corporate events.

B: World touring magician with several tours of South America, an Asian tour and in the next two months he'll be heading to Iraq as part of the USO tour over there. He was also the Kansas State Flat Picking Champion for 2009, and has been doing hypnosis shows for corporate clients for the last two years.

So back to the story: Monday JS makes the announcement that no body knows where the hypnotist is because no body has heard from her. She has vanished. Rod and I give a knowing chuckle and I text T. Okay so it wasn't a chuckle we were laughing. Rod and T called it.

What's funny from my perspective is that JS has been trying to hire T to do a hypnosis show for two years now and T keeps telling him he's booked (yes he's booked that far in advance) but if JS had any questions about how to find a good hypnosis he'd be glad to help. JS turned him down.

So T texts me back saying I should have Rod call B, that he feels that B knows what he's doing and would do a good show. Rod tells me he's not stepping into that pile of crap.

End of hypnosis related story from last weekend.

Act 1 Scene 2

The phone on my desk rings, it's Rod wanting to know what time T'ger opens in the morning. I tell him I think somebody is there about 9am. I ask him if he needs a new shirt. He tells me B got hired to replace the missing hypnotist. HA HA HA...