PeterWardell.com » Performance

The Magic State of Mind & the Andy Nyman Interview

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:36:52 +0000

The Magic State of Mind

I have asked a number of successful magicians if I can interview them. Most of them said “Yes”. The plan is to either accompany each of these interviews with “take-aways”, a summary of the key points and advice, how it applies to the rest of us and how it can help us develop as magicians & performers. I will post these, along with the videos on a new site soon, with the intention of getting one or even two videos up each month. Hopefully you’ll subscribe because if there is enough interest then people will be more inclined to say yes to being interviewed. It’s a virtuous circle!

The new site is The Magic State of Mind, and will be live by the end of the week, (in one form or another). It’s aimed at helping magicians with their creative projects and their productivity. I have a number of great people lined up for interview with the focus being on their success and how they achieved it. All of the people I interview will have another angle on magic that isn’t just entertainment, let’s call it “Applied Magic”. Motivational Speaking, Trade Shows, Writing, Inventing, Publishing etc. I don’t want to talk about tricks as there are enough sites already doing this.

You can subscribe on the site itself, or by clicking HERE. If you are already subscribed to this blog then you will get updated automatically as I will post links to the videos here as well. If you’re not subscribed to this blog then just fill in your email address in the box on the left and you will get updates about both this blog and The Magic State of Mind.

The Andy Nyman Interview

Andy’s interview was the first interview I did so please forgive any technical or artistic cock-ups. Andy was great but my delivery of these can only get better. The interviews are recorded from Skype calls so the quality of the picture and the framing isn’t perfect but I believe the content makes up for it.

I have to say a huge thank you to Andy for being my test pilot, he is an incredibly busy guy so I owe him big time. As I said there were some technical hitches, not least the fact that we were cut off abruptly, mid sentence at the end which only adds to the mystery in my opinion. Maybe in true horror genre style I can persuade Andy to make a sequel?

To see the video on the Magic State of Mind site and read my take on what Andy said click HERE

Please leave comments and join in the conversation. Post on Twitter, Facebook etc. I’ll be extremely grateful.

Some Professional Advice

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:29:47 +0000

Earlier in the week I posted a request on Twitter for professional magicians to give what they considered to be the best advice they could give a newcomer to the profession. I’ve listed some of the responses at the bottom of this post and as this is my blog I have commented on the general themes. I’ll break it down into three key areas, (it’s the engineer in me):

The Foundations.

Personal Approach

Business Approach

The Foundations:

This has to be the best starting point for every performer – develop your skill set. This doesn’t mean learn a thousand tricks and then get your business cards printed, it’s more about quality than quantity. You need the core routines that you can build your career on. For me it was the cups and balls. That one trick has allowed me to get thousands of performance hours in front of real people and it is still the bedrock of my professional repertoire, (some people think it’s the only trick I know!) The truth is that I now have a substantial body of material but without that foundation I would have spread myself too thinly and that would have made progress very difficult. If you have a desire to perform close-up then 5 solid tricks will allow you to work drinks receptions and dinners, but they must be SOLID, PROFESSIONAL ROUTINES, not shoddy pieces of crap that you think “will do.” The time you spend performing these tricks in front of a live audience will benefit you far more than the hours you could waste learning new material that will probably never see the light of day. Until you start performing you’re always practicing. Your confidence will grow and so will your reputation as a worker and that as they say is priceless. Too many magicians “buy” their careers and then try to grow into it but if you take the time to get the basics right you will be successful – it’s a universal in any business! So I don’t care if you can cut the cards twenty different ways with your teeth your still not a magician until you can stand up in front of an ambivalent crowd and entertain them with a top-change. So get the f**k off YouTube and get in front of some real people with a trick that doesn’t work itself. You’ll thank me for it!

Personal Approach:

The advice you will often hear is “be yourself.” Well I think that’s only part of the message. It needs to be broken down into more manageable chunks. I mean how can you be yourself if you have no idea who you are in the first place? I wrote about this in my last post. You need to define for yourself what it is about you that want to convey in your performances before you can be yourself. This doesn’t mean going on a retreat and taking a swim in “lake you”, it simply means that you must be comfortable with who you are and that is something that only comes with time. Confidence and arrogance are very similar in tone but are a world apart in the way they are perceived. Pat Page once called me arrogant and looking back on it he may have been right. I was close to finding my confidence on stage but I hadn’t quite crossed that line when he made that comment about me 15 years ago. I was in a part of my life as a performer that found me moving from the street into the “corporate magic” world – on the street I was confident but on stage I wasn’t and so I compensated with arrogance, not intentionally but by default. I don’t want to sound like the journeyman but it does take time and the less experience you have the more carefully you have to control your “confidence.” It doesn’t work for everyone, some people are just arrogant and all the time in world won’t change it. Which brings me onto my next point

“Be yourself” is too wide a window of opportunity, it allows you to get lazy. No-one has to work at “being them self.” You are you regardless of the effort you put in. What you should try to be is the best of yourself – always.

Business Approach:

Do you have one? What is your marketing strategy? Do you have a CRM system? Do you issue contracts with a full set of T&C’s attached? What was the last business book you read? Are you using social media to boost your profile? You get the picture.

Being a professional magician is about magic 20% of the time, about business 80% of the time and a job all the time. I’m obsessive about business (but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it), and I’m always learning. I am far more in awe of magicians who demonstrate an aptitude for business and a true entrepreneurial spirit than a good faro shuffle. Some have both skills and I try to make them my friends. I’m shallow like that. You should approach the business of magic with the same passion that you approach the magic itself. The first will enable you to exceed your expectations in the second. I don’t believe that you have to be a starving artist to be truly creative, in fact the more on top of the day to day running of your business you are the more time and space you will have to spend on your artistic projects. Nothing kills creativity like a VAT return! And the business side of things really feeds the artistic side. To create good marketing material you need to fully understand what it is you do. Creating good sales copy that doesn’t read like a yellow pages ad is hard and a creative challenge, it forces you to focus on what it is that makes you unique. Business starts in the same way as your magic with strong foundations. A few really good clients are worth more than a hundred nameless faces who book you once. Again it’s quality not quantity. If you know Paretos principle then you’ll understand that 20% of your clients will bring you 80% of your work, so it’s important to build relationships and try not to piss too many people off. Business is about people and so is being a magician. They go very well together.

So there it is. Easy isn’t it? Get good, be nice and always answer the phone.

Here are some of the responses I got from my initial request, feel free to add your own comments, actually I insist.

Buy Michael Ammar’s card miracles 1 & 2 and Mark Wilson’s book of magic!

Get on stage. Work for free. Pay to work. The more stage time you get the better you’ll be.

As woody allen said – ”99% of success is turning up”.

Be yourself. And if that doesn’t work. Be someone else.

Try not to do to much magic ,it only upsets people.

Also remember to pay some attention to the ugly women

The tricks aren’t important, you and your interaction with audience are.

Smile

Take ur wallet with you on stage/performing

Remember your job is to entertain.

Don’t neglect the business side of showbiz!

You can’t beat getting in front of people. I joined an amateur variety group when I was 15 and did regular charity gigs. Helped me hone routines in the early days.

Don’t always listen to advice from family and friends. They’ll usually say you’re great when you’re not necessarily.

Believe in what you’re doing. Believe what you’re doing. If so, they will believe too. Your target is to enjoy, you and your audience.

Jugglers will hate you – mimes won’t talk to you – and it doesn’t matter if David Copperfield bought Claudia, Kate Moss still prefers magicians.

Buy “Marketing for Dummies” and anything by Seth Godin and read each twice. Finally, don’t copy what others are doing.

Learning to sell and market yourself is 100 x more important than learning card tricks.

Distinguish between magic and tricks! Understand rapport and confidence. Overcome fear!

Be yourself and if you think something works have the courage to do it, even if most disgree, who’s to say that they are right.

On the Edge.

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:10:58 +0000

As a street performer I became very familiar with edges. Your edge is defined as the front of your audience and it’s vital you get it right if your show is to succeed. Some performers would lay down rope or draw a chalk circle, others, magicians normally, would start working at the edge and then back away leaving the spectators in the perfect position. Over the years I tried all of these in my attempts to set the perfect edge. On the street learning to create an edge was crucial.

So why is it so important?

Edges outlined your performance area but they also outlined your intentions to perform and attracted interest. The act of building the edge was the method as well as the outcome. Your edge also determined the scope of your performance. Set your edge to far away and you’ll not be able to create the energy you need to fill the show, too close and you cut off sight lines and therefore vital income streams. Creating the boundary also built your “4th wall” , an osmotic layer that provided a means of filtering what came in and what left the performance. Shows could not risk being a two way street, with equal input from either side of the wall. Control was always needed to prevent things being taken over by the masses. The edge contained the energy of the show – if the wall was breached and holes appeared then energy would be sucked out of your show faster than you could create it . Skilled performers will plug the gap as fast as possible stopping the show until they have.

Boundaries and edges are essential. They are a force field that provide identity and focus.

If you don’t spend time outlining your boundaries and intentions then you can’t expect others to understand what your place in the world is. You may well be ignored or taken for a ride. Without your boundaries clearly stated you are more exposed to ridicule and criticism by people who just don’t “get it”.

You need to know where your boundaries lie or you can’t ever know how far you can go in pursuit of your goals. Boundaries act as guide lines that have a bearing on all the decisions you make. If you set them too far away you’ll never be able to fill the space and you’ll eventually be lost in the crowd. Set them too close and you’ll never extend your grasp, you’ll feel hemmed in and your performance will be crushed.

If your edge isn’t defined then it becomes difficult to know what was you and what wasn’t. Your ideas and thoughts will become mixed with those of other people and again you’ll lose yourself in the crowd. You run the risk of pursuing someone else’s dream and not your own, of becoming a second rate version of someone else and not a first rate version of yourself, (to paraphrase Judy Garland). Performers are often told to “be yourself” but without boundaries who is that? Hey it’s easier to be someone else, someone who has clearly defined who and what they are already – but that’s a sure route to deep dissatisfaction.

As performers we offer ourselves up as a finished product but the truth can be very different. We are often ill-defined parodies of others, fuzzy and blurred around the edges with only a packet of cards separating us from the people we’re performing to. A magician, a corporate entertainer, a mindreader, a magical entertainer, close-up magician, blah, bah, blah. What is it that make you unique? Where is your edge? Have you set your boundaries?

Go ahead draw a chalk circle that says exactly who you are and then work that edge. Use it to create interest, build on it and take control of your performance before you lose yourself in the crowd.

Protected: Me On Me – A Performance Review.

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:07:02 +0000

Make Yourself Feel Better

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:18:26 +0000

There are a number of ways to make yourself feel better about yourself and the work that you do. One of the simplest is a method used a great deal in the entertainment industry is to knock the other guy. I mean if you see someone performing you can easily slag off their performance and by doing that you will lift yourself above what they have done and hence you feel better. Even more impressive is to criticise their performance and then build yourself up as the expert by stating how you would have done it differently. That will increase the gap between you and them – you’ll look really good then. Just go on YouTube and look at the comments that people leave – very often it just condemns or insults the person who has posted and that can only have the effect of making the individual who left the comment feeling powerful. Maybe the tone of the comment can suggest that you are the expert, slightly patronising, all knowing. Yeah that’s the way. I do it, you do it. The reality is that unless your comment is going to improve the performance or help then you should probably shut up! Oh and if you are “the expert” lift people up to your level, don’t cling on to your knowledge, share it and share it freely. Anyone who is putting themselves in the line of fire deserves a degree of respect and isn’t necessarily a sitting duck for ridicule, you don’t become the smartest person in the class by throwing stones at the poor sod whose struggling, especially in the glasshouse that we’re in. There’s merit it pretty much every sincere attempt to deliver a performance regardless of the end result.

Alternatively you could just focus on making yourself a better performer than you are at the moment and forget about where that puts you in the grand scheme of things. You could look forward and towards those people who have something to teach you and stop looking back at the ones you feel a degree of superiority over waiting for an opportunity to stick the boot in. You can stand on the shoulders of giants because they have shoulders broad enough but if you stand on the weak you will more than likely crush them and the problem with that is that you will be at the same height you were when you started, and you’ll have all kinds of shit on your boots.

Like I said, I’ve done it more than once and it’s never made me a better performer. So if I’ve ever slagged you off, ridiculed your performance or knocked you when you were down – I apologise. I’m no expert but if I can help make you a better performer then I will. All you have to do is ask.

The Busker & the Street Performer

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:56:17 +0000

Photo by MichaelERay

There are two distinct ways to approach performing on the street, there’s the way of the Street Performer and the way of the Busker. (These definitions are mine by the way. Many people use the term busking and street performing to describe the same thing and they are as right as I am.) The Way of Street Performer is to define your pitch and draw a crowd, body by body if need be. The way of the busker on the other hand is to sit to the side of a flow of pedestrians and work to a constant stream of changing faces. A street performer will deliver a show that has a set structure, an act that will allow the performer to move away from their set routines, play with the audience and improvise when things happen outside of their control. The busker will play a continuous, repeating set without ever interacting with the passers-by. A performer is always looking at how they can give more to the audience, constantly assessing feedback, the busker is happy to do what they have always done. Finally at the end of their act a street performer will deliver a bottling speech, a call to action that asks for a specific contribution from everyone involved. A busker simply accepts what ever donation is dropped into the hat.

Performers draw in – Buskers push out.
Performers are accountable – Buskers are invisible.
Performers engage – Buskers are isolated.
Performers are pro-active – Buskers stagnate.
Performers are artists – Buskers are doing a job.

This isn’t a post about street performing, it’s about whatever you’re doing.

So what are you doing? Are you busking or performing?

Do you Know What You’re Doing?

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:55:28 +0000

You know the test that you can pose to people, “Can you tell me what the numbers on your watch are, Roman or Arabic?” Most people can’t tell you because they have been looking at the damn thing every day for such a long time that it is now taken for granted and ignored. Well how mindful of your environment are you when you perform. If I asked you after a close up gig to describe the people who you were working for could you? For us routines that we do over and over again can become a bit like the face of your watch, so familiar that we begin to take it for granted. We forget to look and listen for reactions and deliver a word for word rendition because that’s what we know. The routine stops developing and we miss opportunities to engage with the people we’re working for. As a street performer it was fatal to stop being mindful of your performance because the real “magic”, the best moments came from outside influences. If something happened that had a direct impact on your show and you didn’t respond to it people would fail to be reminded that you were a live performer. They might as well be at home watching the TV. The art of the live performer is the art of interaction and interaction can only take place if you are fully aware of what’s going on around you. You should know your magic so well that you take it for granted but that’s just the mechanics. Now you’re free to play around the effect, (not with), as much as you like because you know it so well. It’s like driving a car, you do the necessary functions to operate the car as second nature and this should leave you mindful of the world around you , enabling you to react if necessary, (make phone calls on you mobile – joking), and eventually get you to where you need to go. However if you fail to engage in this mindful approach to your environment when your driving you are risking a hell of a lot, not just alienating yourself from your audience.

So here’s the challenge, the next time you perform switch on all of your senses and place yourself firmly in the moment. Listen and watch your audience, look them in the eyes. Observe your handling of props and people and become acutely aware of everything that makes up your entire performance. If you can do this then there’s a chance that you will reconnect some of those internal switches that you have had ignored for so long and the joy of what you do will be apparent again, to you and to your audience.

Cabaret or not?

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:46:47 +0000

Most close-up magicians will say that they do a cabaret, however most of them don’t. What they do is Close-up magic and they stand further away. It’s a bad habit formed from magicians usually being given the job of compere and then later on trying to tie that same material into an act. A good cabaret needs structure and it can’t be a hotch-potch of tricks thrown together. It needs a beginning a middle and an end. Structure is what makes the difference between a poor cabaret with strong magic and a great cabaret with standard effects. The structure is more important than the magic.

My current act isn’t as good as it should be. I’ve manged to do okay based mainly on my ability to perform but it’s been lazy.

The act is as follows:

Splash bottle production.
Rope tie with selected card, based on an idea I saw in the Ricky Dunn book along with other aspects that I worked out on the streets last summer.
Cups and balls, framed with a bill in lemon. It the natural progression and I have used it over the last 20 odd years.

So that it. 3 tricks, (4) if Bill in lemon is a separate trick. I don’t need any more for a 30 minute spot but obviously I have other material if needed, including: Slydini torn and Restored Newspaper, Salt Pour, Slydini Silks, 11 Dollar Bill Trick and Egg Bag.

I think less is more and if you do fewer effects then you do need to be a stronger performer but isn’t that the point? Be prepared to drop material if it will help with the pace of the act and don’t be precious.

Structure is really important to me within a cabaret, but maybe you’ve got that point already. The “for my next trick” approach jars with my need for a through line and a narrative or flow. It’s very difficult to achieve and one of the ways I try to avoid it is by overlapping routines or changing the whole tempo by properly introducing an effect. For example if I produce a bottle of water at the beginning then I will pour a drink from it during the performance – it doesn’t sound like much but it fixes the effect in the overall program and gives it reason. Introducing an effect is also a great way to move from one trick to another and to create a greater sense of theatre. Simply saying “and for my next trick” results in a kind of catalogue of effects and is very clunky. By changing the tone, pace even costume as you introduce an effect you are essentially doing a ” visible scene change.” It allows you to frame your presentation correctly instead of asking your audience to continually jump from one moving train of thought to another. But it takes careful scripting and thought – spouting a load of bollocks about your recent trip to India wont do it and I think I’ve had that rant before.

So what about the tricks I do:

Splash bottle – I wanted to change this as a good friend of mine opens with the same effect although now I feel I have a different feel to the trick and so I’m toying with keeping it in. It allows me to establish my character as I can deliver lines as I inflate the balloon. I have been looking at using the Derek Dingle balloon sequence from his card in balloon to begin with, as it is a piece that suits my style of humour. If I drop the trick I will need a new opener, maybe the Salt Pour.

I started working on the rope tie last summer. It’s a basic Kellar tie with a card selection added to the mix. My hands go in and out of the bag during the routine as I fail to find the card or to flash that the hands are momentarily untied etc. I produce a glass of orange juice from the bag along with some other sight gags to add more to the routine, and will use it to pick pockets and steal watches where possible. I like the effect and I’m happy with the way it is coming together. To introduce the trick I talk about Houdini and how he was formerly billed as the King of Cards, giving me a reason to do an escape and a card trick all rolled into one. It’s also potentially a closing trick which could replace the….

Cups & Balls. Of course I love the trick but it has several problems, mainly to do with sight lines. I currently have a large case which doubles up as a small stage whenever I’m working a private event that wont be kitted out and I’ll use this for any after dinner where people are still seated. The Cups is very versatile up to a certain crowd size and then after that you need to work really hard to sell it or rely on AV to make it visible. Also doing the bill in Lemon as part of the cups mean effectively I loose an effect. So the plan is to work an Egg Bag sequence that will finish with a Lemon load and to do this before I introduce the Cups as a separate effect. The egg bag is a bit like the Cups in that it will be difficult to find a sequence that isn’t the same as someone else’s, but I’m trying.

So that ‘s the basics I’m starting with at the beginning of 2010 lets see where it goes over the next 12 months. How about you? Can you honestly say you have an act or do you have a string of tricks that you’ve cobbled together?

Cellini – King of the Road

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:40:42 +0000

While I was away in Spain I heard that Jim Cellini had passed away. People closer to him than I was will write at length I’m sure about the man and his life, that’s how it should be, and of course my thoughts are with his family.

I first heard of Jim through Jerry Sadowitz’s “Crimp” magazine, and then after talking to a number of long standing Covent Garden performers I realised that I had to meet this guy. Jim had a huge influence on my life even though I only met him a few times, and for a number of years before we met I tried to track him down as he traveled through Europe. On more than one occasion I would arrive at a pitch to be told he had been there the week before but had moved on. Eventually I met Jim at FISM in Dresden. I had heard he was lecturing so took a detour from Prague and worked the street outside the convention as I couldn’t afford the fee to get in. It was a great experience, a number of top names stopped to watch the show, Jay Marshall stayed on and was gracious enough to thank me for doing a good job and one kind soul dropped a FISM pass into the hat.

Even now the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I think about the excitement I felt as I walked into the bar of the convention looking for the man I had wanted to meet for so long. He was surrounded by “real” magicians and to be honest looked a bit bewildered by the fuss they were making about him. I managed to press myself to the front of the small crowd and extended my hand to him, “Hi Jim, I just wanted to say hello..”, before I had finished my sentence he said ” Are you the guy who’s been working the street? Sit down.” He shifted along to make room for me to sit and I sat there, a fellow street performer, kindred spirits, acknowledged by the best in the world! It doesn’t get any better than that.

It wasn’t until I went to the large festival held by the lake in Zurich that I really got to know Cellini. Almost every night for two weeks I would sit with him and talk magic, street performing and life. He gave me some great advice and was always happy to share memories and stories. I learnt the Slydini silks from Jim, I already knew how to do the trick, but like I say I LEARNT the effect from him. It was during those 2 weeks that I changed my whole outlook on magic and street performing and that was due to Cellini. He wasn’t performing at the festival himself but instead he sat and held court in one of the most beautiful settings I have worked in, absorbing the energy of the festival and reflecting it back in his own way. One particular evening as we sat drinking a beer Jim was approached by some locals who clearly knew him by reputation and they asked if he would show them a trick – Jim obliged by performing the Slydini one coin routine and to this day it remains in my memory as the most magical presentation of any trick that I have seen. His whole physicality changed and he exuded the strength and confidence that only comes from years of performing, the moves were fluid and the effect crystal clear. Set against the backdrop of the lake on a beautiful summers evening it was pure magic. I stand corrected – it doesn’t get any better than that.

The following year I repeated my visit to Zurich with my old street performing friend Gary Animal and this time Gazzo was there. I hadn’t met Gazzo before but he knew that I had been doing the Cups based heavily on his routine so what could have been an awkward moment was eased by the fact that Jim had told Gazzo that I was one of the good guys and not just a copycat. I still kick myself that I have no photo’s from my time in Zurich and that year what a photo it would have been, however I wasn’t there to make memories I was a street performer, with other street performers and we were just living the life. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I also have Jim to thank for introducing me to some of the best magicians in the UK. He was at the International convention and again I came into the bar, as an outsider, to see Jim sitting with some of the best magicians in Britain. These were guys that I had always wanted to be “in with”, and it I can’t help smiling when I think of how Jim called me over to sit with them while they looked on thinking “who the f**k is this guy.” Thanks Jim, they don’t come any better than you.

So, Jim Cellini, I tip my hat to you and wish you well on your new journey. Although we never worked on the same sidewalk together your influence is in every performance I give. Thank you for everything and you will be missed.

Criticism

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:13:39 +0000

Image from www.SXC.hu

As I write this I’m sitting on a coach traveling to Madrid having just finished performing at another InterMagia, festivals of magic for the general public. The Spanish love magic, there are probably about 70 pure magic festivals across Spain each year, maybe more. One of the many positive aspects of working at festivals like these is that I get to work with some world class acts and even better I get to spend time with them during the long Spanish meals that we’re treated to.
This weekend I was performing in two Gala shows with Junge Junge, two of the nicest and smartest guys in magic. The two shows were back to back with a turnaround of 1 hour, My first show was not great. New(ish) material, in broken Spanish meant it was bit of a shambles. Fortunately for me the guys had watched from the back of the theatre, (I opened, they closed), and they talked honestly with me during the turn around period. The advise was clear, hard, and necessary. I had forgotten some of the basics, eye contact, prop management, and it was summed up as “not good”. (In contrast the organisers felt I had done a good job, which highlights why sometimes it is valuable to seek criticism and not just accept praise.) So I had the choice to either be pissed off that someone had dared question my performance, or take it as it was intended as good advice. I chose the latter.
So many times I have heard performers justify mistakes and shit performances with a string of meaningless excuses or just a pure lack of self awareness and I’m as guilty as the next guy, (who at this moment looks like a Spanish chicken farmer). This is compounded by the number of magicians who criticise in a non-constructive way, usually as a way of getting round to showing you a trick (or 10). In the right conditions this can trigger a game of “That’s shit, watch this”, which will continue until someone dies.

So……

Taking Critcism
•   Seek it out and make people aware that you are open to it.
•   If you’re not feeling strong enough to take it, defer it don’t dismiss it.
•   Be your own hardest critic, not your biggest fan.
•   Don’t disregard anything immediately – think it through.
•   Write it down.
•   Say thank you!

Giving Critcism
•   Ask if the timing is right before you crush a delicate ego.
•   Make sure you know what you’re talking about.
•   Long lists are not welcome.
•   Be honest not “clever”
•   Make sure it’s broken before you try to fix it.
•   Remember it’s only you’re opinion.
•   If it’s obvious, it’s OBVIOUS!

As for my second Gala Show it was a hundred times better than the first but in my opinion there’s still a long way to go.

Please feel free to leave only positive comments about this post.