This past Friday I got an email from the producer of Techcrunch Disrupt - a major tech industry conference being held in NYC this week. For those unaware, Techcrunch is one of the largest technology news and editorial sites in the world, and their columns are syndicated in the Washington Post. According to Google, they are one of the most visited sites in the world. That's an impressive stat.
They were asking if we could perform something at the beginning of their keynote presentation this past Wednesday. At the time of their email, we had about 4 days to put something together. Without hesitation, I said "hells yes we'll do it!" From that moment on, this past week has been a whirlwind. I consulted with Dan White, Asi Wind, Justin Kredible, Steve Cohen, Brian Brushwood, Andrew Mayne, Chris Kenner, and Richard Z from our team. We spitballed three or four ideas. We didn't want to just perform a "normal" magic trick. That wouldn't have been memorable - this was, after all, a tech conference.
In those 4 days, we created an interactive routine that involved participation by every single person in the audience as well as the thousands of fans that were watching the performance live. Due to the constraints of time, I only got to rehearse the routine 6 times before we were live on stage in front of thousands - with Michael Arrington (founder of Techcrunch), an obvious cynic of magic - onstage with me. To add to it, this was the first stage performance I have done in 3 years. That's quite a gap. The heat was on.
The result was amazing. The routine was fun, offbeat, irreverent, different, memorable, and 101% interactive. In less than 5 minutes, we generated close to 425 tweets from those watching the event live - even Marissa Mayer (VP, Google) participated!
I wanted to post about this primarily to share the story. We could have gone up on stage and done anything. Instead, we wanted to maximize the opportunity - and we took a huge risk in front of thousands. The risk paid off. Because the effect was so interactive, it forced everyone to stop what they were doing and have fun with it. I had a blast performing it, with special thanks to 5-Hour Energy and Red Bull, without whom this wouldn't have been possible.
I'd also like to thank everyone that helped us pull this off - Dan White, Asi Wind, CK, Alex Pandrea, and Richard Z in particular. By the end of it, we were ready to collapse in exhaustion. But it was well worth the adventure.
They were asking if we could perform something at the beginning of their keynote presentation this past Wednesday. At the time of their email, we had about 4 days to put something together. Without hesitation, I said "hells yes we'll do it!" From that moment on, this past week has been a whirlwind. I consulted with Dan White, Asi Wind, Justin Kredible, Steve Cohen, Brian Brushwood, Andrew Mayne, Chris Kenner, and Richard Z from our team. We spitballed three or four ideas. We didn't want to just perform a "normal" magic trick. That wouldn't have been memorable - this was, after all, a tech conference.
In those 4 days, we created an interactive routine that involved participation by every single person in the audience as well as the thousands of fans that were watching the performance live. Due to the constraints of time, I only got to rehearse the routine 6 times before we were live on stage in front of thousands - with Michael Arrington (founder of Techcrunch), an obvious cynic of magic - onstage with me. To add to it, this was the first stage performance I have done in 3 years. That's quite a gap. The heat was on.
The result was amazing. The routine was fun, offbeat, irreverent, different, memorable, and 101% interactive. In less than 5 minutes, we generated close to 425 tweets from those watching the event live - even Marissa Mayer (VP, Google) participated!
I wanted to post about this primarily to share the story. We could have gone up on stage and done anything. Instead, we wanted to maximize the opportunity - and we took a huge risk in front of thousands. The risk paid off. Because the effect was so interactive, it forced everyone to stop what they were doing and have fun with it. I had a blast performing it, with special thanks to 5-Hour Energy and Red Bull, without whom this wouldn't have been possible.
I'd also like to thank everyone that helped us pull this off - Dan White, Asi Wind, CK, Alex Pandrea, and Richard Z in particular. By the end of it, we were ready to collapse in exhaustion. But it was well worth the adventure.
