December 25 2016

Hypnosis Unleashed Longest-Running Show Getting a Vegas show/Performing on the Strip…What’s it take?

Hypnosis Unleashed Longest-Running Show Getting a Vegas show / Performing on the Strip…What’s it take?

“You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime” ~Eminem

Hypnosis Unleashed Longest-Running Show

Finding a place to do a show in Las Vegas is one of the hardest things to do. I have heard so many misconceptions about it. People have said multiple times that playing Vegas is a bought experience. There’s so many incorrect things that I want to set the record straight from my perspective.

I have heard that you can open a show anywhere for $500,000

This is not even close to correct. First, major casinos are pulling a profit of one million a day. I started at a smaller indie casino that will still clear over seventy-five million in casino revenue this year (or over $205,000 a day). What would be more profitable than a bought show? A bank of slot machines and a blackjack table. Thankfully some casinos still know that amenities like shows can boost the casino’s image.

Some casinos want to offer amenities like a show, and some do not

You cannot argue with a casino owner who would rather have a sports book than a showroom. The sports book will make him more money per square foot and for more hours of the day. First thing you need to find is a casino that wants to offer shows to their guests. Even better is when the casino wants shows because it will bring them in more customers.

Your first move is talking to the entertainment director of that casino

She is going to have to approve your show before you can even get to another step. For the record, she gets at least ten calls a week with people pitching her the next wonderful thing. Also, if she hears “world’s greatest” anything she is already tuning you out. If you were the world’s greatest anything she would know that you would not ever have to tell her. She will not be snowed by flashy talk.

Her job is to know exactly what you are bringing to their showroom and why her customers need it.

Let us say you talked to her, and she likes what you have to say

Now she may want to see you live. Not a video that can be edited, she wants to see you live. You will have to get into a banquet room for a night and fill it. Ticket brokers are not going to sell your one-nighter. Good luck getting your crowd there. Offer it as a free show you say? How many people on the strip and in the casino are offering you something ‘free’ every 15 seconds. Good luck getting their attention.

Why does she have to see you live

You have money to rent a showroom. Why does she need to see you live? Well, the casino has more money than you and does not want their reputation getting hurt by having you there. They can’t have you creating a conflict with another show or the casino’s theme. But congratulations you talked to her, she thought you were a pro, and you made a show happen out here and she liked it.

Now you must put together a proposal

Easy, I propose to bring in one hundred paying people a night because I will have ticket sellers sell them and timeshares give them at a discount! Great plan. But the ticket broker will not sell your show till they have sent someone to audit it. Why would they do that? You think if they do not sell my tickets, they will lose commissions.

Yes, but if your theater is not up to par or the show does not live up to its billing, they will have to issue refunds and lose that client from now on. Getting the ticket brokers is a step FAR past getting the room.

You have gotten this far. The proposal, she likes it! Sweet! Now she sends it on to her bosses. Uh-oh. Does the CEO not like your type of show because they saw a bad one once? Is it against their religion? Will it offend the demographic they want to bring in? Do they know someone they would rather see in there?

This is all before they even look at you financially or talk money at all

Now you get to make a theater, get ads, get the casino to support it and one thousand other daily things. It takes more than money to make it out here. Money is no assurance it will work when it is open. Nationally known shows have more money than you and they close. Shows with multi-million-dollar budgets have gone broke and closed in a month.

You have made the dream though; you are opening in Vegas

What does it take to do a Vegas Show? This has nothing to do with one-nighters, corporate events, etc. It’s about doing a nightly ticketed show on the Vegas Strip.

You are about ten to fifteen years from your first show from being prepared to do a show nightly in Vegas. The last 5 years you had better have been doing a hundred plus shows a year in front of the demographic you intend to sell tickets to. You need that level before you are even close to ready. Before that you are not prepared for damn near anything and everything that can (and will) go wrong on stage.

What do you have to be ready for as a Vegas performer

Ready for any situation that comes up. This could be the drunk, the heckler, the over participator, the dead crowd, the over eager crowds, any crowd member at all. I am talking about the people just sitting in the audience.

You get all levels of society and every situation. The guy with his arms folded lost three grand before he came to the show. A Bachelorette party is way too drunk to be at a show. The family that planned your show as the focal point of their vacation. Can you get in front of any of them and do a show with confidence? Because you will get all kinds of crowds and none of them can surprise you at this level.

Is your staging ready

Do you fidget with lights or sounds? Will sound cues load oddly? Is everything smooth from a technical standpoint EVERYTIME? Are you sure that everything will flow without a hitch? No one can make you smooth. You must do that yourself. Invest in yourself to make sure you are smooth and ready to go from start to finish without glitches or mistakes.

Is your material bullet proof

Do you know it inside and out? You will have a bad night. The show needs to perform strong in front of a bad crowd and a good one. You are going to be judged by your audience every night (especially now with all the review sites). Are you unique and do you live up to your billing? If you are a COMEDY show, are you funny? When people are not laughing consistently, you are in trouble. It cannot be giggles; this must be full belly laugh kind of laughter.

See, here is the enormous difference performing in Vegas

You asked people to pay money. They paid 100% of what you asked them to. In Vegas they could have done ANYTHING else that night. I mean anything. But they picked you over a Cirque show, over the band they love, over the Broadway play and over the comedian they watch on TV. You need to be better than all those other choices. This is how they will judge you.

I believe that tickets to see me run $1200-$1600

To see my show you flew to Vegas, you are staying in a hotel, eating in our restaurants. This is not just a show, this is part of their Vegas experience. They expect laughter and a flawless show.

I do not care if you do a family show, or the most ‘adult’ show in the universe, I do not care how you do your show. All I care about this: Is your show a unique experience they will feel they could not get anywhere else that night. It is about did they laugh and feel that it was worth their vacation time to experience this?

Remember right now people are lucky to get a week off and lucky to be able to afford show tickets

If my show is $40 a ticket a spouse making $20 an hour had to work three hours (after taxes) to afford one ticket. They had to work five hours to take both. So, they had to work a full day to come to my show, not including drinks. If my show does not make them laugh and make them forget that he could have done 525 other things that night (TripAdvisor lists 526 activities in Las Vegas) he is going to be pissed that he wasted his money.

You must be bulletproof with your show in Las Vegas

Make sure your show is unique. You will NEVER confuse me with any other hypnotist or performer. When there were multiple hypnosis shows in Vegas all of us were completely different from each other. Be the best you that you can be. Make sure that you can manage 100% of the audience. Because if you make that opportunity happen, if you get that shot and you are not tight and generating laughter that door will not open again.

Hypnosis Unleashed Longest-Running Show

As the talent booker for the Tonight Show told Jeff Dunham “Better to get here five years too late than five minutes too early”.