It feels like a lifetime ago since I donned my best 'Gig Suit' in a hotel room, and made my way down to the performance area to start wowing the crowd, breaking the ice amongst them, reminding everybody that they're here to have a great time!
A Magician's true purpose and calling is to entertain and astonish.The reactions and energy of the audience is the fuel to our engine that makes it all worth while.
It's been a year and a half since I've performed at a real-life, in person event, without any TV cameras present. So, my tank is running on empty!
Now, I'm excitedly typing this post from my room in the beautiful Europe Hotel, where I've just performed at my first high-end corporate event since last year, and I'm absolutely buzzing!
Baby, we're back!
Finally.
This was an extra special event for a large company in the aviation field, who wanted to thank their entire staff for sticking by them and working throughout the entire pandemic in make shift home-offices across the country.
What better way to do this than to treat them all to two nights in Ireland's top Hotel, The Europe, all expenses paid, with a night of magical entertainment to close things out. What a privilege and an honour it was to be invited as their special guest Magician as well.
Life as a professional Magician sees me performing at a variety of different events from Weddings, to Corporates, to sometimes the downright weird! But, this one was different.
A lot of these people worked together in a Dublin office, but left the city as soon as the world fell apart and they knew they'd be working from home for an extended period of time. This meant that a lot of them hadn't seen each other, hadn't spoken in person, hadn't laughed together or hadn't even hugged in over a year. Some others were new recruits who only met their colleagues over a webcam, and had the pre-party jitters of finally meeting everybody in real life for the first time.
Imagine the melting pot of feelings for everybody who gathered together for the first time in so long, under the opulent, mystical backdrop of the Killarney mountains. There was a magical sense of care, happiness and genuine emotion present that I can't say I've ever experienced at a corporate event before.
It was truly special.
Rising to the occasion and sensing the 'specialness' of the evening, I think I performed for an extra hour over my booked time, because we were all just having such a fantastic experience. People's minds were read, signed playing cards appearing in impossible locations, choices were controlled and a man who defined himself as 'under-confident and self doubting' used the power of his mind and positive thought processes to make two pieces of hardened metal bend between his hands and fingertips.
Which is physically impossible.
I guess if somebody told us over a year and a half ago that the world would be turned upside down, and life as we know it would change indefinitely, we probably would have felt like it was an impossible situation to endure.
But just like the spectator who made the metal bend in his hands, we have all done the impossible and made it through in one piece.
(Apart from that *one* couple, who we all know, that realised they HATED each other during the pandemic and broke up - unfortunately, somethings truly are impossible!)
It's time now to celebrate safely and consciously, and my act might just be the perfect choice for you.
If you're looking for a unique way to thank your staff at your first event back, get in touch: info@iamrua.com.
Let's do the impossible together!
- Rua