After the Inn of Magic days I was Bob's roomate for five years. What a blast we had. Being around Bob was like going to Harvard's Magic Grad School.

There are a million stories but this one is one of my favorites.

It's about 8am. We're having a huge pile of pancakes for breakfast and we've just finished talking about how we both hate performing at Bar or Bot Mtizvah's. We decide to throw in the towel and never do them again.

Right then the phone rings and it's a Mom that really wants Bob to do her daughters Bot Mitzvah. Bob doesn't want to do it but the lady is relentless. Finally Bob says "OK, I'll do it...$3000 per hour." The women responds with "$3000...my doctor doesn't charge $3000." Without missing a beat Bob says "Lady, get a better doctor" and hangs up the phone!

Maybe you had to be there but those of you who know Bob just visualize Bob's face in a truly glorious moment.

You can get a lot of pancakes for 3000$...

Very good story Bob. Reminds me of one about Dick Ryan who was one of the pioneers of trade show work. Dick got a call one day from a guy who wanted him to perform at his son's Bar Mitzvah Dick did't want to do it. Gave some price such as Bob did plus airfare lodging all up front.... Guy said yes! So Dick had to do it.

Sorry to hijack the thread now back to the correct program.

Randy

Same thing happened to me. A corporate client wanted me to do his son's Bar Mitzvah. I quoted him a "Bob" price and they went for it.

When I got to the show the guest list had dwindled to only about 50 guests because they had gone through a nasty divorce! I ended up doing a formal close up show for them for almost 90 minutes. Good thing I brought everything!

Bob gave me the same advice: Never say no to a date. But when you don't want to do something, just set your price high. This way people won't be insulted. I get a Bar Mitzvah call and they want to pay $150 for some strolling.

So I told the guy, "Well, that's a little low. For something like that I'd usually get" and I just gave him Bob's price... "$3000 per hour."

There was a long pause. Then he said, "Well, we could dicker..." I said "Really? How are we gonna dicker? Are you going to come up with like $155 and I'll come down to $2995? You come up to $160, I'll come down to $2990?"

Suffice it to say, I didn't end up doing the Bar Mitzvah.

Haha I did my friend's Bar Mitzva last year for free, to get some publicity, and it went horrible lol. It wasn't the magic, or me, but the croud wouldn't be quiet lol. Not much of a Bar Mitzva fan myself.

Now you know why it is worth $3000 to do it.. hell I'll put up with oversugared kids screaming for $3000 ... send em on to me!

But ...for free???

never in a million years..

Years ago, a synagogue would call me everytime they had a Bar Mitzvah and needed entertainment. The audiences (unsupervised, sugar-tanked 13-year olds) were so horrid that I kept doubling my price everytime they called. This was in the late 80's and the bill was $1,700 per show before they decided it was too steep (like Doc said, I'll put up with a lot if the price is right).

Anyway, they finally decided to shop the price around and asked if I could recommend any other performers? I said, "Sure, you bet!" and gave them the phone number of a magician I didn't like.

I figured it was the least I could do.

Best,
Mick