Jeremy: Stopping People in their Tracks (Part III)

Oops!

My bad. I forgot to post yesterday. But no worries: I'll make it up to you guys this weekend.

Anyway: Jeremy, the Magician from Britain.

(I had an interesting conversation with a friend one day: should I call him "Jeremy the Magician from Britain" as though that were his full name? Or should I stick in that comma and call him "Jeremy, the 'Magician from Britain'"? Or how about "Jeremy, who happens to be a magician from Britain"? And if you're wondering how someone can turn this little question into a full-blown conversation, just shrug it off and realize that, in the life of graduate students, questions like this are somehow very important. And if you think that this little conversation is mundane, imagine all the debates that I have when I'm speaking to that little voice in my head...

*shudders*)

Last time, I said that I would explore what exactly it is that Jeremy does. So let's go!

First off:

Where does he busk, and why does that matter?
Well, if your memory is even just a little bit better than mine (and chances are, most of you guys are better at remembering stuff than I am), you'll remember that I already told you where he works. (In street performing parlance, the spot where someone busks is also called "a pitch").

So we'll jump ahead to why it matters.

I've mapped out Jeremy's spot and the flow of pedestrian traffic around his pitch.

Jeremy is situated in the center of pedestrian flows. What this means is... anyone who wants to cross the bridge to get from either the north side of Michigan Avenue to the south side (to, I dunno, see the GIANT BEAN that Chicago has deemed as one of its main tourist attractions), or anyone who wants to get from the south side to the north side (to SHOP SHOP SHOP) has to go through Jeremy.*

Just imagine the internal dialogue (or, if you're a little bit more normal, the conversation you might have with your friends as you walk down the street)

I wanna go see the Bean!

That means I gotta cross the bridge and...

OH NO! There's a weird British guy in a top hat in our way!

Cuz it's important to go to the Bean to show you're strong enough to keep it from rolling into the city!
(And this is my lil' sister by the way. Say hi, Flo!)

 And at that point, your only options are:

1. Cross the intersection-less street that nonetheless has several traffic lights, a rotary, and a bajillion vehicles... only to possibly find another busker (say, an awesome living statue known as the Golden Girl) in your way.

2. Really go out of your way, go all the way around the block (possibly hitting a bunch of other street performers as you go) just to cross the bridge.

3. Suck it up and walk directly in front of the magician to make it over to the other side.

So yeah. Most people just suck it up and walk past the magician - and, unless they are magic lovers, most people will do their very best to ignore the crazy guy in the top hat.

But! And here's the key: most people who move through this spot are here to have fun. They're there to shop, see the sights, or take a ferry cruise. So, even if they instinctively ignore the magician, they are at the very least open to having some fun.

And that brings us to:

Getting people to stop

Here's how I understood what Jeremy tried to teach me, in terms of getting people to stop:

Talk.

Just talk to myself.

Except, you know, out loud.

With a microphone and amplifier.

So everyone can hear me talking to myself.

"You have funny hair."

"Ooh. You're wearing a bow tie! Bow ties are cool!"

And, when I've been standing there long enough and have started to get frustrated with how often people are ignoring me/speeding up as they walk past: "Yeah, I know... I'm a scary little Asian girl standing on a street corner. Run away as quickly as you can!"

And then eventually, people will mistake me-talking-to-myself with me-trying-to-talk-to-them, and maybe they'll stop and respond!

Hey! It's a lot like what I'm trying to do with my blog posts!

Except Jeremy's a little bit (a lot) better at this than I am. Here's how he describes what he does:

"So my philosophy of stopping people is, I’m kinda watching the flow of traffic, the pace people are moving at, whether it looks like that they’re on a mission to go somewhere and whether they’re traveling slowly, and I’ll just talk to people as they go by and say hello and ask them how they’re doing, You having a nice day? I’m doing a magic show. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it? You like magic, wanna see some magic? You like magic, don’t you, sir? And I’ll say silly things. And then, you know, you’ll catch people’s eyes."

"And then there are times when you do that when you can just stop them with a look. Stop them with a word. And then when you've made that contact, then maybe you could move towards her, show them a quick trick, invite them over to the table."

That's how he goes from nothing to this:

Once he's had those first few people, and his magic is good (as it always is), if he does a good job of bringing his crowd in (either through the use of space, through comments about the police not wanting him to block the sidewalks, or convincing people that they'll want to move in so they can see better), and if he's lucky (I think there's always an element of luck involved), then he'll get this:

They key to stopping someone?
Jeremy says it's about "making a connection."

"When I first started, one of the first things Emmett said to me when he watched me work – I've been doing this for about six weeks. He said, you need to be a little less desperate when you’re trying to stop people. You’re working just a little bit too hard. I think you need to get to a point when you’re looking for people in the crowd who you think you want to spend some time with, want to have fun with. So the majority of people you just have to let go. You know, I’m not interested in stopping the people who don’t want to stop. I’m looking for people who look like they have the time and inclination to have some fun."

And Busker Emmett, also known as the Windy City Wizard, has also given me the same advice when we shared a pitch my last few weeks in Chicago:

Don't be too desperate. Why? Jeremy explains it better than I can:

"I know talking to guys who are just starting out, the biggest fear is, 'How am I gonna get people to stop?'"

"And the thing is not to worry. If you're out here long enough, someone will stop. Even if you're not very good at stopping people. If it's busy enough, someone will stop eventually. And then you can build something with that."

"I think one of the keys with getting people to stop is not to stress about it. 'Cause if you look like a stressed person, why would you want to hang out with a stressed person, you know? And I've spoken to guys too who've gotten very angry or frustrated because they can't get people to stop. And it's like, well, what's that going to communicate to people? You're an angry, frustrated person. Why would they stop? So if you're feeling that way, then maybe you should go and have a cup of coffee. And if you can't stop feeling that way, maybe you should just go home. But ideally if you can talk yourself into not feeling that way, then it's going to be a benefit for everyone."

Next up: Passing the Hat - Busking and Making Money

*The City of Chicago has NOT paid me to advertise for them. In fact, I think I owe them money. Lemme check... Yep, I do.^ Evil street cleaning enforcers...

^Oh wait! I don't! I contested the ticket and got the case dismissed. Whew...@

@Hm. I don't think this is a place to talk about my parking violations..%

%And! I don't think this is how footnoting/...asterisk..ing.. in blogs works.&

&And see? This is what a conversation with myself looks like. Like the other day, I texted into my phone: "I was chatting with my dad," and it autocorrected to "I was chatting with myself." My phone knows me well.


EDIT: Just added the last bit, quoting Jeremy on WHY it's not good to seem desperate when you're trying to gather a crowd.