Stage Hypnosis Information and Updates from Stage Hypnotist Marc Savard
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Capital Ex, Edmonton Alberta
I did my fist few shows at Capital Ex. Had a bit of rain at the end of the day and threatening clouds were lingering overhead all day long. That kept some of the crowds away, but there was still about 750-1000 people watching the shows. I did not travel with a sound tech on this trip. I am using a device called Virtual Soundman. It allows me to operate all my sounds cues from a remote transmitter to an interface unit that connects to my iPod. It was a little challenging as I have not done shows with it in about a year. I used to perform all the time like that. By the second show, I was getting it all dialed in. As a matter of fact, my old sound guy Tyler Patrick is originally from Edmonton, and came by last night to see the show. He did not know that I was running the cues. So I guess I am doing something right. :-)
Capital Ex is a great event that will probably see around 1 million people through the gates in 10 days. There are plenty of exhibits, lots of corndogs, cotton candy and anything else that would make you throw up while on the midway rides. Come and join us if you can!
Well Ladies and Gentlemen. I am making the trek up north. I am leaving Calgary momentarily and heading up to Edmonton via highway. I have travelled the 200 miles maybe a thousand times, but have not in the last 3 years. I am looking forward to the scenery again. I like to spend time just thinking. I will be riding alone the entire trip, but I sure look forward to my adventure.
For those of you who have not been to Canada before, I have included a picture of the downtown Calgary.
Once I arrive in Edmonton, I will be staying at my friend Garth's. He is about to be married to Maria in August. Apparently he was sick and tired of making his own decisions, so marriage was the answer! Haha. Maria is amazing. I love her to death and they make a perfect couple. Really, for someone to love Garth so much, she needs to be special.
I have all kinds of great things planned for Edmonton, I will try and keep you posted on my events. Below is a picture of Edmonton so you can see the beautiful cities I get to enjoy on this trip.
Allright. First off I apologize as I have been a few days without a blog entry. Lots of things have been going on. I left Las Vegas on friday morning as I have headed to Canada to perform at a festival. The festival does not start until Tuesday, but I have come to Calgary first before going on to Edmonton.
The reason I have come to Calgary has been to hang out with my music designer, Brent Hodgins. So, we have been playing around with some cameras, some music files, some web stuff, so basically, boy things. :-) It's been great to connect with him again. Brent owns and operates www.orchestrated.tv Check it out, he writes some pretty amazing music.
On friday night when I got to town, I went to Banff National Park. Banff is in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and wow, the scenery is amazing!
We went to Warner's Ranch where we went on horseback. Unreal! Let me put it to you this way. I learned how to pack a mule, I learned how to lasso a hay bail, and I also learned how to ride a horse. The last time I was on a horse, I was maybe 6 years old. It was soooooo much fun! Although the trip to the montains was pretty amazing, 2 days later, I am paying for it. My butt is killing me! I know, I know, I would have never thought that I would go up a mountain, and come down with a sore butt. I have not even seen brokeback mountain, let alone participate in it. LOL. All kidding aside, I was out there for 3 hours or so. Who in their right mind would spend $2000 to go on a 5 day ride on horseback? I know it is beautiful and all, but my butt and legs are killing me! Listen, you could have your buddies whack your butt with a paddle for a few hours and save yourself the money! Seriously, it is pretty awesome out there, definately paradise!
So, last night I stopped by for the Pool Party at Palms Place. It was pretty happening and there was lots of people there. If you think you might be good looking, just stop by there and then feel real shitty about yourself for awhile. There really was some beautiful people there. I felt like I should leave, go workout at the gym for 5 hours, then go back. Geez. Haha.
So I met and was hanging with Janelle from Sunset Tan. Apparently it is a reality TV show, but I don't watch much TV, so I don't really know anything about it or her. She is incredibly nice and was a great host to me. Janelle keeps pretty good company, so there was some movers and shakers there. I got introduced to Jamie Foxx. We hung out for a bit listening to the musicians that were playing poolside. I didn't stay for more than an hour as I have lots to do today. :-(
Las Vegas is a great place for networking and of course, getting the opportunity to meet cool people is kinda fun. I never lose sleep over meeting celebrities as they are just normal people too, but I am a fan of Jamie Foxx, so that was neat. I mean, come on, he is sitting in his hotel room right now thinking, "Wow, last night was crazy! I can't believe I met Hypnotist Marc Savard!"
So, I am 2 weeks into my new Vegas show at the L.A. Comedy Club at Trader Vic's. Over the past several years I have done a few different type of inductions that have served me well.
In a smaller room, the comedy club has room for 150, I find that I have had to alter my induction to maximize volunteer depth. I have performed so many large shows with huge audiences that I was relying on the key people that would get deeply hypnotized. I could simply play on a numbers game. I could have said the hockey pokey as an induction and would have been successful merely on overloading and message units.
Now with way less volunteers to choose from, my hypnotizing skills needed to be sharpened. I found that with a small modification, my success rate has gone up substantially. What did I do? Tune in on my next blog to find out.
Just kidding. Here it is. When I have the participants listen to the "sleep music" and program it in their mind as to the music causing them to relax, I go around to them individually and give them a tug on the arm and a command to sleep. I tell them this, "I will come around to each and every one of you. When I do, I will pull on your arm and say sleep. It will send a wave of relaxtion throughout your body causing you to relax deeper into hypnosis. In the meantime, listen carefully to this piece of music and record it deeper into your subconscious mind. This music is the sleep music, when it plays you will sleep deeper and deeper."
Physical suggestions and individually connecting with the volunteer is important, and I lost that element in my show when I played such large venues. Bringing it back, has brought more subconscious response from my volunteers. Make sure during your inductions that you are not afraid of touching your volunteers, appropriately of course. Physical suggestions are just as important as verbal ones, and in some cases, more important.
Today is my daughter Isabel's birthday. She is turning 4 year old. Let's rewind 4 years.
When she was born, my wife Joanna and I had chosen the name Isabel. We had pretty much decided that several days, maybe weeks before she was born that we wanted to name her that. Joanna was due July 5th, but she had Isabel 5 days late. It was not something we had really discussed, but as the date passed the 5th, and our baby had not arrived, the possibility of being 5 days late was becoming a reality. Why the significance? My grandfather, Jean-Marie Savard was born on July 10, 1920.
He passed away on January 18, 1970. I never had an opportunity to meet him, nor did he have an opportunity to meet any of his grandchildren that would bear his last name. I was the first boy grandchild that had the last name Savard. There are now 4 of us total. I am the only one married, and the only one with children. Isabel is now the first great grandchild to bear the Savard last name.
My late grandfather has many great grandchildren, but all of them have last names of their mother's married names. When I actually sat down to think about the coincidence of the first Savard great grandchild born with the Savard last name, to be born on the same day as her great grandfather some 84 years prior, I find that to be almost too weird. This is just the beginning.
After Isabel was born, I made the calls to immediate family and one of those calls to my grandma Savard. She was so excited to hear the news. We told her the name we had chosen. She said it was beautiful and then wished us congratulations. About 10 minutes later, she called back crying and almost unable to speak. She was emotional to begin with because of her new great grandchild being born on her late husbands birthday, but then told us something that was shocking.
It turns out that when my grandmother thought about the name we had chosen, something inside her memory was jogged. She thought that she remembered a story of my grandfather having a sibling that passed at a young age, named Isabel. Sure enough, after a few minutes of researching in the family tree, she found that my grandfather's sister had died at a week of age, and that they had named her Isabelle. This is information that I had not known, or had ever heard. The events leading up to the timing of my daughter's birth, and the coincidence that have happened in the name, almost makes me feel that there was a higher level of influence.
Was my little Isabel Savard put on this earth specifically at that time for a reason? Was she supposed to be named Isabel? Is there some life path that she will deliver and that will make her do some amazing things in this world? Is she destined for greatness?
I am feeling a little under the weather today. I think it is possible that I am getting a little run-down. Ugh. It is probably the fact that I have not been able to catch up on my sleep. I slept in today until 10:30am or so. That is rare for me.
I had some meetings to attend today, so I called Kamela my assistant to see if she might be able to handle my meetings and any other tasks that were on my list. After I called her, it turns out that she is in bed sick too. I know that most of you know her as this cute stylish hottie, so now that you can pitcure her puking exorcist style, it's not so cute. Sorry Kamela. :-)
We had a great show last night. We had some great volunteers and they had some funny personalities. I had and oppertunity to hang out on the Trader Vic's patio after the show with some friends. That was very pleasant and Jacky Pagone (my onstage assistant) happened to be hanging out with a friend of hers. So, I spend a few minutes with them as well. It was pleasant. It is a great way to wind down after a show.
I totally forgot to mention that I was on Fox News yesterday. They brought me on to talk about my show and then I did a suggestibility test for the news anchor and for the viewers at home. We had some laughs, it was fun. Monica Jackson and Jason Feinberg are great hosts, and it is always fun to go on the show with them. It was only a 3-4 minute piece and I will post it on my website soon. When I can find time of course.
Last night was an interesting show. We had a few issues in getting volunteers. The room was fairly full, yet when I asked for people to participate, it was like pulling teeth. I am not sure exactly what the hesitation was, but we finally coaxed them up. Jacky had to resort to more charm to get the volunteers up on stage. :-)
There was a group of Canadians that were having a GREAT time! They had taken advantage of the "all you can drink" wristband for $20. They were having fun and that's the kind of people I like to come to my show! One of their friends got hypnotized and that made the night for them.
Alex Tagliani, open wheel race car driver (Champ Car Series, now driving in the Nascar series) was also in attendance with his wife Bronte. Alex is a Canadian as well. My niece Camille and nephew Dominic, also Canadians, were in the audience. There was another handful of Canadians in the audience screaming and yelling as well. It just seemed that half of the audience were from Canada. As most of you know, my wife and I are both Canadian, so it is always nice to have support from the motherland. Thanks to all you crazy canucks for the support.
First off, I want to apologize to all my friends. I know that this past week has been SO crazy busy for me. I know that some of you have been trying to get a hold of me. You leave messages at my office, my house, and my cell. I have full intention of calling you all back soon. Planning, designing, rehearsing, and launching a show has proven to be taking tons of my time.
So, now, when all of you read my movie review, you are probably thinking to yourself, "he has time for a movie, but no time to call me? What a dick." Hey, I just needed some downtime.
Back to the movie review. Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, and a bunch of others. I don't know if I was just really in the mood to see that film, or if I am that much in love with Angelina, but I really loved this flick. Lots of action, a couple of sweet cars, some cool guns, some twists of plot, some blood and guts, and of course my dear Angelina. She could play the role of someone in a coma, and I would still get excited. :-)
I do not really want to spoil the film here by saying too much, but I have to admit, after seeing the previews, I was not expecting too much. All I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised. It was exactly what I needed.
The money has been found! I went into the bank yesterday morning with all my documents in hand. The teller, punched in a few numbers, then magically, the money appeared. What a relief!
It is my oldest daughter's birthday party today. Her official birthday is not until the 10th of July, but she is having a pool party today. I get stressed out when there is a pile of 4 year olds near the pool, but that is what she wanted to do. And all the others dad's out there know, that when your cute little daughter wants something, she gets it. :-) She also has been begging to go see Kung Fu Panda again. We went a few weeks ago and it was fantastic. She now knows the words to the song "Kung Fu Fighting". Quite cute.
Tonight is also my last night off from doing shows. I am back at it again tomorrow night. I was a great opening week. Hopefully things will just get stronger from here.
I transfered money from my canadian account to one of my american accounts. In the process they seem to have lost my money. A few hundred, can be frustrating, however, this amount was much much larger. I spent over 2.5 hours in the bank waiting, disucssing, making calls, waiting more, and discussing with tellers, assistant managers, managers, custodians, candy container refillers, and of course making conversation with other customers too. I might have well just moved in for a while. After hours in the bank, they still have not found my money.
I teach personal power and remaining calm in this situation with all the tools I have in my mind/body arsenal was a challenge even for me. It was extremely difficult for me to understand someone's incompetance. It was hard for me to accept the answer, "we don't know, Mr. Savard, we cannot locate the funds in our system." I have the paper trail, so they know that they have it somewhere, they just don't know where. I found myself clenching my teeth.
Today is July 4th, all the banks are closed. My money is still missing in action. I am sure that it will turn up in the next couple of days, as long as it did not appear in someone's account, it would be a extra wonderful holiday weekend for the recipient. So, I realize that there is nothing i could do. So I decide that I will leave the fate of my money in the bank's hands.
I then prepared myself to go and do my show. Minutes before I am about to leave to go down to the LA Comedy Club at Trader Vic's, my 2 year old daughter was jumping on the bed and cracked her head on the headboard. Ugh. Poor little thing was crying so hard, and she wasn't cut thank god, but she was really hurt. Her forehead today has such a big goose egg on it, and the worst was the contact right between the eyes. She is beginning to get black eyes today, it is a shame that there is nothing I can do for her. It makes me feel helpless. She will survive. Will my money survive it's trip through cyberspace? Only time will tell.
Last night we had a great show. We had some GREAT volunteers, Jack, Kat, Walter and many others.
Walter was hypnotized and apparently he works for Travelocity on Location. He actually sells tickets to my show. I should have hypnotized him and gave him suggestions to sell more tickets! What was I thinking??? Walter, come back!
Then there was Jack. Jack was this guy onstage that was absolutely in love with Jacky. OMG, it was so funny! As soon as Jacky walked out in one of her costumes, I could not get Jack's attention. He was ALL over her. Her not only undressed her with his eyes, but dressed her back up, then undressed her again and again. Jack was ALL about Jacky! He thought that she was "naughty". It's only her costumes that are naughty, she is actually really sweet. Jack would disagree.
