Thin Air Productions

Thin Air Productions' unique approach--and proven track record--has caused more than clients to take notice! Featured in The Wall Street Journal, Scripps Howard News Service, and on National Public Radio, Thin Air Productions has garnered national attention.

Read the published story below for additional information on how Thin Air Productions can make your next trade show magical!

(Reprinted with permission from Scripps Howard News Service.)

Selling with sleight of hand
Saturday, April 4, 1998

By MARTHA WILSON
Scripps Howard News Service

The sex appeal of a plain black box is nonexistent. Same with circuit boards and computer cords, computer disks and copiers. But that's not a problem for Karen

Evan Eile/SHNS
Audience participation helps promote the product that magician Karen Beriss works into her show at the D.C. Convention Center.

Beriss and Mark Phillips, magicians who dazzle their clients at industry trade shows.

Inside a cavernous exhibition center, they know businesses face the overwhelming challenge of marketing to thousands of people a day. All it takes is a few slick tricks to create a successful demand for the highly technical, often deadly dull products.

Beriss and Phillips are partners in Thin Air Productions, based in Washington, D.C.. Averaging 20 to 25 trade shows a year in the United States and Europe, magic is a full-time job providing a comfortable six-figure salary for each of them.

The trade show industry is a massive business. In 1996, according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, there were 4,400 exhibitions that attracted 101 million people in the United States and Canada.

That figure is expected to grow to 4,781 shows and 140 million people by the year 2000. With an average of 10,385 people attending each show and more than 400 companies competing for their attention, it's crucial that exhibiting businesses capture the interest of the hordes of folks wandering by their booths.

Magic cast its spell on Phillips and Beriss at an early age.

Phillips, 37, was smitten in junior high. "I was the class clown," he said. "Magic was another tool for attention."

As an Army brat, Phillips first learned the trade at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and started buying magic tricks, "I remember the first trick I learned was the broken and restored toothpick."

Beriss, 27, was also in junior high when a crush on her older brother's friend led to her life's work. " I wanted to get to know him, but I soon found out that I liked learning magic tricks more than I liked the guy. My first trick was the Red Snapper puzzle, an 'I can do it, you can't' trick."

In the close confines of a trade show booth, Phillips and Beriss are masters at sleight of hand tricks. Phillips asks a potential customer to sign a playing card "I deliver the message, then throw the cards up and stab the one they signed in midair with a knife," he said. "This illustrates the individual attention our clients deliver to each customer."

"People appreciate our cleverness," Phillips said. "Most of our work is for the high-tech, telecommunications industry or the scientific field. We have a very well-educated clientele and we deliver a marketing message in an entertaining style.

Don't expect to see clown noses on the trade show floor. "We don't act goofy," Beriss said. "We're not there to humiliate customers."

Clients are pleased with the abracadabra approach .

Holly Tippett, a marketing and communications consultant formerly with J. Walter Thompson in Washington, D.C., introduced Phillips to Freddie Mac. "It's a very conservative company, Tippett said , and "my clients were completely charmed. They weren't expecting him to come dressed in a business suit."

"He takes what is often dry and dull and makes it entertaining," Tippett said "He translates boring into magical."

Kristina Klein agrees. She works for Portal, a Silicon Valley-based software company that makes customer billing and management software for Internet companies. She met Phillips in Switzerland few years ago.

"He was across from the expensive, three-story booth where I was working. He was doing five or six vignettes for Stratacom and packing them in.

"He's talking about their product, which is a basically a box with no glamour, doing these great tricks and relating their product to the tricks.

"A few years later, I was working for another company and I called Mark and Karen. They looked at our Web site, wrote the script out and asked, 'How does this sound?'

"They could bring the presentation to a level that people could understand even if you weren't an engineer or a techno-geek. They are very professional, very fun people, which is exactly what we wanted."

Bob Bates, general manager of Eicon, a Montreal-based computer company with U.S. headquarters in Dallas, said Beriss "quickly picked up on what we were trying to accomplish."

"We provide wide area networking products for remote access to host and network computer centers. It's pretty technical. She could integrate key phrases into her magic presentation that helped pull people in.

"We've used other things at other shows, but they weren't as effective as the magic presentation. There are so many people hammering at you at the trade shows, you need a pretty good gimmick."

Not every exhibitor hires a magician to promote their company's services. "Many clients spend money on video walls, actors or celebrities," Beriss said. "Others hire sports stars, models, offer video games or 3-D golf games. Many booths offer free-T-shirts or coffee mugs, give away cars or guitars or use robots."

"Our clients want qualified leads, " Phillips said. "They want people who really want their services, not just those who want a free car. If they come into the booth after our presentation, the customer is more likely to be interested in our client's services."

Phillips said that it always surprises him to see companies spend a great deal of money on movies and videos and then see just one or two people watching in the booth at the trade show.

"Magic is something tangible," he said. "Live contact is better at a trade show. We're trying to bring together the same people in the industry with the same interests and the same needs. We're not very threatening, we're not attacking them, we're inviting them to relax."

As for practice, the duo keeps up with the tricks so there aren't any bad habits. "Our magic is tough because we must perform completely surrounded at every angle in an intimate setting," Beriss said.

"We're always learning new stuff, reading a lot, looking for new and difficult things to do," Phillips said. "Trade show magicians are the best close-up magicians in the country. We perform eight hours a day and really polish our tricks."