☆☆
On October 31st, 1926, at 1:26pm, magician Harry Houdini died in a hospital in Detroit, USA. Houdini had had a complicated relationship with the popular Spiritualist séances contemporary to his life, and spent much time and effort debunking false mediums who used magicians’ trickery to deceive grieving people. However, he and his wife Bess established a code phrase that could be used in the event of either of their passings to attempt contact and determine if such a thing was actually possible. After his death, Bess made several attempts to no avail, ultimately giving up a decade after Harry’s passing. Since that time, other magicians and Houdini aficionados have continued this as a tradition, generally more as a tribute than with any real sense of belief. And what better time to try again than on the 100 year anniversary of Houdini’s death?
The American Museum of Magic is approximate 100 miles away from Grace Hospital, where Harry drew his last breath. Also, it is stated during their anniversary séance event, the museum was grown out of a private collection of the late Robert Lund, whose wife Elaine had been in the process of being born in that very hospital while Houdini was dying in it. Their collection is an impressive array of magic memorabilia and historical artifacts that any fan of the artform would be delighted to see. In the time before this event, friendly museum docents and board members eagerly give tours and show off an impressive and clearly passionate knowledge of magic history.
Unfortunately, passion does not always translate to aptitude at all things one may undertake. The organization and marketing of the 100th Anniversary Houdini Séance was mismanaged to the point of almost entirely taking the wind out of the sails of the event. The stated event time, on all easily locatable public facing pages, was to be 12pm- 3pm. By well before 12pm, the chairs set out in the American Museum of Magic were full of excited attendees, who had arrived promptly and were ready for the event to commence. At approximately 11:53am, the museum manager started casually mentioning to people that actually the event would not start until 1pm, and they had just said 12pm just to ‘make sure people had time to get seats’. It is standard to be explicit about door vs event time, so the lack of doing so here was already problematic. About 10 minutes later, a member of the board of directors stepped in and corrected that actually the event wouldn’t start until 2pm. When a member of the audience voiced frustration that the event had been advertised as starting a full two hours before it apparently was planned to, this board of directors members stated “no, we said it would be two”.
Perhaps the American Museum of Magic board can find some internal emails where they said the event would start at 2pm. This reviewer has no doubt that such an intention must have been put in writing somewhere when it would in fact be the case. But with the ample amount of time (2 hours) now afforded to this reviewer, research was done to explore whether they should be given the benefit of the doubt. The event time on the website of the American Museum of Magic was posted as 12pm – 3pm. There were social posts on both their Facebook and Instagram that very morning stating a noon start time. The tickets purchased online had no event timing info, and no email with any such information was sent to ticket purchasers. Not only is it an absurdly amateur error to list a completely different event start time, but this also baked in an additional error – the run time of the event was thence listed and could be understood as 3 hours. The actual run time was 35 minutes. When one is accepting money for tickets, there is an expectation that people determine if the amount of event is worth the amount of money before they make their purchase. This bait and switch was inappropriate.
It would be dishonest for me to say this poor planning isn’t bad in itself. It’s quite bad. But it was made so much worse by how the museum representatives responded to frustration, and the other hallmarks of disorganization throughout the event. The board of directors member blatantly lying to a member of the audience did so in such a snide tone that it was honestly shocking. This same person was asked a question by another attendee who called the event a “show”, and he proceeded to snap at the attendee that it wasn’t a show, it was a séance. While this may be the case, it is an odd hill to die on when one knows many people are going to use the word ‘show’ as a catch all for any event where they are viewing something. They also oversold their available seating with no indication that anyone would be subjected to standing room, and then made no attempt to apologize to people who voiced frustration.
Once the attendees finally filed back in at 2pm, energy noticeably muted, the 100th Anniversary Houdini Séance commenced. The preliminary opening talks were quite self referential for the museum, focusing significantly more on the museum founder than on Houdini. This event had the feel of one organized for the museum staff and local magic circle, not one intended for a general public. Then the elements of the séance meant to draw in the spirit of Houdini were established, including a bell for him to ring, a slate for him to write on, and placed in the milk can from his escape trick was a bagel with cream cheese and lox, which the séance leader claimed was one of Houdini’s preferred snacks. (This could not be independently verified, as the only resource this reviewer could find mentioning such is a quote from this museum’s founder and then people referencing him.) The inner circle of attendees held hands and Houdini’s spirit was called to, and two moments of silence were held to await his response. Houdini did not respond.
It is okay to not be able to hold publicly ticketed events. Some groups may be better served just having private events for their insular group who have internal access to what the particulars will be. Not everyone has the aptitude to event manage, market events honestly, or even view events from the perspective of a prospective attendee. The American Museum of Magic is a beautiful resource for anyone interested in magic history, and they seem to have excelled in acquiring and housing this collection. Hopefully they will develop their skills at hosting events to a similar level before they try again.
