Hypnotize the crowd

Meetings & Conventions: Short Cuts November 2000 Current Issue
November 2000
Short Cuts:
Hypnotize the crowd

Need to pump up a crowd? Put a few attendees to sleep. That’s what hypnotist Ricky Kalmon did last year, when he was hired to break the ice at a national dealers’ function thrown by lawn mower manufacturer Dixon Industries Inc. of Coffeyville, Kan. “I was skeptical at first, but the crowd really got into it,” says Dixon’s marketing manager, Mike Kade.

During Kalmon’s hour-long show, volunteers take to the stage and are soon reduced to committing hilarious acts on command perhaps barking like a dog or pretending to be a Sumo wrester selling a toilet plunger. “You never know what will happen,” says the St. Louis-based Kalmon (www.rickykalmon.com).

In perhaps a more practical vein, Montville, N.J.-based Dan Rose (www.advancedentertainment.com), a self-styled “corporate hypnotist,” demonstrates how people have the power to relax their minds to become more efficient at work. In a recent session for Lucent Technologies, he taught several high-level executives self-hypnosis, then hooked them up to electroencephalogram machines and coached them to “go under,” with instructions to free their minds of stress. Later, he displayed before-and-after brain-wave patterns as recorded by the EEG, which showed a marked reduction in stressed-out waves. Says Rose, “It is a very convincing tool.”

C.A.S.