I had this joke in my show: "My wife and I were each other's first romantic partners and the other day she said to me, 'You're a great lover!'. I said, 'Thank you.....compared to whom?'.

Who is the BEST and who votes for it?

We're in the middle of awards season where everything and everyone under the entertainment sun gets nominated and voted on the 'best' in their category. I've won a couple of awards too. One was for The Best Performance on a local Crimestoppers telethon (which I think I got because I was the only one to actually 'perform'), and the other was for Best Sound for a musical I mixed a couple of years back. I didn't attend the ceremony for the latter and consequently never actually got the award. I think it's in a box somewhere in the director's house.

This brings me to my point. How does one judge the 'best' in entertainment. Entertainment is subjective. What is entertaining to you is not necessarily entertaining to your friends. The best entertainment should be the entertainment entity that is the most popular because everyone wants be a part of it.

The best motion picture should be the one that everyone attends since, in most cases, movies are made to be popular entertainment. Otherwise, why would they publish box office stats? Therefore, 'Avatar' should be the 'best' movie ever made. (Note: I'm not arguing  about 'artistic endeavours here, only commercial value). 

The same thing should be argued for magicians. Magic is a performance-based entertainment. The 'best' magician is the one that is consistently working for the clients within their target markets. Applying this criteria, the best magician in the world would then be David Copperfield because, according to Forbes magazine, he/his show has made more money (seen by more people) than any other magician. Is he good? That's an entirely different question. He is definitely very good at delivering popular entertainment. Who is the best 'artistic' magician? That's an entire book worth of opinion. 

My goal has always been to be a success by performing a fun show for my clients without worrying about being the best magician in the world. 

I just want to be the best choice as the magician for your event!