Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, emcee, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you.
Speaker 2Hey, rock stars. It is Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm talking about the audience. You are my audience. I have to keep you engaged. I have to say something in the beginning to pull you in. I have to pay attention to what you want. I have to pay attention to what you're asking for. You have to do the same thing when you step on your stage in front of your audience. First, I want to ask you a favor. Head over to iTunes, drop a review, and then you can go to Facebook. You can join our group, the Being On Stage group, by going to beingonstage.com slash group audience. Everything you do on stage hinges upon the audience. Your success as a performer is upon the audience to decide. It may not feel that way. And you're going to hear conflicting ideas from me, and I'm going to recognize that right now. But I'm going to specify, you have to be yourself. You have to put yourself out there. You are important. You are an important piece of the creative process. You are an important piece of the performance. But the minute you're on stage, the minute anybody's on stage, the audience becomes the only factor that decides what happens next. So you have to impact the audience. And the way you do that is by being yourself and putting yourself into your shows and the creative process. So it's like a circle. You put yourself into the shows. You do your show for your audience. You bring yourself into the audience. You bring the audience into your show. The audience makes sure you perform again. And they make sure that you're successful. That's the circle of performing. That's the title of the podcast. The circle of performing. Any bit of money that you make and any bit of success that you gain and any bit of momentum that you establish, every like, every follow, every person that comes up to you after the show, every person that buys your CD, every person that buys your video, your T-shirt, your sticker, your patch, your hat. That's the circle. They were an audience member. And they made a decision to invest in you. When they buy a ticket to your show or when they decide to eat at that restaurant for dinner, they're making an investment into you, into your success. If you're busking on the street and they put a dollar in your guitar case, they've made an investment into your success. You had an impact on the member of the audience. You have to pay attention to them. You have to show them that they are important during. Your show and after. But during your show, they have to feel important. Eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, positioning, everything having to do with the audience is the physical aspects of what you do on stage. That connection that you create through the emotion and through your eye contact. Eye contact is huge. If you're one of those people that stares into the spotlight, stop immediately. It may be great once in a while for like some dramatic effect. I've done it. But you need to make eye contact. Eye contact with your audience. You need to reach out and touch them. And I mean literally reach out and shake somebody's hand while you're on stage. The impact is huge. They smile and you'll probably hear some cheers from like across the audience 20 rows away that they don't even know really what's happening. They just know that you're engaging with someone in the audience. They want to know that you're the type of performer that's going to engage with them. It gives people a reason to come back. One of the best shows. I've ever been to that shows you that level of engagement is a drag show. If you ever have the opportunity to go to like a dinner and a drag show or like drag bingo go because that level of engagement that a drag queen possesses with their audience is incredible. You are going to feel like you are a part of the show because the way that they engage the audience and that is huge. Imagine if you could take that level of engagement and put it into what you use. Imagine if you could take that level of engagement and put it into what you do on stage and it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter if you tell jokes and you're a comedian. It doesn't matter if you're a dancer. If you play an instrument. Maybe you're a part of a group like a band or a dance troupe. Maybe you're a cheerleader. Maybe you create wood sculptures while music plays in the background. It doesn't matter what you do on stage. If you can take that aspect of audience engagement or that level of audience engagement and put it into your show. That's huge. You're talking like leaps and bounds. Ahead of where you are right now, your audience engagement is what's going to create your next step. Your audience is everything that your success in your career is going to hinge on. They mean more to you than you mean to them. Let me take it this way. Listen, when they decided to buy tickets to your show or when they decided to go to that festival that you're performing in or they decided to eat at that restaurant, they made a decision about what they're going to do with their life. You're a quality of life decision for members. So if you want to have an impact, you have to create something to have that impact. You have to engage with them. And when I mean engage with them, I mean shake somebody's hand. Hold someone's hand while you're doing something emotional. Make eye contact. I've seen dancers where they have a point where they do like some sort of pointing. They aim it towards an audience member making eye contact. These little tiny things help bring the audience into your show. And when they feel like they're a part of your show, they're going to subscribe. They're going to like. They're going to follow. And eventually, they're going to come to another show. They're going to bring people to your show. They're going to go out to that restaurant again when you're performing. And they're going to bring different friends. Why do you think you get booked? It's because of your following. Most of the time, when you're reaching out for performances, and yes, maybe you're at a level where people are contacting you. But most of us still have to reach out once in a while when we want to take that. When you're making that reach out, what do you share about yourself, your resume, your flipping resume, which includes where you've performed and your following? That is a huge aspect of getting more bookings, more success, more audiences to see you and more fans. You have to pay attention to your audience. If you take attention away from them, even for a second. So maybe you are in your own world. Stop performing with your eyes closed. Stop staring into the sky. Stop staring into the spotlight. Stop looking around aimlessly. Focus on your audience. Your performance is like a conversation with them. You give them something and then they have a reaction to it. And then you react to that and give them more. And then they react to that. And what I'm talking about is you do a huge flip and a spin. They cheer. You do something else. They cheer. That's that conversation that you need to have with your audience. And if you take your attention away from them. It's like imagine having a conversation with somebody and you're talking and you're telling them about your weekend and all of a sudden they just turn around and start talking to someone else or start talking about themselves. That's what it's like when you take attention away from your audience when you perform with your eyes closed and when you enter your own world on stage as comforting as it is you need to have confidence to have that conversation with your audience because that's what they're there for. That's what they crave and if you take attention away from them, they're going to take attention away from you and it's really important. Really hard to get it back like it is incredibly difficult to get their attention back once you've lost it. It's like trying to speak to someone when they got headphones and once you lose them, you lose them. Have you ever tried to talk to a teenager with a smartphone? They're lost. That's your audience. Once you lose your attention off of them. So it may feel like in some performances that your audience isn't paying attention to you, but really examine what you did in the beginning of your performance to pay attention to them to your audience because that's equally as important if you're going to get that applause if you're going to get that end of performance reaction that like that follow that you know share if you're going to get that you have to give them attention you have to engage them and bring them into your show that's the circle and it's going to go around and around and around and it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger as you gain more success you're going to gain more fans more followers and your circle of performing is going to get huge I look forward to seeing you on our Facebook group being on stage. dot com slash group send me an email Reggie at being on stage dot com if there's something you think should be discussed on the podcast or if you just look into chat or if maybe I've said something to you know spark a story boys down for a good story I'd love to hear from you keep on shining.
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