Maximum Entertainment 2.0 by Ken Weber
There exists a book so dangerously powerful, so unnervingly practical
and so ruthlessly helpful that many performers keep it hidden behind false bookcases with enchanted locks or under a loose floorboard guarded by an army of angry sock puppets.
That book is Maximum Entertainment 2.0 by Ken Weber.
This isn’t any old book, it’s a tactical spell book for anyone who stands in front of an audience and dares to entertain.
Mentalists, magicians, speakers and unicorn whisperers.
If you perform, even in casual situations then this book applies to you
and it doesn’t care if you’re using billet peeks, PowerPoint slides or a chicken in a top hat. Ken Weber will still find a way to make you better!
Who is Ken Weber, and why does he get to lecture us?
Ken Weber is not just any old performer. He’s a mentalist who took all the glittery nonsense out of magic and burned it in a cauldron of performance reality then distilled the golden extracts into a book that fixes the stuff no one wants to talk about.
Timing, flow, audience control, pacing, confidence and yes even the excessive nasal hair that creeps out of your nostrils and distracts people while you’re trying to reveal their thought of playing card.
Maximum Entertainment is about the psychology of performance, not the mechanics of 48 different card tricks or unusual places to hide your thumb tip! That is what makes this book more valuable than a psychic octopus that does palm readings!
The 2.0 version updates the original with more chapters, more examples and a crystal clear mission:
Stop being mediocre and start being unforgettable!
Let’s summon the core spirits of this book
1: The ritual of structure
Ken dives deep into how you should open your act, transition between effects and end on a high. If your opener is weak, your audience will silently judge you as a soft banana and start playing on their phones.
If your closer flops, they’ll remember only that flop even if you did make someone levitate earlier.
A flop’s a flop my friend and nobody likes a floppy one!
He teaches you how to build momentum, how to hit emotional peaks and how to prevent your show from looking a séance run by a squirrel on Red Bull.
For mentalists, this is priceless. Imagine your act flowing like a golden liquid Deja vu dripping through the cracks of time, instead of a magic 8 ball with commitment issues!
2: The demon of distractions
Ken Weber is merciless when it comes to eliminating distractions,
verbal tics, pacing, weird gestures, awkward pauses or saying okay?
after every sentence like a prophet possessed by a stuttering fax machine.
You’ll cringe as you read it and realise that you do keep scratching your ear during reveals and say: So this is interesting! 15 times in 1 show.
But it’s not all bad, he doesn’t just tear strips off you and leave you to sulk!
He helps you fix all the bad habits you’ve picked up along the way
and he does it with the precision of a stage surgeon armed with a
Dear Diedre scalpel.
3: The ghost of audience management
He teaches you how to control a room without sounding like a bootcamp sergeant or a cruise magician from 1982.
From choosing volunteers to shutting down hecklers and managing momentum, his lessons on making the audience care are priceless.
If your audience doesn’t care, your miracle is just a puzzle they didn’t ask to solve. For me that was a massive brain slap.
4: The holy grail of confidence
If you’ve ever felt like a fraud, like your jokes don’t land
or your tricks are less impressive than a soggy biscuit.
This book will throat punch the self doubt right out of you.
Ken shows you how to own the stage, how to project power and how to stop apologising with your body language.
5: Stagecraft for the non stagey
One of the nice things about Maximum Entertainment 2.0 is that it’s not written with pretentious language, it’s written for real humans and the wisdom in those pages applies to everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mentalist in a pub, a magician in a corporate ballroom or a hypnotist in a haunted castle. This book is written for performers.
All the advice in the book actually translates to the field.
Topics like where to stand, how to use silence and how to direct attention without shouting: LOOK HERE!
The whole book is designed to be subtle, elegant and powerful.
You’ll learn from this book that the space between your effects can be just as magical than the tricks themselves.
Is it specifically for mentalists?
Oh my fellow weirdo, it’s especially for mentalists.
And the reason I say that is because:
Mentalism lives and dies by presentation!
You can’t save a bad performance with sleights, you don’t have fancy card flourishes to distract with. You are the effect and if your pacing is off, your tone is wrong or your reveals land flat, then it doesn’t matter how good your method is.
Maximum Entertainment is the mirror mentalists didn’t know they needed.
It reflects all the little habits that weaken your aura and dilute your impact.
Think of it as a Haynes manual for anyone that’s ever wondered:
Why didn’t they freak out like last time?
Favourite takeaway
Watch videos of yourself performing with the sound off, are you visually interesting? Or do you look like a nervous accountant talking about the cost of envelopes?
SEO wrap u
Why mentalists need Maximum Entertainment 2.0
If you’ve ever searched for:
Best books for improving stage performance as a mentalist
Maximum Entertainment 2.0 review
How to improve my mentalism act
Stage presence tips for mentalists
Ken Weber performance book
Then know this:
Maximum Entertainment 2.0 is the book that bridges the gap between good tricks and great shows. If you’re a beginner building your first 20 minute act or a pro sharpening your set for a grand theatre.
This book is your sacred stage companion.
Fragmented Thoughts
Is Maximum Entertainment 2.0 Worth It?
Yes. In fact, I’ll say this with zero exaggeration:
If I had to choose between a new mentalism effect or this book, I’d take Maximum Entertainment 2.0 every time because it doesn’t just makes every effect better… It makes you better.
This book is a brutal, brilliant and a blessed gift.
It doesn’t teach you what to perform, it teaches you how to perform like your career depends on it because realistically it does.
Stay Weird
ЯYΛП MΣПƬIƧ
International Man of Mischief