Story of a £5 Well Spent

Today (Blogger's Note: This is the Saturday entry) got rather interesting as I was walking idly down the Oxford Street. In front of one of the shops, there was a small crowd. The shop got posters on its windows claiming to sell ipods for £5.00, digital cameras for £10.00, PS2s for £20.00. The faded mark of the "Sockshop" could still be read, which meant that the shop was recently evacuated. Of course, all my bullshit bells rang but I stayed on. Soon, a man with long curly hair opened the door and started to let the people in. Inside, the empty shelves from the previous business was still present. At the far end of the shop was a desk with a man behind it. So that was the reason for the unbelievably low prices; they were only starting prices; they were going to auction the goods. How wrong was I!

The man put on a microphone set and started the show by a monologue. He was talking fast and explaining how we were so lucky an that this wasn't a joke. But after 5 minutes another guy, middle-eastern looking, appeared behind him and promptly replaced him. Now, the moment I saw this guy any doubts in my head as to whether this is a scam or not, completely disappeared. Think about all the villains in comic books like Tintin or Lucky Luke and you'll get the picture. The guy even had the crook eyes; you know, one eye slanting and smaller than the other giving a mischievous gaze.

The new guy, Michael, was a master at controlling a crowd. Between his speech, he asked people where they are from and made small jokes, creating an informal and friendly air. He was supported by a sidekick; Sebastian, who apparently was assigned to be the comedic element as Michael peppered his speech with jokes about him being gay. By now there was 40-50 people in the small shop, most of them tourists. Soon, also, the purpose of the wooden stick in Michael's hand was understood. Think about a school teacher with a ruler in his/her hand, which she/he slams on to his/her desk from time to time to cease the talking between the students. It proved effective here as well. It was as if he was hypnotizing the crowd and didn't want them to be distracted.

He started by handing out some cassettes for pennie and walkmans for £1, with free batteries. Moved onto Gameboys for £5. The boxes of the goods looked very worn and tatty, which he accepted but guaranteed that the devices were in excellent condition. He even handed out a bundle of electronics including an ipod Shuffle to a guy for £5. Madness, right! After half an hour, the game changed. He asked for £5 from every person in the shop who were willing to walk away with another bundle of electronics. So Sebastian and another aide started collecting the £5s and giving out tickets. Michael also introduced a level of gamble into the game; he asked from the people to raise their hands if they'd pay £30 for anything on his mind and then selected a guy. However, he didn't hand out the goods for £30 but for £5, claiming to be charitable etc. This practice was clearly aimed at building a trust for himself and to encourage people to part with more money. Soon, the tickets got replaced by "electronic organizers" - a little gift - and anybody without them was excluded from the sale and lead out of the shop. In other words, the crowd was canvassed.

He again built up a very impressive 10-item bundle in front of him; including a sony camcorder, an ipod and a Sony vaio laptop as a "treat". He asked if anybody was willing to pay £150 for this bundle. Hands raised up; some with money, some with cards in them. Again a person selected by him, promptly handed the money in neat £20 notes. THAT'S £150 IN CASH! No sane person goes around for a bit of Saturday shopping with that kind of money with him. By now, the whole thing was begininning to turn sour for me. So I headed out.

I only figured out the full genius of the whole thing at the end of the day. My theory is like this; put 5 of your people in the crowd, when you are handing out an expensive item such as an ipod select them and make them the "lucky" person. And when you're giving out rubbish items such as "proton" CD players, select a genuine person. He was only dangling a PSP or an iPod as a carrot in front of the crowd to goad them on. When you think about it, after he collected the £5 to stay in the game from 40 people, he had made £200. And I think they did 3-4 sessions during the day, which makes at least £600. And I don't know if any other money collection was done or not. Neat, eh?

So why do I think that £5 was well spent? For that money, I received a masterclass lecture in scheming and crowd-control. I got the chance to see how easy it is to manipulate poeple. And don't forget the "organizer". So, all in all, very good value in my opinion.

Spotted: - Young guy in Soho, dancing brilliantly on one of those electronic dancing games in an arcade. But there was a difference; instead of feet, he was using his hands to do the moves and he was awesome. Brought a smile to my face!
Played: - GOLDEN AXE! Couldn't believe it! I used to play it in coin-arcades. This time it was on a PS2 in a GAME store on Oxford Street. Ahh, the old games are the best in my opinion.
Read standing: 1st issue of manga ".hack sign" (slightly amusing, in my opinion) and quickly Authority:Revolution (Warren Ellis, we miss you).