Keynote Speaker Sydney: Flying One In From Israel

Your conference is in Sydney, the agenda is half built, and somebody in the planning meeting said the opening session should be "something different this year". So you went looking for a keynote speaker Sydney delegates have not already watched twice on the same circuit. Fair enough. A room recognises a recycled talk roughly in the time it takes to read the first slide.

I am a mentalist and a perception researcher based in Israel. I competed at the FISM World Championship of Magic in Quebec in 2022, in the mentalism category, and I appeared on Netflix in Squid Game: The Challenge. I speak in Hebrew and English, which means Australia is linguistically simple and geographically less so.

Let me deal with the friction before I get anywhere near the upside.

Is flying in a keynote speaker Sydney organisers have never seen live worth it?

Sometimes no. I would rather start there than three emails in.

If your opening session needs someone who can name the regulatory changes hitting your Australian market next quarter, hire a local analyst. If the board wants a figure your delegates already respect by reputation, hire that figure. If the slot belongs to a sponsor and the sponsor wants their own CEO on stage, that is not my slot.

Where a long flight earns itself is a different job: the session that has to wake a room up, or the one that has to leave people with something they repeat over dinner. A talk built on live demonstration proves its point on the audience, in the room, while they watch.

What is actually in the lecture?

The lecture is called "להיכנס לקופסא", and in English I run it as WAND. One lecture, two names. The subject is practical belief design: how the information people take in gets shaped, and how a belief gets built on top of it.

It runs on five principles. Attention, which behaves like a spotlight, so whatever you highlight gains importance. Certainty, and how people's search for it works when you are trying to reach agreement. Wonder, a genuine WOW moment built with magic. Story, narrative and self justification, the way advertising uses them. And belief, which combines the first four.

The flow is WOW, HOW, NOW. First the audience experiences the demonstrations. Then I explain why they worked, meaning the influence mechanism rather than the secret of each trick (magicians would be upset, and more importantly the secret is the least interesting part). Then participants connect it to their own work, using a personal workbook built around about five stops of questions and techniques.

It applies to sales, marketing, management, negotiation, branding and HR.

How do you make it fit our company and not sound generic?

Before the lecture I send a manager a questionnaire about the organisation, its current challenges and what you want emphasised. I use the answers to adjust the topics, the research examples and the magic itself.

That questionnaire is the whole difference between a talk that lands and a talk that is merely enjoyable. If it comes back with two vague lines, I will call and ask again, because vague usually means nobody has decided what the session is for yet.

What I will not promise: that your people will walk out able to make anyone believe anything, or that your sales figures will move by some measurable amount. My view on the ethics is simple. People influence each other constantly; the moral question is whether the person influenced is harmed, and whoever picks up the tools owns that choice.

Which format works for a conference in Sydney?

There are four. A one hour session on Zoom. A one hour in person "taste". A two hour deep dive. Or a series of five one hour sessions, one principle each.

For an Australian booking, the Zoom format is worth a thought before you commit to flights. It is the same material, delivered live, and it removes the travel question entirely. The time zone gap between Israel and Sydney swings between seven and nine hours across the year, because the two countries run daylight saving at opposite ends of the calendar (Australia's starts in October, Israel's ends in October, which is why "what time is our call" has two different answers a year).

If you do want me in the room, there is no direct flight from Tel Aviv, so every route goes through a hub and the journey is long. Worth putting in the budget conversation early rather than after the venue deposit. My keynote speaker page has the formats laid out alongside the enquiry details.

Can you do more than the main hall while you are in the country?

If you are flying someone across the world, it is reasonable to ask. These are separate services, though, with separate preparation, and I do not carry one into another.

The stage show is its own thing: typically about fifty minutes, adjustable by agreement, suitable for ages ten and up and best with teenagers and adults. It has worked in a living room and in a theatre sized hall. Personalisation can include inside jokes, your field, honouring outstanding employees, marking a company milestone, or carrying a specific message. Taking part is voluntary, a refusal is respected, and nobody is made the joke. That is the mentalist show, not the lecture.

If your event has an exhibition floor, booth work is a third service, where I start with one visitor and let the noise draw the next until a crowd forms. I wrote about how to attract people to your trade show booth, and I work stands as a booth traffic act built around your marketing message.

What does it cost?

I do not publish figures, because the number genuinely depends on the service, its length and format, how much personalisation you want, any extras, the place and the date.

The path is short. An enquiry through the site, then a conversation with Ori, my personal manager, who works out the details and which product actually fits. Then a quote and a contract, usually a deposit, then the event. There is no minimum lead time, although booking early stops the date going to somebody else, and a date is held for a limited period until the contract is signed.

What to check before you enquire

• Decide whether the slot is meant to teach, to wake the room up, or to send people home happy. Those pull in different directions.
• Pick the format: Zoom, the one hour taste, the two hour deep dive, or the series of five sessions.
• Have someone ready to answer the pre lecture questionnaire properly, with real current challenges.
• Confirm the audience will be working in English.
• Check amplification. I recommend it, and for the stage show I can supply it.
• Note whether you also want a stage show or booth work on the same trip, since those are quoted separately.
• Ask Ori anything about dates, travel or the quote before you build the agenda around a slot.

There is a related piece on the attention problem at big conference events if your programme is already crowded.

What should you do next?

Decide which of the three goals your slot is really serving. Honestly. If the answer is "we just want a good session", that is a legitimate brief and I will build to it.

Then send the date, the city and venue, the number of guests and who they are, and where the slot sits in the day, through the contact form or WhatsApp on the lectures page. If the brief is real, we will both know quickly. And if I am the wrong fit for it, would you rather hear that now or in the green room?