For Restaurants, Hotels & Hospitality Venues
Live Restaurant Entertainment That Brings the Customers With It
Sound Minds: An Evening of Dinner, Drinks, Jazz, and Mind Reading
Featuring Gentry — The Intellectual’s Illusionist
I produce it. I advertise it. I bring the customers.
You sell them dinner and drinks and keep 100% of your food-and-beverage revenue.
You don’t pay me.
No entertainment fee. No ticket split. No paid advertising required from you. No money changes hands between us.
Sound Minds is built for places where a customer can make an entire evening of it: Cocktails. Dinner. Wine. Dessert. After-dinner drinks. And a show worth coming out for.
What Is Sound Minds?
Sound Minds is a produced dinner-and-show event for restaurants, hotels, and hospitality venues. I book the date, pay for the advertising, create the promotional materials, sell the tickets, and bring the audience. You provide the room, run your normal service, and keep 100% of the food-and-beverage revenue. There is no entertainment fee, no ticket split, and no money changes hands between us.
See What the Night Actually Looks Like
Before we talk about your room, watch what happens in one. Watch a short clip from a recent Sound Minds evening — live jazz, a full dining room, and mind reading as the feature attraction. There is more video here.
So What’s in It for Me?
You aren’t my customer. The audience is.
My primary business is private and corporate mentalism, where clients ordinarily pay thousands of dollars to hire me. I already spend money advertising that business. I’ve simply decided to spend it differently.
Instead of paying to tell prospective clients what I do, I pay to bring them into a room and show them.
Ticket sales help offset the cost. And the audience contains potential private and corporate clients and referral sources who experience my work firsthand.
I get better advertising. You get the customers.
We make our money from the same room in different ways.
Gentry Has Entertained Audiences For
Berkshire Hathaway • Capital One • AWS • Penn Medicine • Salesforce • FIFA • DuPont • The Union League of Philadelphia • and more
Private and corporate clients ordinarily pay thousands of dollars for the same core entertainment at the heart of Sound Minds. You can read what those clients say or learn more about Gentry.
Sound Minds is marketed as an upscale night out for adults — dinner, drinks, live jazz, and a feature performance. Some guests may already know your restaurant. Others walk through your door because I paid to reach them.
Give them a great evening, and they may come back without me.
The Attraction Brings Them In. The Format Gives You an Entire Evening to Serve Them.
Sound Minds runs roughly three to four hours and is deliberately structured around your service, not against it. Here is how a typical night unfolds. (I keep a detailed run-of-show for every event.)
-
Arrival + Roving Cocktail Mentalism
→ Order drinks
Approximately 60 minutes
Guests arrive, socialize, order, and experience close-up mentalism while service is fully open.
-
Dinner + Live Jazz
→ Order dinner + more drinks
Approximately 60 minutes
Full service continues while the Gentry Band plays. From the bass chair, I can shamelessly plug the menu, another round, featured items, or whatever you’d particularly like to sell.
-
Intermission
→ Order more drinks + dessert
Approximately 30 minutes
A deliberate purchasing window before the feature.
-
Mind Reading
→ The feature attraction
Approximately 45–60 minutes
The centerpiece of the evening — and the only portion when active service should be substantially reduced.
-
Cognitive Analysis + Socializing
→ Full service + order again
As long as you can keep them
Full service resumes while interested guests experience one-on-one Cognitive Analysis and everyone else socializes and continues enjoying the venue.
Got a DJ? Dancing? Late-night food? A great bar atmosphere? Even better. Keep them.
The entertainment isn’t competing with hospitality. It’s structured to support it.
The Part That Keeps the Room Full After the Show Ends
Cognitive Analysis
Cognitive Analysis is a structured one-on-one session about how a person actually thinks, decides, and reads other people. Private and corporate clients book it as a service on its own. At Sound Minds, guests can have one after the feature performance is over.
Operationally, this is the part that matters most to you. Most shows end and the room empties inside fifteen minutes. This one gives people a reason to stay: guests wait their turn, their friends wait with them, and the whole room keeps ordering through the stretch of the night when your dining room would normally be turning into empty tables.
It costs you nothing and requires no additional staffing. It just needs a quiet corner and your bar staying open.
I Even Bring You Something to Sell
The Gentry Tonic — The Drink That Performs a Trick
Any sweet, bubbly drink + edible glitter. That’s it. Cocktail or zero-proof. Use something you already serve or create something special for the evening.
The only special ingredient is edible glitter — about $6 for a container.
I promote it before the event and during the show. You make it. You price it. You keep 100%.
Think This Might Work in Your Room?
Fifteen minutes will tell us both.
Premium for the Guest. Easy for the Operator.
The guest should experience something elaborate. You shouldn’t have to produce something elaborate.
| Event-specific advertising | I pay for it. |
|---|---|
| Promotional materials | I create them. |
| Ticketing and check-in | I handle them. |
| Guest communications | I handle them. |
| Musicians | I hire and pay the band. |
| Load-in and setup | Kept deliberately compact and low-impact. |
| Extra venue staffing | Not unless you decide you need it. |
| Equipment | My entire mentalism show fits into a shoulder bag, and my musicians are instructed to minimize their footprint. |
| Insurance | I carry commercial liability insurance and can provide a certificate when required. |
| End-of-night settlement | None. I keep ticket revenue; you keep F&B. |
You Tell Me What a Seat Needs to Produce
You know your margins, menu, and service model better than I do.
Two-item minimum? F&B minimum? Prix fixe? Limited event menu? Dinner package? Ordinary à la carte? You decide.
You tell me what a seat needs to produce. I’ll tell the audience what to expect before they buy.
The goal isn’t to surprise customers with a minimum when they arrive. It’s to bring you customers who arrive expecting an evening of dinner, drinks, and entertainment.
Have a Private Dining or Event Space? Even Better.
Private and semi-private rooms are particularly well suited to Sound Minds. They’re already designed to accommodate groups, serve dinner and drinks, and host special occasions — while minimizing disruption to your ordinary operation.
Hotels are a natural fit too: meeting rooms, ballrooms, lounges, and lobby bars are already built for exactly this kind of evening.
You already have the room. I bring you the occasion.
A private room isn’t required. The right dining room, lounge, tasting room, bar, hotel space, or other hospitality setting may work beautifully.
What I Need From You
- Provide the room.
- Run your normal hospitality operation.
- Help tell your existing customers we’re coming.
Include Sound Minds in the promotional channels you already use — your website, email, organic social media, event calendar, in-house signage, or whatever you ordinarily use to tell customers what’s happening. No additional paid advertising required.
Because my advertising drives customers to my overall events page rather than a disposable event-specific landing page, participating venues remain part of the Sound Minds story even after their particular date has passed.
That’s basically it.
One Venue. One Night. Once Per Season.
Sound Minds appears at any individual venue no more than once per season, with reasonable geographic and calendar protection against competing nearby public performances.
I’m not going to put the same public event down the street the following week.
You’re not adding a residency. You’re creating an occasion. One event. One agreement. No ongoing commitment.
Frequently Asked Questions About Sound Minds
What kinds of restaurants and hospitality venues are best suited to Sound Minds?
Sound Minds works especially well in venues where guests can make an entire evening of it — with food, drinks, entertainment, and opportunities to continue socializing before and after the feature performance.
Does Sound Minds work in hotels?
Yes. Hotels are often an ideal fit. Meeting rooms, ballrooms, private dining rooms, lounges, and lobby bars are already designed to seat groups and serve food and drinks, and a hotel bar gives guests somewhere to keep spending after the show.
Does Sound Minds require a private dining room?
No. Private and semi-private dining or event spaces are particularly attractive because they’re already designed for group hospitality and minimize disruption to ordinary operations. The right main dining room, lounge, tasting room, bar, or hotel space may also work beautifully.
Can Sound Minds work with a prix-fixe dinner or F&B minimum?
Yes. You determine the F&B model. I make those expectations clear to customers before they purchase their tickets.
How much does Sound Minds cost the venue?
Nothing. There is no entertainment fee, no ticket split, and no required paid advertising. I keep the ticket revenue; you keep 100% of the food-and-beverage revenue.
What is Cognitive Analysis, and why does it matter to the venue?
Cognitive Analysis is a one-on-one session about how a person thinks and decides. It runs after the feature performance and gives guests a reason to stay in the room — and to keep ordering — well after a normal show would have ended.
How much space does the entertainment require?
Very little. My mentalism show fits into a shoulder bag, and the musicians are instructed to keep their setup compact. The exact layout depends on the room.
How long does the experience last?
Typically about three to four hours, depending on the format and how long you want to keep guests afterward. Only the approximately 45–60-minute feature performance calls for substantially reduced service.
Where is Sound Minds available?
At select hospitality venues throughout Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and select New York City markets. Upcoming dates are listed on the events page.
Could Sound Minds Work in Your Room?
There’s an easy way to find out. Show me the space. Tell me how you normally use it and what a successful night looks like for you. Give me 15 minutes and we’ll know whether the model makes sense for both of us.
Just show me the room. Tell me a little about it below and I’ll be in touch.
Gentry — The Intellectual’s Illusionist. Live entertainment for restaurants, hotels, and hospitality venues throughout Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and select New York City markets.