The first time I performed a full thirty-minute set, I packed it with everything I had. Every effect I knew. Every line that had ever gotten a laugh. Every moment of magic that I had practiced to competency. I walked on stage with a mental list of twelve effects and the determination to perform all twelve, no matter what.
I performed all twelve. The audience was polite throughout. They applauded at the end. The event organizer said it went well. And I left feeling vaguely disappointed without understanding why.
Weeks later, performing at a smaller event in Klagenfurt, I made a mistake that turned out to be the most important lesson of my performing life. I forgot one of my effects. Just blanked on it completely. Instead of twelve effects, I performed eleven. And because I was one effect short, I spent slightly more time on each remaining effect. I lingered a moment longer on the pauses. I let reactions develop more fully. I was more present in each individual moment because I was not mentally racing ahead to the next thing.
The response was noticeably better. Not just polite applause — genuine, energetic applause. People came up to me afterward with specific comments about specific moments. The event organizer asked if I was available for their next conference.
I had done less and gotten more. And I had no idea why until I read Fitzkee.
The Golden Rule of Showmanship
Fitzkee stated it as simply as possible: “Not too much; but just a bit too little.”
Eight words that contain more practical wisdom about performance than most entire books on the subject. The idea is counterintuitive, especially for performers who are insecure about their material (which is most of us, most of the time). The natural instinct is to do more. To fill every minute. To leave nothing to chance. To make absolutely certain the audience gets their money’s worth by giving them everything you have.
But Fitzkee argued — and my experience in Klagenfurt accidentally confirmed — that the correct approach is the opposite. Give them slightly less than they want. Quit before they have had enough. Leave them at the peak, not at the natural conclusion. End when they are wishing for more, not when they are satisfied.
“ALWAYS LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE,” Fitzkee wrote. “If they haven’t had enough, they’ll applaud for more. If they’ve had too much, they won’t want you back.”
This is not just advice about duration. It is a comprehensive philosophy about economy, brevity, and the discipline of restraint. And almost nobody follows it.
Why Performers Do Too Much
I have thought a lot about why the instinct to do too much is so powerful, and I think it comes down to three fears.
The first fear is that the audience will feel shortchanged. If I only do eight effects instead of twelve, will they think they did not get their money’s worth? Will the event organizer feel that the performance was too short? Will people leave thinking “that was it?”
This fear is almost always unfounded. Audiences do not count effects. They do not time your set with a stopwatch. They measure their experience by its intensity, not its duration. A focused twenty-minute set that hits hard can feel more substantial than a padded forty-minute set that meanders. The perception of value comes from impact, not from minutes.
The second fear is that cutting material means wasting it. I practiced that effect for months. I paid for that prop. I wrote that script. Cutting it from the set feels like throwing away investment. This is what economists call the sunk cost fallacy, and performers fall into it constantly. The time you spent developing an effect is irrelevant to whether it should be in your current set. The only relevant question is whether it strengthens or weakens the overall performance.
The third fear is the most insidious: the fear that without a surplus of material, you will be exposed. That if you only have eight effects and one of them falls flat, you will not have enough remaining material to carry the show. This fear drives performers to pack their sets with insurance material — effects that are there not because they are strong but because they provide a safety net in case something else fails. The result is sets that are padded with mediocre material, which drags down the average quality and makes the strong moments less impactful by comparison.
The Economy Principle
Fitzkee was specific about what economy means in performance. It means freedom from extravagance. Exactly enough, not too much, not too little. Every performance should proceed from start to finish by the shortest possible route.
This principle applies at every level. At the level of the full set: cut every effect that does not contribute to the upward trajectory. At the level of individual effects: cut every phase that does not build toward the climax. At the level of scripting: cut every word that does not advance the moment. At the level of physical action: cut every movement that does not serve a purpose.
“Get to the point. Be brief. Keep interesting them. Quit before they’ve had enough.”
I started applying this principle by recording my performances — audio only, since video was not always practical — and then listening back with a ruthless ear. I was looking for dead time. Moments where nothing was happening. Transitions that took too long. Lines that added nothing. Pauses that were simply gaps rather than deliberate dramatic tools.
The results were sobering. In a thirty-minute set, I found approximately eight minutes of material that contributed nothing to the audience’s experience. Eight minutes of transitions, filler lines, unnecessary explanations, and effects that existed primarily because I did not want to cut them. Eight minutes of “not bad, not good” that was diluting the twenty-two minutes of material that was actually strong.
When I cut those eight minutes and performed a twenty-two-minute set, the response was dramatically better. Not incrementally better. Dramatically better. The same audience, the same venue type, the same context — but a tighter, more focused performance that hit harder because every moment counted.
The Staircase Principle and Brevity
Fitzkee’s staircase principle connects directly to the rule of brevity. He described a performance as a set of stairs, always going forward and always rising. Every word, every movement, every effort must carry interest higher and approach closer to the climax. Never descend from a level once gained. Never proceed on the same level for too long.
Brevity enforces the staircase. When you have more material than you need, the temptation is to plateau — to spend time on a level rather than climbing to the next one. The audience senses the plateau. They feel the momentum stall. And even though no individual moment during the plateau is bad, the absence of upward movement creates a subtle but real sense of stagnation.
When you cut to just a bit too little, every remaining moment must climb. There is no room for plateaus. No room for treading water. No room for the comfortable middle sections where you are neither ascending nor descending but simply existing. The result is a performance that feels like it is constantly accelerating, constantly intensifying, constantly building toward something — because it is.
The Practical Application
Here is how I now apply the “just a bit too little” principle in practice.
When I am designing a set for a keynote, I start by listing every effect I could potentially include. I usually end up with ten to fifteen candidates. Then I sequence them in the strongest possible order, with the best material at the beginning and end (for memorability) and strong material throughout.
Then I cut. I remove the weakest effect. Then I remove the second weakest. Then I look at the remaining list and ask whether there is anything else that is not pulling its weight. I keep cutting until removing another effect would create a genuine gap in the experience. That is my set.
The result is usually six to eight effects for a thirty-minute keynote. Not twelve. Not fifteen. Six to eight. Each one selected because it is strong, because it serves the narrative arc, because it contributes something unique to the overall experience. Nothing is there for padding. Nothing is there because I do not want to waste it. Nothing is there as insurance against another effect failing.
This feels terrifying the first few times you do it. Walking on stage with a tight set and no safety net requires confidence in your material and in yourself. But the payoff is worth the terror. A tight set performed with conviction is infinitely more powerful than a padded set performed with the anxious knowledge that half your material is filler.
The Ending Problem
The “just a bit too little” principle has its most dramatic effect on how you end your performance. Most performers end when they have exhausted their material. They reach the last effect, perform it, and finish because there is nothing left to do. This means the ending is determined by the volume of material rather than by the quality of the moment.
Fitzkee argued that you should end at the peak. Not at the natural conclusion of your material, but at the highest point of audience engagement. If that peak comes twenty-two minutes into a thirty-minute set, end at twenty-two minutes. If it comes at fifteen minutes, end at fifteen minutes. The duration is irrelevant. The peak is everything.
“Don’t go back and do another trick after the applause,” Fitzkee warned. “You’re on top at the peak. If you go back and the audience is content to let you finish, you’ve lost ground. Quit at the peak.”
This is extraordinarily difficult to do in practice. When you are on stage and the audience is engaged, the temptation to keep going is overwhelming. You have their attention. They are enjoying themselves. Surely one more effect will make the experience even better. Surely ending now, when things are going so well, is leaving value on the table.
But it is not. It is creating value. The value of wanting more. The value of the audience leaving with an appetite rather than a sense of completion. The value of being remembered as the performer who left them craving more rather than the performer who gave them slightly too much.
The Dinner Party Analogy
I think about this in terms of dinner parties, which is an analogy that works well in the Austrian context where food is taken seriously. The best meal is not the one where you eat until you cannot move. The best meal is the one where every course is delicious, the portions are perfectly calibrated, and you leave the table satisfied but not stuffed. You could have eaten one more course. You would have enjoyed one more course. But the evening ends before you reach that point, and the memory you carry away is of exquisite quality rather than excessive quantity.
The worst meal is the one where the host, anxious to demonstrate generosity, keeps bringing food until the guests are uncomfortable. The first few courses were excellent. The middle courses were good. The final courses were endured rather than enjoyed. And the memory the guests carry away is not of the excellent early courses but of the uncomfortable fullness at the end.
Performances work the same way. The audience’s last impression is their strongest impression. If their last impression is “I wish there had been more,” they leave with appetite and admiration. If their last impression is “I’m glad that’s over,” they leave with relief and indifference. Both performances may have contained identical quality of material. But the one that ended too soon wins over the one that ended too late. Every time.
My Ongoing Struggle
I will be honest: this is the rule I struggle with most. The instinct to do more is powerful. The fear of not doing enough is real. Every time I cut an effect from a set, a voice in my head tells me I am making a mistake. Every time I end a performance at the peak instead of pushing through to the planned ending, I feel a pang of anxiety about whether it was enough.
But the results keep proving Fitzkee right. The tighter sets get better responses. The shorter performances get stronger reactions. The audiences that leave wanting more are the ones that talk about the show afterward, that recommend me to colleagues, that ask when I will be performing again.
The audiences that get everything I have are satisfied in the moment and indifferent afterward. They got their fill. There is no appetite driving them to seek more.
Fitzkee understood this eighty years ago. He understood it from studying the greatest entertainers of his era and noticing that the best ones always left before they had to. Always ended before the audience was ready for them to end. Always did just a bit less than the audience wanted.
Not too much. Just a bit too little.
It is the simplest rule in performance. It is the hardest rule to follow. And it is the rule that, more than any other, separates the performers who are booked again from the ones who are not.
I am still learning to follow it. But every time I do, Fitzkee’s ghost — blunt, unsentimental, absolutely right — seems to nod in approval.