While you could quibble abt how the handling could have been changed for THIS showing, the point of the 7 cards and people are:Originally posted by Randwill:
And the 7 people on-stage was pointless. Why not just one person (or an easel) holding the prediction on one card? Audience participation is a good thing but only if the people actually participate.
1) To involve the audience and
2) To have 7 very large numbers which would be visible all the way to the back of a large audience. (A single person couldn't hold up all 7 of those large numbers.)
Also, Gerry was doing the presentation he had done many times professionally, so it makes sense that he wouldn't try to change the whole thing for that one show.
Outside of the passive audience participation (employees and execs getting up in front of their peers), you make a good point for the TV context.
Steve