Nobody has posted hear for awhile so I thought I would.
Those of you that use deepeners what are they. I use the staircase. I know some use a routine (on stage) to help deepen but I'm talking about during the spoken induction. There are tons!

I don't do big stage shows. I have been working to develop an up-close-and-personal style with 1 to 5 or so volunteers. Just to give context to how I do things.

If I'm doing a general deepener as part of the induction process, I just pace and lead whatever is happening at the time. "You can simply continue breathing at the perfect rate for you and every breath can allow you to drift deeper into that relaxed state of hypnosis and the more relaxed you feel the more you can continue breathing at that perfect rate" or so on. Doesn't much matter what you say, really, just linking things that are definitely happening to what you want to happen.

If I want a specific moment of deepening I generally just use an arm drop. Tell them to let their arm be totally loose and limp like a wet dish rag, lift it by the wrist, tell them I'm going to let it drop and when it hits their leg/table/side/whatever they'll go twice as deep. I only ever use "twice as deep", personally, never "ten times" or "a thousand times."

When you say "big stage shows" I'm assuming you are talking about college market or the like. I do smaller venues. You get about 20% deep. So if it's a room of 30 6 are deep. Mostly an older crowd. 40 years plus. These are tough crowds! Nothing like the after prom lock in high school crowd. I have found that a deepener is needed for this kind of crowd. The pre talk and induction are much longer. I too like the "twice as deep"

Yes, big stage shows meaning when the hypnotist has a dozen or more subjects for most of the show, up on stage. Your typical "Comedy hypnosis show" format. I haven't developed a show that would suit that large a venue at this time, as my focus is not on "comedy hypnosis" as it is typically portrayed.

Because I tend to be more one on one, I'm not having to work to make the slower ones catch up. I would say, if I'm doing purely hypnotic demonstrations, the average time from introducing myself to suitable trance state would be 3-5 minutes, depending on how much I chat with them before really getting going.