This could be a hairy thread as some people really hate this man but most people love him.

I was able to see a show of his when he was playing at Westbury Music Fair on Long Island.  All 6 shows, 2 a day were sold completely out.   He is from here so these shows were especially hard to get tickets for but in truth he sells out where ever he is doing a show.

Now, we air his show "John Edward Cross Country" out of our building on WE.   I have watched him from back in 2002 when he had his show Crossing Over which I believed aired on ScFi.   

Some people will say that his shows are rigged up with microphones to over hear conversations in the audience, plants set up or I have even heard some people had to fill out questionaires.

Over the years I have always wondered, is he just a really excellent cold reader or does he really have something.

In going to a show I was hoping to observe things that you just can't watching it on TV.   This is what I observed, I'd say the whole audience really wasn't talking to each other waiting for the show to start, I know I had told my family not to say a word about who we hoped to hear from.   No random person came up to me or anyone that asked questions to the effect of "so who are you hoping to hear from today".   
The people he did read that day it didn't seem scripted to me, it seemed like very natural conversation.
He has so many shows, it would seem near impossible for him to have the time to go through the extreme amount of work to script about 15 people a show and rehearse and all that.
For me to believe, I need to hear something that only that person could know, something unique and not general.   One reading that stood out from that show was a reading to a woman about her dead husband and he said, something happened to the coffin and she said it fell over.   That is not something that happens most of the time at funerals.   Or another woman who recently got a tattoo on her ass and was very embarrassed when he said that her dead husband really likes it, also that she will be grandmother and she confirmed that her daughter is pregnant and he didn't get that out of her, he started by saying there is someone here that goes by the nickname of grandma and a vegtable well this went on for a few minutes until this woman raised her hand and said her husband used to call her AidaPotato and then he said, I feel the vibe here but I am getting Grandma infront of that and that's when she said her daughter is prego.

Bottom line is it's very hard to know if there is something to this or all bullshit.   If he didn't validate his reading by telling people things that are the percentage of what someone would do when someone dies or cold reading by making alot of mistakes and trying to cover them up all the time or by pulling it out of them.  Does he make mistakes yes but not all that often and not many at all in the show that I saw and he read about 10 to 15 people.

This topic could get heavy because like I said, some people are pissed that he takes alot of money from people and think he's a charlatan.

For me I am on the fence, I want to believe and I think he's got something because I do believe spirits exist so if you believe in that, then you have to believe that somehow they could communicate but then the skeptic side of me says, hmmm maybe he is just really good at making people believe him.
I have to say, I am more on the believer side then the skeptic.