magic show tips – Page 7

Using Fire in Your Show?

The amount of magicians that give other magicians bad advice about using fire in their shows. The big thing is about getting permission or correct permitting to use fire. Many magicians repeat the old saying: “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”.

That is totally wrong!

There are many gigs where you absolutely cannot use fire. I worked a gig at a museum where an act got fired (no pun intended) for using a flaming wallet. The gig I was at last week had this sign in all the dressing rooms:

If you showed up to this gig and fire was a part of your show, like burning a dollar bill, you wouldn’t be able to do that routine. If you did fire at this gig, which is two weeks, you wouldn’t last long!

This is why doing fire correctly by asking for permission is KEY! You’d come into this gig knowing you couldn’t use it OR getting the correct permits, etc to be able to do it.

-Louie

Sign Language Interpreter For Magic Shows

All of my shows at the Ohio State Fair had a sign language interpreter. It’s a really cool thing to have and there were a lot of deaf people in my audience because of this. It was great to have my show, which is very verbal to reach people who probably wouldn’t normally watch it.

There were 4 or 5 interpreters who cycled through the 24 shows that I did over 12 days and they got to know my show pretty well. At one point my show got off track and I was trying to bring the routine back so we could wrap up and I totally forgot where I was in the show. I asked the interpreter and she told me what the next part of the routine was!

Everyone from the Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities did a great job, and I even learned to tell a joke in sign language, and I have the sign language interpreter verbally tell it on the mic while I signed it. Not only that, but I learned a lot about sign language!

I really wish more events would offer this, and it does open the show up to more people!

-Louie

Magic Show Review

It’s always great to see what other magicians think of my show. A magician (who I had never met before) was at one of my shows last week. He texted about my show to another performer who I did know and that performer shared a screen of of the text.

It’s always great when magicians like my show. While they’re not my target audience, they are a group that I try to have something in the show for. My show is fairly non-standard, or at least if something is sorta standard, it has a twist on it. I don’t do this specifically for magician audiences, it’s for me. I honestly couldn’t do an “off the shelf” magic show. It’s the difference between a cover band and a band that does originals. A cover band will have much easier early success, but there’s a limit to the level of success they will have. However a band that does originals will have a harder time at first, but the potential level of success is much higher.

Doing standards IS a part of the learning process. You do need to know standard techniques. I did linking rings for a long time, and if you handed me a set I bet I could still flawlessly do my old routine.

-Louie

Developing a Unique Show

Right now I’m performing at the Ohio State Fair and there are three magicians AND a hypnotist that does a mentalism show. Technically that make four magicians all working at the same fair on the same dates! This is a large fair, so two of us are on one stage and two are on another stage.

None of the magicians working here do standard acts. None of us are “stick to the classics” sort of people. We all have unique shows that don’t use common material. That’s an important thing, sure an act of standard tricks can get booked, however having an act full of unique tricks definitely makes you more bookable.

Yes, bookers do know what a generic magic show looks like. A birthday party parent may not, but someone that their job is to book acts can tell the difference. This is one of the secrets to my success, being able to work with other magicians at the same event.

One of the things that I did to build a unique show was to write down the tricks I did in the show. I labelled them as: common, uncommon or unique.

The goal was to get rid of all of the common tricks, then eventually get rid of all of the uncommon tricks.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Matt Baker

On this episode of the Moisture Festival Podcast Louie interviews his co-host Matt Baker. They discuss a wide range of topics including Matt’s time living in Western Samoa as a teenager and how he became a vegetarian. We also learn how Matt got into performing at a young age through hackysack (footbag) and how that skill took him across Europe and all over the US doing school assemblies.

Matt discusses his time in the award winning juggling duo the Brothers from Different Mothers and the challenges that duo’s face. We learn all about the crazy places his solo show the Matt Baker Comedy + Stunt Show has taken him and where he will be going next. A fun interview with your second favorite Moisture Festival Podcast host.

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Showing Process for Mentalism

When I went to a Gerry McCambridge workshop a few years ago, he talked about how it was important for a mentalist to show the process of how they’re reading a mind. A common process shown by mentalists is reading someone’s body language. In the mentalism I do that’s not presented as a coincidence, I try to show a process that’s believable.

I’ve been playing with unbelievable processes. One idea I had was for someone who it thinking of a work, they whisper it into their fist, then the need to get that idea into my head…so they slap me in the face!

That was just an idea, but it lead to a couple other ideas that were more workable. The idea I think I’m going to go with is to have someone think of a word. Then I hand them a paper roll and they are going to swing it like a baseball bat at my belly in a way that feels like their word.

I think there’s a ton of comedy potential that can happen around how the hit me. They can’t hurt me with the paper roll as it just collapses if they swing it hard.

Then after I verbally reveal the word, I can unroll the paper tube and it says the word they are thinking of!

I think this routine has potential.

-Louie

Recording My Show

When Ray Ban first put out their Ray Ban Stories glasses with a video camera in it, I thought about getting them. The current version is the Ray Ban Meta, which does more than just record. They’re also voice assistants, and does a few other things.

I had been on the fence about getting them for years and I finally picked up a pair.

The current version of them when the record, there’s a LED that flashes. Obviously I don’t like that it’s distracting. It’s purpose is so that you can’t secretly record people, and that makes sense. However to use them to record another angle of my show that’s already being recorded by a camera or two I personally have no issue using them without the LED flashing.

The challenge is disabling the LED. You can’t simply cover it, if you do, you’ll get an error. What I did was read a bunch on Reddit and found a few solutions and picked the one that I thought was best and fit my level of how much I wanted to alter the glasses.

If you’re thinking of getting a pair of these, read up on what they do and don’t do to decide if they’re right for you. Also if you want to disable the LED, be sure to read up on different ways to do it to make sure you are comfortable with the level of risk of damage to the glasses that can happen.

-Louie

A Tip for Mentalists

A while ago I worked with a mentalist and they did a “psychometry” sort of routine where they matched things with the object’s owner. To do that the objects were put in bags then mixed up before the mentalist returned them to the proper owner. This mentalist (and many others that I’ve seen) put glasses on to do the part where they needed to read the marks and removed them after they read the marks.

DON’T DO THAT!

Sure probably 90% of audiences won’t notice that or make the connection, however many do. It’s like casually looking at an Apple Watch to get information, people notice. A friend of mine who isn’t a magician, but books big events had a mentalist and I asked how they were. My friends response was, “they looked at their watch a lot” and that told me all I needed to know.

Audiences do notice these things. Can you come up with a different way of making the prop?
Sew beads into it’s marked by feel?
Or use something that’s easier to see?
Can you wear glasses your whole show?

Think outside of the prop you bought that will work better with your eyesight!

-Louie

Oil and Water

Awhile ago I found a set of lecture notes called Something From the East by Haruhito Hirata. In the notes there was an oil and water trick that wasn’t for me, but it did have one part that did appeal to me. The cards were dealt out in rows and then the rows were mixed. The cards then separated by color.

The method was fairly complex and involved. I thought the trick could be streamlined a little bit, so I came up with this:

Then I realized that I could get a bonus trick out of it if the cards had different colored backs, so here’s the second version:

I’d like to get a third effect out of it, but not sure what that would be. Maybe it’ll come to me one day…

-Louie

Seance Spirit Hand!

One of the things that I make every now and then are seance/spirit hands. These are hands that tap messages from ghosts. I just make and sell the shell of the hand, it’s up to the buyer to gimmick them or use a gimmicked board wit them. The hands are also unpainted so that they can be decorated for whatever look the buyer wants.

Here’s one of the hands that was decorated and packaged beautifully by someone who bought on of my seance/spirit hand shells!

No one really makes a these hands and if you want one, the hand shells that I make are a good starting point!

-Louie