Last week I was selling my show at a booking conference, and got involved in a little impromptu magic jam! It was Cecil Lewis, Jeff Martin, Dan Paulus and me.
When you’re on the road, you need to take time to do things that fill your soul. This is one of the things that keeps me moving, I love jamming with other magicians!
-Louie
A couple of weeks Matt Disero mentioned the book Naypes by Roberto Mansilla on his Facebook page. His post got me curious about the book, so I picked up a copy of it. It’s a book of card magic for parlor or stage shows. I cracked it open on the plane yesterday.
In the beginning Roberto does a good job of defining what parlor and stage magic is and the difference between the two. He also talks about four techniques to make cards play to a larger audience.
I’ve read a few tricks into it and I like the approach to Out of This World, and the routine for Card in Envelope. I’ll probably finish reading it on the flight home in a few days. I’ll keep you posted with what I think…
-Louie
When I was driving home from Abbott’s Magic Get Together, I stopped and visited a magician in Minnesota to talk about the vanishing birdcage. He was thinking of adding it to his show.
His fear was the cage hanging up on his sleeve. The thing with the cage vanish is that people think it’s easy, until they start to work with it and then realize how hard of a trick it is to do. The first thing you do is try to eliminate anything that will snag on your sleeve. The second thing you do is use proper technique for the vanish. That’s putting a lot of tension on the pull and making the “hand tunnel” correctly.
Here’s me vanishing the cage at the fair yesterday:
Once you’ve gotten the snags removed and the technique down, the last thing you have to do is commit to the vanish. When you make the cage disappear you don’t do it timidly, you vanish it like it’s going to go up your sleeve. Committing to the vanish is where I think a lot of people have trouble. They’re worried about it not going up the sleeve, so the don’t pull as hard as they should.
In my show I do a joke about a kid losing a glass eye during the show. I thought it would be funny to add a visual gag to the verbal joke. The gag works for when you’re doing a multi show type of gig, but it doesn’t work for single show. I ordered a glass eye, and now I have one in my prop case!
The gag works, and I’m glad I spent the $25 on a glass eye, however the gag can be better. Most people don’t know that a glass eye is basically flat, it’s just the front 1/4 of the eye. People think it’s a whole globe that would be a sphere. I think if I managed to find a good looking sphere, the gag would play better.
I guess there’s only one way to find out…track down a round glass eye!
-Louie
A couple of weeks ago at Potter and Potter‘s Ken Klosterman auction I managed to win one item. It was Al Koran…well some of his ashes and a sealed deck of his cards along with a display.
If you don’t know much about him, here he is on the Ed Sullivan show:
Al invented Ring Flite and the Medallion, both tricks I’ve done a version of during my career!
-Louie
One of my least favorite tropes in magic ads is “packs flat and plays big“. I don’t like it because you should be selecting material that is right for your show, not right for the size of a case that fits under the seat of an airplane. I had a saying, “fits my artistic vision and packs as small as it can“. Some props are simply large and there’s no realistic way to make them any smaller. If that big prop is part of your art, then lug it around.
In the past, for a specific gig I needed a “briefcase magic show” that I could carry onto an airplane and when I got to the gig all I had to do was open the case and it was good to go. It worked for that gig, and I used it for a few more gigs. What I didn’t like was a lot of the material was selected for its size and lack of set up at the show. I wasn’t picking tricks because they were best for the show, but best for the travel and set up.
One of the things I want to work on right now is making a briefcase magic show that can live in the trunk of my car and has minimal set up when I arrive at the gig. I’m going to start the show length at 30 mins and hopefully work it up to 45 mins. The goal is for the show to have some texture. Most of the pack flat, play big shows I’ve seen lack texture. Most of the props are flat cards, and the show (to me) feels flat.
The other goal for the show would be something that could play in a black box theater, so up to about 100 people, and could be done with just a handheld microphone. That would allow me to not have to bring audio and spend time setting it up. I’m hoping for a 5 min set up and 5 min take down.
Quick set up, that plays big, that’s the goal.
-Louie
Whenever I’m out doing shows, I always try to spend time any magicians that are in the audience. Sometimes I don’t know who is a magician, so I apologize in advance if I don’t hang after the show.
I am still very passionate about magic and really enjoy watching and learning it. If you come out to one of my shows and be sure to mention you are a magician. Sometimes I don’t have time to hang after the show…but if I am available, I always love to jam for a little bit!
There’s a social media group of performers and they’re complaining about gas prices. Here’s the thing, gas prices were higher in the past than they are now. We had higher gas prices in 2008 and from 2011-2014 and that’s without adjusting for inflation, that’s a straight dollar to dollar comparison.
Price comparison source: US Energy Information Assoc
Some people are talking about adding a gas surcharge to their show fee. I think this is a bad idea. Here’s why, it makes buying a pain for the client:
How do you implement it?
If gas prices drop, so you remove the surcharge?
What date do you use for your price threshold?
Instead of having your worth tied to the price of a gallon of gas, you should just raise your rate. I’m assuming you’re worth more than you were last year, or five years ago. Your show has improved, maybe you’ve picked up some national TV credits, or had a video go viral.
If you’re doing the same show they same way you’ve been doing it for a decade, this may be a hard sell to your client and tying your price to the cost of gas might be the only way you can get a pay raise.
Let’s do some math.
For a local gig, let’s say your round trip is 100 miles, your car gets 20 miles per gallon and gas in 2021 is up from 20 cents to just below 70 cents per gallon from 2019. That means you’ll burn 5 gallons of gas at 70 cents a gallon, and it will have cost you $3.50 more in gas to drive 100 miles than it did in 2019.
Are you honestly going to put a line item for $3.50 in gas on your invoice?
If I was booking someone and they wanted me to pay $3.50 for a gas surcharge, I’d laugh in their face. You’re not teenage driver getting their friends to chip in on a trip to the mall.
If your profit margin is soo tight that $3.50 will make you unprofitable, you need to seriously reassess your business!
Be better than you were last year, raise your rate, and use that to justify why you’re worth more.
-Louie
Last week I was at Disneyland and went over to the California Adventure park to see the Dr. Strange show. Essentially this was a 12 minute magic show. The magic trick were essentially used as “live special effects”, and not as magic tricks. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing them this way, it’s just a different mindset.
There were basically four tricks: Devils Hank, Ring to Flower, Zombie, and an Appearing Pole. This show was a great example of a themed magic show. Every trick was used with a purpose to further along the story. The Zombie was well motivated, but went way longer than it should have gone.
Here’s video I found online of the full show:
This show is also a good example of why when I do themed shows my role is more of a lecturer than a character that’s presenting a show. Performing as someone other than me doesn’t really interest me, and I’m not a good enough actor to do that.
The November issue of Vanish Magazine has come out and it’s got the review for my trick Out For Beers:
