booking confrence – MagicShow.Tips

Having the Blood of a Comic…

When I was 21 years old, I started performing in comedy clubs. I really came up through the open mic system. As a young comic you’re taught that stage time is more precious than gold. The more you go up, the quicker you get better.

The other day I was at a booking conference for the fair industry and the bar at the host hotel had a comedy night the day I was there!

I sent a text to a friend to find out who books the room, then a text to the booker and I ended up doing a guest set in the show!

The needing to have stage time is still in my blood! This also had a positive effect at the booking conference. When you checked into the hotel, the front desk really pitched you the show that night as it’s “free to hotel guests”, so everyone attending knew it was happening. As word got around later that night that I ducked out of dinner to do some comedy, I had people coming up to me asking me if I really did that. It lead to me meeting some people I probably wouldn’t have! It also cemented in bookers minds who haven’t seen me showcase in the past as what I do and that I’m actually funny.

I’m glad I did it!

-Louie

Going Rogue…

One thing I believe in is that when everyone is good, it’s better for everyone who performs in an industry. I was at a conference last week and there’s not a lot of content for the performers who want to get better. A buddy and I came up with the idea of a problem solving session. It wasn’t on the official program or even endorsed by the conference, so I had some flyers made and we distributed them and made it a word of mouth thing.

We had a great turnout, my picture below is about half of the room:

What was really cool is that a lot of the people who book entertainment showed up. They were able to hear what our challenges were, and able to have a dialogue with use about how to solve them!

There are some people who have asked me why I’m helping my competition, and the answer is simple:

We’re all on the same team.

I don’t look at anyone as competition. Not because I’m better than anyone, we’re all on one big team. When people hire good entertainment that’s easy to work with, they want to hire entertainment more and that’s more work everyone!

-Louie

Marketing Your Show…

One thing that always surprises me the fear that magicians have about spending money on things that will help sell their show. I get most of my work through booking conferences. I needed to make a new banner for one of the agents that I work for, so while I was doing that, I also made a generic one for me.

These were made in a rush, and they’re good enough. If I had more time I would make a couple of changes, but the more important thing is that I have the one the agent requested by the date they needed it!

Good Enough…

In less than two weeks I’m showcasing at a booking event and my retractable banner is missing. I needed to order another one ASAP, but of course, I’m on the road and can’t find the original files.

Working off a picture of the old banner, I had it recreated with a couple of more recent pictures and some new credits.

Having to remake the banner was sort of a blessing in disguise as it needed to be redone anyway. That and the retractable base was getting pretty banged up, it didn’t work very smoothly.

If I was at home I had pictures on a hard drive that I would have rather used, but sometimes you just need something that’s “good enough”. This will get me through the event and with banners at about a hundred bucks, if I only use it once before I redesign it, it’s totally worth it!

-Louie