A few weeks ago when Meadow Perry was in town, we met up with some Seattle magicians and had a little magic jam.
One of the things that surprised me was that Meadow mentioned that she’s never been to a magic jam were people shared as much as we did. The group in Seattle that I meet up with, we’re good about sharing or teaching magic tricks with each other.
While I totally understand not teaching everything, the magic jams I prefer are where we help each other, not where we just try to one up each other.
These gold coins are simply Eisenhauer dollar coins that I painted gold. They are for my summer library show.
My show is about colors and have a magic wand that I painted like a rainbow. At the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold, so I’m going to produce a coin from the end of the rainbow magic wand. Then I’ll produce multiple coins (with the Sylvester Pitch), then do a series of vanishes and productions with a single coin that ends with the production of a jumbo coin.
I always try to have some sort of a sleight of hand sequence in my family show. It’s a way I can show that I can do the stuff and it’s not just prop driven. While this isn’t 100% necessary, I do this for me!
Another prop for my summer library show is a breakaway flower. This is like the old breakaway wand comedy prop, but it’s flower.
It does have one other bonus bit to it, the top flower separates from the stem. They are attached by a magnet. The idea for the routine will be that the flower is going to disappear. It breaks and it put it back together a few times. Then the flower separates from the stem. I toss the flower in the air and it disappear, but the kids notice it’s stuck to my butt. The flower finally disappears (in a devils hank?) and reappears somewhere else.
Nothing super crazy here, but a way to theme the breakaway wand from a comedy prop that’s added to a routine, to it being one of the main props for the routine.
In my audio box I have a lot of things, one of them is an extra handheld microphone. This is a Shure SM58 that has an on/off switch. The reason I have the switch is so that sound guy can leave that channel on and I simply switch in on or off as needed. That way I won’t have the delay of the sound guy realizing I’m using the mic and him turning the channel on.
If the venue has a handheld with an on/off switch I will use theirs. However I did an event recently and their handheld microphone sounded like talking into a marshmallow that was inside of a metal can. I plugged my Shure SM58 into their cord and it was much better sounding!
It doesn’t take much to travel with that in my audio box and it comes in handy much more often than you’d think!
I’m really liking using “projection” in library shows. It gives my lower production show production value. Some people’s library shows have a lot of “curb appeal” with backdrops, banners, etc. My set up in fairly minimal for things like that. It’s a case on the table and if they have a TV or projected, then a second table with a camera.
There are a couple of schools of thought on this. You want the audience to walk in and go “wow” when they see the set up. Personally I don’t care about this as the moment the audience starts walking in my preshow starts. I’m talking to them, and doing things. For me the library show starts when the doors open. My personality is selling the show, not a back drop.
Would it be better if I had fancy backdrops? Yes it would. Honestly I should level up the curb appeal of my show. It’s hard to be motivated to do that when I’ve got as many libraries as my schedule can handle and I’m not a full time library performer who does 150 of them in the summer.
This ad for a magic show came across my social media feed:
It’s got some information about the performer and the show, but what it’s missing is the DATE and LOCATION! When I clicked to buy a ticket, it also didn’t have that information, so why would I buy a ticket to a show that could literally be anywhere in the world, and have no idea when the show is?
It’s not that hard to put that information into the ad copy or at least on the ticket sales page. This was probably an expensive mistake on someone at the venue’s part where they’re paying for unqualified impressions of their ad and diluting the reach to people who may be in the area.
If you’re going to promote your show, put the WHERE and WHEN in the ad copy!
I’m working on my library show for this summer. The show is going to have a trick for all of the colors of the rainbow. For orange I’m going to use a puppet that will do a card trick. I didn’t like the commercially made goldfish puppets, then I thought of the goldfish cracker. I liked that look and it’s funnier than a puppet that looks like a real goldfish.
Unfortunately no one make a goldfish cracker puppet, so I had to build one. I did find someone on TikTok that had made some, but isn’t currently making them. That meant I had to make my own:
This one is almost done, I need to put the eyes on it. I want to rig it so that one of the eyes will fall off, and I need to figure out how that’s going to happen.
This was my first time making a soft puppet, and it came out OK. It only needs to do about 30 shows this summer and not last for years. In the future I’d probably make it out of a different material that’s not felt. The felt will get fuzzy and “pill” with travel and use.
Overall the prop looks good enough and will get through the shows.
This year I’m a bit late working on my library magic show. Normally I’d have it written out and have most of the props built. This year I’m just getting to the brainstorming stage. My show is going to have a trick for each color of the rainbow.
Here’s some of my initial brainstorming notes:
One thing I noticed once I started brainstorming was that a lot of things that I associated with colors were food. I don’t want the whole show to be about food, so I had to think harder and now only about half the show is about food!
The other challenge is to vary the magical effects in the show. I noticed that I had a lot of tricks that were productions, but the show can’t just be all things appearing. I added a card trick, a transformation (actually two) and a transposition. Hopefully that will provide enough variation of magic effect in the show.
Many magician use pop up bins for prop holders. These are basically fabric covered cardboard cubes that sit on your table and keep your props out of view. I’ve used a half size one, so only about six inches tall for many years. I needed to replace my old one and I learned that that don’t make the size I need anymore. The taller cube is too tall for me to sue, so I custom made myself one.
Here’s my old one, my new one is in the middle and a standard tall one:
Since I was making one, I could make one that is how I wanted it to be, not how they come from the store. Here’s a close up of the custom one that I made:
I wanted my bin to be slightly taller so my props don’t stick out above the front, so I made the front 8 inches tall. I also need to be able to easily get to things sitting on the bottom of the bin, so I made the back of it six inches tall.
I love the result of it! It’s exactly what I need, and I’m not compromising. The best thing is that it was really easy to make! My only regret is that I didn’t custom make one years ago!
The last couple of months I’ve have a huge output of original (to me) magic effects. The shift is that I’m playing with magic more, and in a directed way. Playing is different than learning a new trick or practicing one that I already do.
When I play with magic, I put a prop on the table and have recess with it. I just start playing, and sometimes an idea will pop into my head and I’ll have to figure out how to make it happen. Other times I’ll just play and come up with nothing new. However that play where I come up with nothing new is still flexing the creative muscle in my brain. I’m also working through my vocabulary of sleights or techniques. The goal is to move past what I know. For example, if I have a packet of cards in front of me, I want to get past doing twisting the aces. However sometimes that means working through all the ways I know how to do it to come up with an different angle on it. Or to figure out what I don’t like about the effect and try to fix that.
It’s been a lot of fun dedicating time to play. I think more magicians should do this!
