magic show tips – Page 2

Poof Too!

A few weeks ago I performed in a show called Poof Too! in Hermosa Beach, CA. This is show with stage magicians and one close up magician. I was the MC in the show and had a performance spot in the show.

It was great performing with David Zirbel, Simone Turkington, Mark Furey, Shawn McMaster and Alexander Great & Pamela! Everyone was super professional and great to deal with as an MC and fun to hang out with! When I was approached to be in this show by Dennis Forel, the first thing I asked was “is it a fun show”, not how much does it pay. Personally a fun show is more important to me than money (don’t get me wrong, I still gotta pay the bills).

I’d been doing comedy gigs before this one and in a comedy club I have a lot of gear. However a show where the illusionist is packing up crates of huge illusions, and I just wheel my case out, I feel like I have nothing!

I love performing with other magic acts. One thing I did years ago (close to two decades ago) was to start to work on a show that I can do when I’m sharing the stage with other magicians and not have to really worry about duplication. Sure there will always be things that no matter how different they will seem the same to an audience. A rope trick will usually feel like almost any other rope trick no matter how different it is. For me, just trying to have unique or less common tricks in the show makes my show much more versatile.

-Louie

Magic show set up!

My show last week had a pretty simple set up, but I’m still packing a lot more stuff than I need.

I’m trying to have less “emergency” material. Sure having a trick or two in the case is a good idea, but having an extra 20-30 minutes of material is overkill for a show where I’m not really expected to do that much extra time as there are other acts on the bill and I wouldn’t be asked to fill their time if something happened to them. I may be asked to do a show in someone else’s time slot, but that doesn’t require me to have new or different material than my show would normally have.

The lighter I can travel, or the less cluttered my stage set up is, the better!

-Louie

Getting Free Advice!

One of the great things about performing at fairs is working with other performers. Last week I got to work with three other magicians at the event!

Between Glen, Rafael and Terry they gave me some great ideas for my show! When you work with other magicians, don’t look at them as competition, they’re a great resource. For example with the thumb tie routine I’m working on, Glen gave me an idea to change the moment when I link arms with the spectator. The first time I did it as he suggested, it got a GASP from the audience!

I’m always willing to listen to what other magicians say! I don’t always agree with what they say, but willing to listen.

-Louie

Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women

I’m trying to be better about reading books and doing less scrolling though things on my phone. On my recent trip to Japan, I read Ricky Jay‘s book Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women.

It’s a great historical read about some colorful acts and personalities! If you’re into the history of variety acts, it’s worth a read. You can get copies of this book pretty cheap online.

-Louie

Getting Paid to Work on my Show!

Last week I was working with a buddy and one of my creative partners at a fair in Arizona. It’s always great when I do a gig with him because we work on our shows while at the gig!

He hadn’t see me do my linking pin / thumb tie routine before and with his help the routine made a huge leap forward!

If you don’t have a brainstorm group or someone to bounce ideas off, you’re missing out of growing your show quickly. I highly recommend hanging out with other performers that you like or trust and getting their input on your show!

-Louie

Preshow’ing your show

One of the great things about performing at fairs is getting to see all of the other acts at the fairgrounds! You can learn a lot from watching other acts!

One of the huge lessons is watching everyone’s preshow audience build/warm up. The different act have different goals with their starting audience. Some want as many people as possible and some want to select their audience and try to get the people who aren’t into what they do to leave. Neither approach is right or wrong, but which ever way you do it, it should be intentional!

Tomorrow my week starts with performing at the Moisture Festival in Seattle. This is a variety arts festival and the shows are in a theater, so I don’t get to try to select my audience. I get to perform for whoever bought a ticket. This festival is a blast, so it’ll be fun!

-Louie

Uncle Otis

Last week I got to perform with Cousin Otis!

We’ve met and chatted in person before but never really hung out or worked together until now! His street show is great and it’s always a pleasant surprise when someone lives up to what you’ve hear about them! There are soo many acts I’ve heard about and the show is just OK. But Cousin Otis has a great show that the audiences loved!

You can learn a lot by watching his show. He does a good job of “billboarding” the big trick that’s the finale of the street show. AND all of the other tricks are good.

If you get the chance to check him out, do it!

-Louie

Spirit Rapping Hand

A long time ago I made a mold of a vintage spirit rapping hand that I had acquired and then made a few hand out of resin. (You can read the post about it here).I sold them a long time ago, but someone contacted me asking me to make them one. I has some time, so I made him one:

It turned out well! These hands are kind of a pain to make, so it’s something I don’t offer on my online catalog. However if you want one, feel free to contact me and if I have some time available, I’ll gladly make you one!
-Louie

The Linking Ring Parade!

I finally got to see the physical copy of my fourth parade in the Linking Ring Magazine!

It’s got about a 10 magic tricks in it. I think I need to write at least one more parade for the Linking Ring so that I have an even five!

If you’re a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians check it out in the March 2024 issue!

-Louie

Street Show Magic Bag

Before I headed down to Arizona this week, I put a tripod on the bottom of the doctor’s bag. This is to elevate the prop holder for when I’m doing street style shows. That way I don’t have to bend down to the floor to grab props.

I have a bunch of Collector’s Workshop base flanges, and several bases. I simply screwed one to the bottom of the doctor bag:

And I’m only using one of the table sections, so that gives me a bag where the opening at the top is about hip height.

That cleans up motion from the show and takes away time that I have to look away from the audience. I’ve already used it for a couple of shows down here and I really like it!

-Louie