Gimmicking Post Cards

I do a card trick that I call “choices” where the audience narrows down cards by eliminating them until there is one card left and that matched a prediction that I have made. The overall presentation is about me making bad choices in life, and honestly from a presentation standpoint doesn’t need to be a card trick, it could literally be anything that’s narrowed down.

Since it doesn’t need to be playing cards, I was trying to think of what I could replace them with and decided to use postcards.

You can read more about the postcards on a previous blog post here.

By switching props from jumbo cards to slightly smaller postcards I can add an additional way to show the postcards all to be different. I should note this routine at its bones is essentially Al Koran’s 5 Star Miracle. One of the things that I added to the postcards was to cut them short, so I can do a riffle display to show them all different.

postcard magic trick

This little bit allows me to show them a bit more freely. The postcards are soo visually different that if I spread them all in a face, I think the repeating pattern would be more obvious than with playing cards.

Now I need to make a choice and figure out if I want to keep the presentation as is, or try to write something new.

-Louie

Adding Some Hype To Your Show

Recently I’ve been to a few sporting events and one of the things I pay attention to the the pageantry of the introductions of the teams. It hypes up the crowd, and it reminds me about the importance of introductions. Simply having someone say your name as you walk onstage works, but it doesn’t put energy into the room.

Yes, I understand that not everyone wants crazy energy put into the room, and it can be done in a low key sort of way.

The other place that sports add energy are in between plays. They’ll either have upbeat music, crowd play along things, or video elements. In a magic show, we have time like that in between tricks or when bringing people up onto the stage.

Those are great times to add music, jokes or something to keep the crowd engaged with you that’s not dead time.

This is where watching your show on video is helpful. If you have a hard time watching your transitions between tricks, this is the area you need to work on. Go to a baseball game and see how they do it…

-Louie

Magician Bio For Promo

In my spare time I help out with a variety arts festival and I’m updating their website with bio’s for performers. I’m amazed at how many performers don’t have a simple one paragraph bio.

Back when I was on vacation in Oct/Nov part of our trip was on a cruise ship and in one of the production shows they had bios of the different performers in the show on the screens before the show. These were simply one paragraph bio’s with a head shot of the performer.

cruise ship performer bio
cruise ship performer bio

These don’t need to be much and are used much more often than you’d think. A bio is different than a the short/long description of your magic show, as they may both be used at the same time in the same program.

A bio is a little more about you and less about the show. It’s simply a quick background on YOU.

Magician Bio Sample

Johnny The Magician began practicing magic when a magician performed at his sister’s 8th birthday. Ever since that day he’s been amazing friends and family with sleight of hand tricks and in the last 20 years he’s come a long way! In addition to being a graduate of the Chevez Course in Manual Dexterity he was also “stunt hands” creating magic with a credit cards in a national commercial for Visa.
In his spare time Johnny is an avid boating enthusiast having sailed on every ocean on the planet!

There’s really not much to it, just list some interesting thing about you, some accomplishments and maybe something about a hobby you have. Having a short bio ready to send out to bookers or already available on your website makes you life and their life much easier!

-Louie