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Mentalism for Kids…

Years ago, when I was a teenager I saw Lee Earle lecture. He did his gumball prediction and then warned that it’s not a kid show trick and that mentalism doesn’t work for kids. Lee said something like, “before you can read someone’s mind, they must first have a mind”. That’s a great quote, but it’s wrong.

You absolutely can do mentalism for kids, but ultimately it comes down to how you frame it. In my library / summer camp show for this year I do three mentalism tricks.

They aren’t framed as “mind reading” and that’s what makes them work, but they are still 100% mentalism. All three are essentially predictions.

One of them I used a Cootie Catcher / Fortune Teller to determine what I’m going to have for lunch or dinner that day.

Another is a card prediction followed by a series of coincidence effects. The third is a strange happening, which is really a multiple revelation of predictions. All three of them are highlights of the show and frequently mentioned when I ask kids in the autograph line what their favorite tricks were.

Don’t be afraid of mentalism for kids, you just need to make it fun and relatable to them.

-Louie

Night and Day with Library Venues

The differences in venues for library shows can be enormous! In two days I did a library show that had about 75 people in a packed meeting room.

Then the next day I had a library show for over 300 people in an old auditorium!

The skills needed to work in both venues are very different. When you’re standing on the floor a few feet from the audience is easier to control that in a giant theater that’s super echoy and everything in it makes noise from the floorboards to the chairs.

I heard that a previous performer in the auditorium struggled with the echos and crowd control. Being armed with knowledge of this, I really had to keep on top of crowd management and my expectations of the audience. In a giant room with a lot of echo, it’s really easy to lose control and hard to get it back!

-Louie

Fireworks and Street Performing

My town had their Fourth of July festival last night. The event started at 6pm and ended with fireworks that started at 10pm. People set up their chairs at 6pm to get their space to watch the fireworks four hours later.

The fireworks ran about 28 minutes. The fireworks kinda went in four-ish minute cycles. At the end of each cycle was an finale for that cycle and they were all fairly repetitive. The only real variation was the grand finale, but all the previous cycles felt like watching the same thing on a loop.

OK, so what I noticed is once the second cycle happened people started packing up and leaving. These are people who had brought their own chairs and waited four hours to make sure they had a good viewing spot. My guess is that people felt like they had seen something and were ready to leave. This is similar to street performing. Once the audience feels like they’ve seen something, people will leave. In street performing one technique to keep a crowd is having unfinished business. Like a dollar is borrowed early on and that dollar trick isn’t finished till the end of the show. Less people will walk at the end of tricks during the show because the dollar trick hasn’t been finished.

Personally when I’m doing street (found space) shows, I take it personally when people walk. However watching people walk away a few minutes into a $60,000+ firework show that they waited all day to see gives me some perspective on why people walk during my show.

-Louie

Magician’s Tie Bar

Somehow I got into collecting dead magician’s tie bars! Recently I was visiting with Alan Sands and he gave me one of George Sands tie bars!

If you’re not familiar with George Sands, he created the Sandsational Rope Routine. Most modern cut and restored rope routines are built off of his routine.

Thanks Alan, this will go into my collection!

-Louie

Adding Tech to Library Shows

For my library and summer camp shows this year, I added a screen to my table.

There’s not much to it. It connects to an iPhone that’s running IQpro and controlled by a Flic Button. The main reason I’m using it is to get used to running IQpro.

I want to be more comfortable using production elements in my show, and obviously the best way to do that is to use them!
-Louie

Let Them Show You a Magic Trick!

Whenever someone finds out that I’m a magician and asks to show me a trick I always say yes. I’m amazed at the amount of magicians that hate being shown tricks. By saying “yes” I’m promoting someone’s enthusiasm (and my own) for magic.

The quality and variety of tricks that people show me are way better than a decade ago. I think YouTube has helped people learn more than just the 21 card trick.

By saying yes, I met a guy that could do a tabled faro shuffle with a beat up deck and he helped me learn to do it. The other day one I saw a coin trick that I’d never seen before and it was cool!

@louiefoxx Mad skill! #cointrick #juggling #coin #stunt ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

This is how tricks used to move around, person to person.

-Louie

You Should Be Working!

Many years ago I heard an interview with Jerry Seinfeld that had an interesting piece of advice. He said your job isn’t having fun onstage, you should be working! I agree, your first job is to work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun at the same time.

Here’s how sweaty I am after a show:

I know it’s gross, but I busted my ass onstage! It was fun, but I worked

-Louie

How to be Introduced

A bit ago I was at a gig and before the show the MC told me the introduction there were going to use for me. It don’t remember the exact wording, but it essentially said that I was “slumming it” to perform for that audience.

Personally I don’t like putting down the audience before I even start. You don’t know about the audience, for some people it could be their big night out for the month or year. I don’t want to do that. I’ll put myself down all day in the show, but not the audience, and especially not before I’ve taken the stage. The audience doesn’t know me or my vibe.

An introduction should build up the performer or inform the audience about what they’re going to see. Not put down the audience.

I politely asked the MC to use the prepared introduction.

Don’t be afraid to tell an MC or show host exactly how you want to be introduced. There are times when I’m the MC and an act insists that I use something that I know is wrong. Like when they hand me four paragraphs to read. I’ll ask if I can shorten it, but if they insist, I read what they gave me.

-Louie

Magic Show Prop Box

For my show this summer that I’ll be doing at libraries and summer camps, I wanted to dedicated prop box for it. I found this old RC Cola box at a junk shop. The guy wanted way too much for it, but I talked him down to where it made sense as I didn’t want it as an advertising collectible, I just wanted it as a box.

Once I got the box home I covered it with black fabric, added metal corners and changed the hinges. Here’s what it looks like now:

This was a quick, easy way to make a prop box for the summer magic show. It doesn’t need to last for years, just 3 months!

-Louie

iQ Pro app

A performer that I was working with was showing me the iQ pro app that he uses to run the production for his show. It does it all, music, video and it doesn’t need to use any internet to function. All of that lives on your phone, so a laptop isn’t needed. I played with his and then immediately downloaded it!

I’m still learning to use it, but it’s simple to use (so far) and will do what I need it to do. It runs off of a Flic Button, and that’s the only thing that worries me. My friend assures me that he’s never had a problem with the Bluetooth and he works a lot!

It’s now cheap at $14.99 a month or a lifetime subscription for $595. I’m on monthly for now, and if it ends up working how I hope it will, I’ll probably buy the lifetime subscription.

-Louie