Showcases to book your show

Last week I went to a booking conference to work on filling up my summer schedule. One of the things that that happens besides a trade show where different acts have booths are showcases. The showcase is one of the best ways to schedule work as you can actually show potential bookers what you actually do!

This one had some awesome acts!

Depending on the rules where you’re showcasing, your showcase set can be between 10-20 minutes, with most being about 15 minutes.

My showcase at this conference was with my crank organ.

vintage street crank organ

Honestly, I was super nervous. The organ is newer to me and I don’t know it inside and out like I do my show. With my magic show almost everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong. That means I know how to deal with problems if they occur in my magic show. With the organ I’m positive that there’s a lot that can go wrong that I haven’t encountered. And of course problems tend to appear when there’s a lot riding on that show. Luckily nothing went wrong and I had a good showcase set!

I personally think that going to showcases is one of the best ways to book work. You can book a lot of work in a short amount of time. Most industries have some sort of showcase.

-Louie

The Handbook for School Assembly Performers by John Abrams

A couple of months ago John Abrams sent me a review copy of his new book The Handbook For School Assembly Performers and it’s fantastic!

The Handbook for School Assembly Performers by John Abrams

I think this is a fantastic book, and as someone who has a done a ton of school assemblies, I learned a lot from the book!

Here’s the blurb I wrote for the book:

Holy cow, I wish I had this book when I started doing school assemblies a couple of decades ago! It would have knocked off about 3+ years from the learning curve.

The book reveals one of the biggest mysteries of school assemblies, “What is a teachers guide and how to I create one”. Then John also covers the nuts and bolts of actually doing the gig from when you wake up to the marketing calendar after the gig is completed.

One huge thing for me, which I’ve never read about is how to deal with “burn out” when you’ve done a ton of shows, and he give you some great strategies to keep it fresh! If you’ve ever thought of going into the school assembly market, this book will take you from 0-60 in no time!

If you are interested in performing in schools, or doing some sort of educational or themed program for kids, this book is a will help you a ton! Even if you’ve already done hundreds of school shows, this book will have a few things or approaches you didn’t think of or don’t do.

I highly recommend The Handbook For School Assembly Performers!

-Louie

Shutting Down a Distraction…

Over the summer I did something in a show I regretted. I was performing at a fair and there was a kid that kept coming to the show and was being a distraction. I can handle the 4H kids that come to the show everyday, but this kid would walk up to the front of the stage and block the audience and say things to me. Not things that were remotely relevant, but like, “use my pen” as he tried to hand me one of the novelty shocking pens that a booth at the fair was selling.

After numerous times telling him to “No” and to step away from the stage, it was being a huge distraction for the audiences over multiple shows. One show I took the clock that I use for a trick out of my case as asked him if he could read a clock like this. He said “yes”, and I asked him what time it showed. He told me and I said, “No, it’s time to sit down and shut up”! It got a huge laugh, and worked, the kid sat down and didn’t talk the rest of the show.

The laugh told me that the audience was on my side, but I didn’t feel good about it. The laugh didn’t move the show forward, sure it eliminated a speed bump. On stage that’s not my character, sure I’m edgy and snarky, but not mean. I honestly felt bad about it. However the kid showed up to my shows the rest of the week and sat through them quietly and enjoyed them.

I’m sure there would be a better way to get the kid to behave and in the moment I had to make a choice. I’m not sure what I would do in the future. If I waited till after the show and talked to the kid, the whole audience suffers for that show. The kid was making the show unwatchable.

Maybe that was the only solution? I don’t know. I still feel bad.

-Louie

Visiting a Fair in Arkansas

While I was on the road in Oklahoma last week, I flew in a day early to drive a couple hours to visit a fair that some friends were performing at.

To my surprise, there was also a magic show at the fair.

pat davidson and tess

I don’t know Pat and Tess, but watched the show. It was interesting, it was a 20 minute show and about 6 minutes of that was a merch pitch. I don’t know how I feel about that. Sometimes what is seen as the audience lacks knowledge of whatever financial deal is happening behind the scene and the pitch being 1/4 of the is the deal that was made with the booker.

The show was a quick change act, then the multiplying bottles, the product pitch (activity book and Squirmel) and then juggling. In the show I saw Pat had a lot of drops. At the end of the show, I was going to go up and say hi and introduce myself, however he was onstage re-running the juggling stuff to work out why he was dropped. That’s the mark of a pro! He didn’t just accept the drops, the tried to fix them. That really impressed me!

-Louie

Simple but Ugly

In using projection at my shows over the summer I learned that some projectors or TV’s will “time out” and turn off if they don’t think they’re getting a signal. The camera I use has a black out option that I used to use, until I learned that the black out can be interpreted as no signal and the TV or projector will go into sleep mode.

To solve this problem, I 3d printed a simple camera cover for my iphone and glued it on.

This is a very simple, low tech way to solve the problem. The camera is still sending a picture to the screen, so it won’t got into sleep mode.

For these shows I didn’t want to run the camera through my laptop and use my Media Star to control it. That’s way too much set up and gear for a library show.

-Louie

Supporting Live Magic

I’m amazed at how many magicians don’t go out and support live magic shows when they’re in their area. Personally, I try to go out and support as many people out there doing their craft.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bunch of magicians come out to visit me at the fair that I was performing at. I was bad at taking pictures, so I only have a pics of a few of the people that swung by.

If you have a magician passing through your area, buy a ticket and go out and see them or shoot them a note and offer to hang out with them!

-Louie

Vintage Magic Trick: Nick Trost’s Geo-Metrick

Nick Trost’s Geo-Metrick interesting trick, it’s essentially a packet version of Paul Curry’s Out of This World, using ESP cards. The packet is only 20 cards, ten are of one ESP symbol and the other 10 are of another ESP symbol. You and the spectator each get five of each symbol, they are mixed and you deal out ten of them face down in a row. The spectator then deals their ten cards face up on top each of your face down cards. When you flip over the pairs of cards they all match!

Here’s what it looks like:

@louiefoxx The Bacon and Square Magic Trick! #magictrick #bacon #square #cardtrick #magic #mindreading #mentalism #outofthisworld #louiefoxx #nicktrost ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

For me, this trick isn’t strong enough to justify carrying around a packet of 20 cards just for that trick. However this method would work with just red and black playing cards, so that would make it something you could do with any deck of cards. It’s a good thing to have in my head for an impromptu situation, but I’ll never do it with the ESP cards. I should say that if I came up with a great way to theme the trick for a gig, it’s something I would do.

For example, if I was performing at a pet adoption event, instead of wavy lines and as square, I used pictures of families and pets. Each family was matched to a pet! That makes sense and it’d be an easy way to add a custom trick for the event.

-Louie

A Bad Laugh in the Show

Sleightly Absurd

One of the things that Charlie Frye mentions in his book Sleightly Absurd is that you should have no descriptive patter. Since reading it I’ve been looking for places to replace or remove patter that is simply descriptive.

There are reasons to leave in descriptive patter, like if you’re doing cards across and the audience has to know there are 10 cards in each packet.

In my kids show I do a blendo with three silks. In an attempt to remove descriptive patter, I changed to calling them tissues. I give them one at a time to the kid and say, “The yellow tissue if for you to blow you nose. The red tissue I used to blow my nose. The green tissue my dog used to blow her nose.”

All of those get a laugh from the kids, so that’s three reactions I didn’t have before when I simply told the kid to hold the “red, yellow and green handkerchiefs.“. HOWEVER the new laughs weren’t good laughs. I noticed what while the kids laugh, the adults pulled back and for them it was almost a cringy moment. I tried it at several shows and each time I got the same reaction from the adults. That led me to removing the line.

This is a good example of why you should remove a line that gets a reaction from the audience, but isn’t necessarily a line that moves your show forward.

-Louie

Billy Kidd’s Show

Last month I got to work with Billy Kidd for a week.

Billy Kidd

Billy does a great show, and has a strong stage presence and persona. Off stage she is super cool as well!

If you get a chance to check out Billy’s show, I highly recommend it! You can learn a lot about performing from it. Like how she talks to the audience, not at the audience, which is a skill a lot of people need to be aware of!

-Louie

Ginóskó by David Kuraya – Partial Review

Way back in early June when I was performing in San Francisco I visited Misdirections Magic Shop. Joe mentioned the book Ginóskó to me and said it was really good. I picked it up and finally started going through the book.

Ginóskó

I’m only on the third trick in the book and so far I like all three!

The first trick is called Check Yo’ Self and is a production of a deck of card, which I think is fun, but I don’t really have the pocket space for it.

Blackjack For Brother John is the second trick is a packet trick that I’m having fun learning, but it’s not the style. I love learning packet tricks, but I don’t do them. The trick uses four cards, has a fun little blackjack theme and is pretty easy to do. If you’re into packet tricks, you’ll like this one.

The third trick is High Five and a Handshake is one that I really like and while it probably won’t make it into my main close up set, it’s something that I’ve been doing since I read it and it fits my style and gets great reactions! The effect is really simple, the two jokers are put in the middle of the deck and they jump to the top and bottom. It’s got a clear cut effect and David’s routine for it is fun!

Based on the first three tricks in the book, I would highly recommend this book! And at $25, if the rest of the book is junk, it’s still worth it!

-Louie