Bday Breakdown…

Well, I did the outdoor, masked, socially distant, no contact birthday party magic show for four year old kids. It was 40 degrees out and I was worried how my hands would hold up. Luckily it was sunny, and performing in full sun finally felt great!

Ok, to the show, it took about 6 mins to get them warmed up. It’s not surprising for a group that young that’s spread out and since they were masked and outdoors, the couldn’t get feedback from each other that other kids were laughing. Once we were going I was getting back into my groove of playing within my show. At one point a jogger briefly stopped to watch the show, and another a kid fell off their chair from laughing (and sitting on a hill). I got to do some playing with those moments.

It felt great to be back at it.

One thing that I notice was my mic that was inside my mask didn’t have a windscreen. You could hear me breathing over the speaker. In the future, I think that needs a windscreen. I’m not sure it will 100% stop the audience from hearing me breathe, but it should reduce that.

Also in the future I probably won’t do a show for kids that young until I can do it not masked. Without seeing my face, a lot is lost for a group that young. Older kids would be easier to do masked.

Now to work on my adult show, I have an in person socially distant, no contact, comedy gig on Sunday.

Pre-Adapting…

Lately I’ve been thinking about what live, in person magic shows will look like in 2021. I’m fairly optimistic that in person shows will happen, however they will look different. I think the majority of them will be no contact magic shows. That means you can’t have people from the audience come up on stage to help with the show.

I’m trying to plan for that now, and not have to adapt a week before a show. One thing I’m doing today is making a display holder for the front of my case. This is simply a tray that I can set flat props into so that they are upright and visible to the audience.

Here’s what the frontside looks like:

It’s currently being 3d printed in black. It is about 4.5 inches wide and 3 inches tall.

There’s a cut out in the back that I’m going to glue a magnet into. There’s already a magnet inside my case that I can stick this to. This is a simple solution as I don’t use a table to hold props I’m actively using.

Planning for the reality of what’s coming is probably better than hoping everything will be back to where it was a year ago. Even if all restrictions are lifted, the bonus is that I’m developing some new material!