The book To Lure With Spectacle by Jimmy Talksalot is fantastic! One of the pieces of advice that I fought for a long time was to make a simple sign that says, “Magic Show”. I finally did it a month or so ago.
It’s crazy the difference that little sign has made. It helps build a crowd before I’ve started. Sometimes the simplest things make a big difference! Also go out and buy his book.
-Louie
There’s a common street performer “trick” to unite the audience and it’s call and response. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s typically used when the performer says something like, “Would you like to see another trick…say YES!” then the audience responds by saying YES.
This an effective technique uniting the audience, they’re doing something together and it helps them start to become an audience and not just a bunch of individuals. This is especially important for an outdoor show where you may have a transient audience. Another thing it does is forces the audience to invest energy into the show. The more they are invested in the show, the more they will stay and watch the show…and like it!
I like the technique, but I personally don’t like how most people do it, they’re doing it simply because it’s effective. There’s no real purpose besides filling a hole in the show because you don’t have a segue to the next routine.
When I use it in my show, I give it a bit of meaning. In my Drawing in Ball of Yarn routine, I do it to have the audience vote on whether I should buy the person’s drawing. It accomplishes the same thing and just telling the audience to say “yes”, in fact it actually moves the show forward!
With a little bit of thought, you can find ways to use this technique to move the show forward, instead of a hack bit.
-Louie
Last week at the fair I was performing at, I decided to to carry my vanishing birdcage on my walk from the dressing room to the stage I was on. Whenever anyone asked me about it, I made it disappear!
@louiefoxx Taking my bird out for a walk between shows at the San Mateo County Fair! #sanmateocountyfair #countyfair #sanmateo @SanMateoCountyFair #magic #magician #birdtrick #louiefoxx #magictrick #parakeet ♬ Stolen Dance (Instrumental)
It was a fun thing to go to give fair goers a special moment…and something that made my daily commute to the stage a little more fun!
-Louie
I frequently have people ask me about why I like Leo Smetser’s Three Shell Game set. I like it because it’s the shells are heavy, and I prefer the bowl shape. Another thing is that it all fits together into a nice container that fits neatly in my pocket.
I just started doing a phase that’s unique to this shell set. This set has rubber O rings on the top of them, and I use those for a phase:
With Leo’s set, you can do soo much more than with just a regular set. I really dig this set, sure it’s probably not everyone’s flavor, but I’m a fan!
-Louie
When you are out performing, I always try to keep an eye out for photo ops. Moments where I can take a picture and it will make good social media content. Once you do this a while you start to have some ones you do often. Things like a dog watching my flea circus or law enforcement playing the three shell game!
Once you have a few “hits” you know what to look for, but don’t get soo blinded by the hits that you aren’t on the look out for new things!
For example the new thing I’m doing where I peel the picture off of the card and stick it onto a kid. This is a great photo op!
-Louie
A couple of weeks ago, I was loading my street show into the dressing/storage/green room at a fair and had all my gear laid out before packing it into it’s cart.
That’s my street show. There’s not much to it. I have a shoebox with close up magic, but 90% of the time I don’t do any of that aside from the card trick that’s my initial crowd build. I’m not sure why I travel with the close up magic anymore, I think it’s my mental security blanket in case I can’t stop more than two people.
-Louie
I think I was scrolling through facebook and I came across this video on the props that another magician uses for strolling at a fair:
There’s a lot of stuff in this that I disagree with, but the first thing is what he says he wears. He says his costume (whatever you wear while performing is a costume) is a t shirt and cargo shorts. I’m someone who is pretty dressed down compared to most magicians, but I don’t think I would perform in a Tshirt and shorts.
The other thing that I don’t agree with is how much material the he’s taking. I should say that I don’t agree with it “for me”. You really don’t need that many props, you’re doing roving, not a formal 22 minute magic castle close up set.
Here’s the props for my roving set:
That’s a 20 minute set if I wanted to do it as a long chunk, however I normally wouldn’t do it that way. Normally I’d do it as a 5-10 minute set. There’s a lot of variety in what you see there. Obviously there’s a lot that I can do with the deck of cards, then there’s the linking pins and finally the wallet. The wallet is a card to wallet, but inside it I have my Splitting Image trick, and a bunch of business cards that I can do mentalism with.
That’s the core set, then if I’m working on something new, I will add that to my those props. The whole works will fit into my two front pockets. Just because you have a ton of pocket space, it doesn’t mean you need to fill them with tricks!
-Louie
When I was performing in King City, CA a few weeks ago my buddy Skip Banks let me read his copy of To Lure With Spectacle by Jimmy Talksalot. I mentioned to Skip that there was a couple of things about my street show that I didn’t like and he brought in the book for me to read the next day.
I was a great read and it really helped me solve some of the problems I was having with my street show. I like it so much I bought one for myself!
The current edition looks different from the previous one, it’s got a lot less frills, but the same great information. If you’re interested in doing street shows, I highly recommend it!
-Louie
I don’t really do escapes in my show, except for my Straight Suit routine. Years ago I did a 100 foot chain escape, and I recently did it again at a street show at a fair.
This routine really builds a huge crowd. The nice thing about it is that it’s easy to understand what’s happening if you just walk up. You see someone being wrapped up in a lot of chain, you know they are going to get out.
My routine starts with a wrist restraint and ends with me getting out of it that restraint. The reason for that is I have a lot more control of how long the routine lasts and what the ending looks like than with just the chain. Also the starting position with my wrists secured and held out in front of my body allows me to more naturally hold the chain up, if gravity starts to loosen it too quickly before the escape starts.
It’s been probably 5 years since I’ve done the chain escape and I think I may be done with it. I might have aged out out it…or more realistically I’m too fat to do it. I can still escape from the chain, but it’s not believable when someone over weight does physical escapes. If I drop about 20 pounds, I think it would work better in the show and I’d reconsider doing it.
-Louie
When I was a kid starting out, I used to take a bus into downtown and street perform. I still ocassionally street perform, but not usually in the normal context of plunking a table down on a street corner. When I perform at fairs, sometimes I will do a “found space” show. These shows happen on the fairgrounds and are pretty much street shows. The main difference is that the show doesn’t end with a hat pitch. I don’t ask for money.
Yesterday I performed at a busker festival, and I was one of the paid acts, so I didn’t have to ask for money. I did after my first show, but the second show I couldn’t because there was a presentation after me and they wanted me to hold the crowd and introduce the guy that was going to talk.
From the one show I did where I did a hat pitch, I remembered how important it is to actually have a hat pitch. My non existent hat pitch didn’t really work. There are essentially two elements to a good hat pitch. First is the plea, you tell them why they should tip you. Usually these start with, “This is my job…” and then tell about how tips are your income. You then do your final big trick and go into the call to action, where you tell people to put money in your hat. There are a million stock lines for this, like “Remember Tipping isn’t just a city in China…” Things like that. It’s the running lines of patter during the hat that fill the awkward, empty silence and while people are digging out their wallets.
In my opinion, having a strong hat pitch and a good show will make you more money street performing than having a good hat pitch and a strong show. If you’re thinking about street performing, be sure to work on the hat pitch!
