street performing – Page 2

Hula Hoop Act…

Over the weekend I performed at a busker’s festival, and shared the stage (aka bank parking lot) with Hillia Hula. She does a hula hoop show.

Hillia has great costuming and is very likable onstage. Being likeable is 90% of the game. Personally, in my show I’m a slow burn, you really don’t like me until about 10 minutes into the show.

As for the tricks, they are pretty standard hoop tricks, and she does them well. There was nothing in the show that I hadn’t seen before. If she had a couple of original routines, I think she’d really blow up.

In hooping, I don’t think there’s a lot of innovation in new tricks that I’ve seen. Pretty much every does a very similar show. Dizzy Hips is the only act I’ve seen that has a couple of original (as far as I know) hula hoop tricks. I will say my knowledge of hula hoop tricks is very limited, so Hillia may be doing some original stuff that to my untrained eye looks like something I’ve seen before.

If you get a chance to see Hillia’s show, check it out, it’s a solid street show. You can learn a lot by watching it.

Street Performing 101…

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!

Abbott’s Day 2

Yesterday was the first official day of the Abbott’s Magic Get Together. I spent a good chunk of the morning in the dealers room showing people the products that I brought with me. Then I walked (15 mins) into downtown to see the street performer:

People liked him, however he was a little bit too standard for my tastes. All standard tricks, done in the standard way, with standard patter.

Later in the day was Nick Diffate’s lecture.

It was good, he shared some good stuff.

The stage show that night was fun, and it was good to see Stuart Mcdonald’s act.

There are a few choices that performers make that make me scratch my head. The first is when you’re dong a magic convention and in the evening show, why would you do a standard trick in the standard way? I honestly believe that professor’s nightmare has no place in a show at a magic convention.

The other was they had a speed painter who added a mentalism bit to his speed painting. The effect was he was going to paint the person that someone was thinking of. He used an Amazebox to force it, and from the audience I could tell something didn’t look right. The speed painter got to the end and when he asked the person to reveal the person they were thinking of, it wasn’t who he painted. It took all of the air out of the trick. If you have a skill that’s very interesting, don’t try to add a magic trick to it…especially if you’re not a good magician.

So far, the first day has been a blast!

Subway Stradivarious or Bucket Drummer

A few years ago the Washington Post did an “experiment” where they had a concert violinist play a Stradivarius for people in the subway (You can read the article here). This recently popped up again on my Facebook feed and and I have some thoughts on it. Here’s the video: You can be the best … Continue reading “Subway Stradivarious or Bucket Drummer”

Here’s the video:

You can be the best musician, play the best instrument, but that doesn’t mean you are the right person for the job. Street performing is a skill, just like playing in a theater is a skill, and those skills don’t necessarily translate. I bet the guys paying drums on a $2 bucket were making a lot more than him.

So why didn’t the violinist build a crowd?

Years ago I was told by Tom Frank that before picking a spot to busk, you look the people’s feet. Are the fast or slow? The violinist picked a commuter spot. Not a good choice and any experienced busker probably wouldn’t line up for that pitch.

Look at the location, you really can’t build a crowd without completely blocking the foot traffic. It’s essentially between two doors. If someone wanted to stop and watch, it wouldn’t be comfortable. They’d have people walking in front of them, or into them.

They also picked doing it at “rush hour”…guess why they call it rush hour? People are in a rush! You’ll do better before or after rush hour when people have more time.

Based on a Q & A I read from the author of the article, that place normally doesn’t allow street performers, so they had to get special permission for it. So the place didn’t have a street performing culture, which is another big factor.

Look at the successful street performers, where do they go? Do they go where business commuters go, or do they go where tourists go? Spoiler alert, they go where tourists or people not on business are. Those people have more time. I’m very curious how well the violinist would have done if you put him in a place with a street performing culture?

Even if you gave him a good time at a good spot, he wouldn’t have done as well as the guy playing the bucket on his first time out. He’s playing “ambient music” versus “interactive music”. Ambient music people walk by, stop for a bit, toss a buck in the violin case and go about their day. Interactive music would be he says hi people, has little “bits”, sees a guy wearing a band shirt, calls attention to it and plays the hook from one of that bands songs. It’s a different style of performing, you can’t do you “theater act” as is on the street and expect the same results.

I guess the takeaway from this is that if you are moving venues as a performer, you should expect a learning curve!

Louie