October 2022 – Page 3 – MagicShow.Tips

What’s in a Name?

Not too long ago I wrote about simply having a description of your show on a schedule being more effective at putting butts in seats than your name. Here’s the daily sign on the stage that I’m performing at for a 12 day contract:

My show’s name is the only one that has any description of what it is. It’s the only one where if someone sees the sign, they are going to go out of their way to see (if they want to see a magic show). The other two acts with no description probably won’t make it on people’s mental schedules.

Sure having just your name is great for your ego, but it doesn’t help with crowds. I’d rather have “magic show” than “Louie Foxx”.

The name that I gave my show is, “Louie Foxx’s One Man Side Show“, however usually either Louie Foxx or One Man Side Show made it on the sign. It was my agent’s idea to call the show The Magic of Louie Foxx for the fair/festival industry. It’s really made a difference in my starting crowds!

-Louie

Trying Color Matching…

I figure I should try the Murphy’s Magic Color Match sets in a show…since I own them. I don’t like the markers that the set comes with, so I had to pull out the gimmicks and put them into a new set of pens.

On a side note, on the Murphy’s Magic Color Match Video, they mention removing the gimmicks, but then don’t talk about it…at least not that I watched. I will say I didn’t watch the whole video, the routines don’t interest me right now, so it could be buried in those instructions. It’s not listed (that I saw) on the table of contents.

I’ll give them a try later today and we’ll see how it turns out…

-Louie

Color Match!

Currently I’m on the first half of a twelve day contract in Fresno, CA. I used to do Promystic’s Color Match in my show a while ago and I’m recently cycling it back into the show. At the beginning of the run I had one of the pens start to do strange things, so I ordered a replacement part for it…but that doesn’t help me for the rest of my current contract.

Luckily, Hocus Pocus is only 5 minutes from where I’m performing, so a quick trip there and I picked up one of Murphy’s Magic’s Anverdi Color Match sets.

I honestly don’t think that the Color Match that Muprhy’s Magic sells is Anverdi’s…especially when at the beginning of the video they show how it’s different. It’s Murphy’s way of justifying something that may be an ethical dilemma.

I do like how the Murphy’s Magic set has an auto cycle off for the signals. That’s handy in 91% of instances, however in that remaining 9% it makes it harder on you as the performer. Yes, they do have a work around, but it’s not really practical for me. Method wise, I guess it’s solid, I’ve only practiced it, because somehow my Promystic gimmick that was acting funky, magically started work fine once I bought the Murphy’s Magic set.

While a few bucks more, I still prefer the Promystic Color Match set, I think it more solidly built. I also like that I can easily have two thumpers operate at the same time, where I don’t recall them mentioning that using two was possible with the Murphy’s Magic set.

I think I’m going to keep using my Promystic set as long as I can, as I prefer how it works. It could just be me being old and stuck in my ways…

-Louie

Presti Cup

A couple of weeks ago I picked up Presti Cup by Edouard Boulanger. Here’s the trailer for it:

What I like about it is a lot of the action happens off the table. He method is interesting and the wand could be replaced by something like an Enigma Gimmick. I do think that the wand makes the moves more deceptive, however I don’t use a want in any show other than my children’s show. So if this is something I end up doing, I’ll need to figure out how to justify the wand, or how to eliminate it.

I think with an Enigma Gimmick this routine would end up similar to Axel Hecklau’s Just a Cup, which is a great routine. I do like that the ball is physically larger than a die.

We’ll see what I can come up with…

-Louie

Gimmicked Handcuffs…

A long time ago I was playing with the Anthony Linden’s Suit Jacket Escape routine. This is an “in and out” type of escape routine, and it uses the shackles that have the giant oval ring between the chains that lock your wrist. Anthony’s routine is great, however I visually don’t like the look of the shackles with the big oval in it.

What I did to get away from the shackles is I bought a set of “jump cuffs” from Cannon’s Great Escapes. Jump Cuffs are handcuffs that can be (minimally) examined and you can instantly open them. I was going to use them for the “in and out” part of the routine, but I couldn’t get over the noise of the arm ratcheting. Also it took a long time to take them off and put them on.

The solution to the time and noise was remembering the method used in Harry Anderson’s Cufflinks routine from his book Wise Guy and it was also a commercially available product. Part of the Cuff Links routine is a thumb tie style bit with handcuffs instead of your thumbs being bound.

What I did was take my Jump Cuffs and gimmick them like the gimmicked cuffs for Cuff Links. This gave me a really cool gimmicked set of handcuffs, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else use. Unfortunately the routine didn’t play for me and I eventually sold the uniquely gimmicked handcuffs about 10 years ago.

Now I have an idea for a routine that would used the Jump Cuffs with Cuff Links gimmick. I just bought a new pair of Jump Cuffs from Daytona Magic and am going to add the Cuff Links gimmick to them. We’ll see if my new idea for a routine works…

-Louie

Magic Show Openers…

Last week I saw a lot of concerts and one thing that I noticed is all of the performers got right into what they do. No lengthy intros, just BAM right into it!

Sadly soo many magicians don’t do get into it right away. Their opening lines are way too long and don’t do anything. If there’s a laugh, or character building, that’s great and acceptable. Unfortunately magicians like to talk for 3 mins about quantum whatever that they really have no knowledge about before they get to the trick. When you walk onstage you need to give the audience something. Your opening lines aren’t a good spot for giving the audience a fake science talk. It doesn’t establish you at all, sure it may justify the trick, but there’s time for that…and that’s deeper in the show, not your opener.

I don’t believe you need to open with a “flash opener”, but something a little bit quicker than a 20 minute bill in lemon routine. A good option that’s not a flash trick is opening with some stand up comedy about yourself or the venue gives the audience something (a laugh).

Save the TED talk for deeper in your show.

-Louie

Kraft’s Famous Magic Kit!

Sometimes it feels like I’m perpetually cleaning out my office. This time I found a super rare Kraft’s Famous Magic Kit. This is a punch out magic kit that was created by Harlan Tarbell!

From what I’ve heard (mostly from Richard Kaufman) is that there are two versions of this punch out kit. The 1936 version for Morton’s Salt which has Tarbell’s name on the cover and the version that I have from 1938 for Kraft which doesn’t have Tarbell’s name anywhere on it.

I suspect that the Kraft version is a bit more rare than the Morton version as I’ve found many instances of that one being sold, but I can’t find a single mention of the Kraft version. I’m guessing since it lacked Tarbell’s name, less people saved them.

If this is something you’re interested in, I just added it to my Used Magic For Sale page!

Another Dollar Bill Magic Trick

When I was up in Quebec City for FISM, I was chatting with Chris Hanowell about names for a trick. We thought “Regicide” would be a great title for a magic trick, and Chris is working on it. A few weeks later I had an idea for a trick called “American Regicide” and finally got around to making a test version:

I have a better idea for how to make the gimmick that animates it that will eliminate hand movement. It’s something that I need to 3d print, so it’ll have to wait until I’m home for longer than a day or two for me to design, print, tweak and reprint.

-Louie

Virtual Show Prop Shelf

The dismantling of my Virtual Magic Show is continuing. Today I took apart the spinning shelf that held all of my props for the show.

As the show progressed, I simply rotated the shelf counter clockwise to get to the next set of props. From an efficiency standpoint, it was great! It was also nice to glace at the holders, and if there was an empty one, then a prop wasn’t set for the show or was missing!

I’m getting rid of the board, and keeping all the holders. If I need to recreate this, it won’t be hard to do.

-Louie

Own Your Magic!

About a month or so I picked up the book Own Your Magic A Magicians Guide to Protecting Your Intellectual Property by Sara Crasson. It was recommended by Christopher Weed, who is a super smart guy!

If you’ve read this blog, you’ll know that I’ve learned a lot about protecting the magic that I sell and that I’ve been very successful in keeping knock offs of my magic products off of sites like ebay and aliexpress.

I think this is something that all magicians should read, it not only covers the different types of intellectual property (IP), but how it applies specifically to magicians. Hopefully it will inform idiot magicians who don’t know about IP from commenting in social media groups with factually inaccurate information about IP.

My favorite is when a magician says a trick is protected as a “trade secret”. Sure it can be, but if I’m not a party to the trade secret agreement and can figure it out, I’m (legally) free to use it. Trade secrets only apply to those who have signed the agreement.

If you’re a creator, I hope if gives you a base for where to start to protect an idea for a trick and the different processes for doing it. For example, I personally don’t want to patent a trick due to time and expense. I choose to copyright the art and instructions. That allows me to remove knock offs from popular sites because they are using my text and art. Most of the people knocking off don’t want to spend the time it takes to write ad copy and create art, so it narrows down the amount of knock offs out there.

If someone uses my idea and creates their own art, text and ad copy they are legally free to do make my product. Sure, I’d rather they don’t, but I’ve accepted that’s how it is based on what I was willing to do to protect my products.

I’m always amazed at how many magicians have taken the basic step of registering the text and art of their instructions and ad copy. It’s less than $100 and easy to do online.

Get the book Own Your Magic A Magicians Guide to Protecting Your Intellectual Property, read it and at least be informed!

-Louie