Louie – Page 256 – MagicShow.Tips

Standing Ovations and You…

My favorite part of the Southern Side Show Hootenanny was how different acts punctuated what they did. It’s the showmanship aspect of it that I find interesting, and one of the things that makes all of the acts unique. That’s also something (one of the many things) that separates the amateurs from the pros. One … Continue reading “Standing Ovations and You…”

One great act was the Tinderbox Side Show. They had three performers and they did a high energy act that ended with a knife triumphantly stabbed into a table. The could have stopped there, and it would have been a great ending, however, Trashique, put one hell of a punctuation on it. She paused, picked up the table and smashed it on the ground! It made the audience jump to its feet and got them a standing ovation!

It’s the little things like smashing a table, or holding an applause pose for just a second longer that makes a huge difference. People love it when you triumph, that’s why escapes are such a popular ending. I’m a big fan of things like mic drops, balloons popping, confetti, etc. Go see a circus show whether a tent show or a more modern circus show and see how they end their shows. Then apply what you’ve just seen to your show.

Emceeing a show

This weekend at the sideshow festival, they have a pre-show and then the show. The people from the preshow stay for the main show. The MC did the same two bits for the two shows. I was kinda anoyed at that. To me that’s a lack of respect for your audience. Bring enough material to fill the time.

Being the MC on a show is hard to do, especially a variety show. You’ve got to keep it moving and you’ve got to fill time. A good MC will talk to acts before the show to get an idea of their set up and take down. Based on that you’ll know what bits fill what spaces best.

An good MC is one of those things that you aren’t aware of, but when you see a bad one it’s obvious. The key to MCing is talking to the acts, and watching them. That way if anything happens, you can reference it in between…or are prepared for a mess, props moving behind you and with time to fill.

Production Value

One of the things that has blown me away is the production value of the acts at the Southern Sideshow Hootenanny. While some acts (like me) go out and talk and do our thing, the younger acts play much bigger. This is due soley to music.

All of the younger people’s acts has music components, and most were timed to the music. The act was to the music like a dance routine, instead of just hitting a couple of beats. This makes the whole thing look more like a show, than someone just doing a trick or a stunt.

Once you add another production element or two, like lighting, or a set piece and these have become theater shows, not bar shows. How can you add production value to your show to make it a show?

Modern Classics…

I’m currently performing at the Southern Side Show Hootenanny in New Orleans. I’ve seen some amazing acts so far. One of the acts that I had heard a lot about are the Monster’s of Schlock, which is a two person sideshow. They do all the classic acts in a modern way.

Sideshow tends to attract acts that are more “dark” than comical. These two guys did a great job of have a story arc through the show, and get a ton of laughs in the process. I think that performers need to look at something old as the hills and figure out how to breathe fresh air into.

Sideshow is a great example, as most acts are based on classics and there are probably less than two dozen of those acts. So how do they make acts stand out. A lot of times it’s a fresh look on the props, by either themeing them or making them more modern.

As a magician, you have no excuse for doing a store bought die box when these side show people are finding innovative ways to pound a nail up their noses

Connection!

One thing on stage that’s important is connecting with the audience. It’s 90% of the game, if you do that, you really have to try to make an audience dislike you. However there are some acts that don’t have anything to really connect with, and that makes the audience have to work to like you. … Continue reading “Connection!”

Recently I worked with an act that was a silent act to music and a short act. The act focused on a particular skill. Unforunately the skill was just OK. Without getting into who it was, the act is visually interesting, however the repeated thing over and over. There were really only two moves before the act got repetitive and boring.

What this act needed to do was look for some sort of personality within the act…oh, and it was a costumed act, but they didn’t really go into the character the costume was. Let’s say you are wearing a dracula costume, you need to act like dracula, not just wear the costume. People form long term relationships personalities, not costumes.

Magically Sound Magic

One of the things about doing magic tricks is that you can do some amazing things and you can do them fairly easily, but that doesn’t make it good magic. What’s got me thinking about this, is that with the internet, magic is very accessible to people that perform other variety acts, and it’s easy to add magic to their show and get a good reaction.

Being able to do a trick, and present it is only part of the game if you want to be a magician. It’s OK to do a magic trick in your show, but once you basically start doing a magic show, it’s time to actually learn how to do magic.

I recently saw a card trick where the performer did the trick in the easiest manner. Fine, but watching I could think of 3 better ways to do it. Three better ways that were more deceptive and none of them that much harder than what he was already doing. He wasn’t in a magic show, he was doing a magic trick within a larger show, so he get’s a pass.

TLDR: if you’re going to call yourself a magician, you need to learn to do magic.

Be Unusual…

One of the types of shows I really like performing in are variety shows. Where I’m an act working with a lot of other acts of all different skills. I’m very fortunate that in Seattle we have the Moisture Festival. This is a variety arts festival that runs for about a month and brings in … Continue reading “Be Unusual…”

Frequently I’m asked by performers to “get them into the festival” as an act. I tell them they have to get themselves into the festival, I can’t do it for them. What I mean by that is that they need to go out and put the work in on their act.

Any producer of a variety show doesn’t want to deal with duplicate material. If you do standard stuff in the standard way, it’s hard for a producer to put you in an show with another act of the same skill.

Once you start having something unique, or at least unusual now it’s much easier to get into better variety shows. A couple times a year I write out my set list and next to each routine I put a “C”, a “U”, or an “O”. Here’s what they mean:

C: Common – so the trick is a common trick. An example of this would be Linking Rings

U: Unusual – The trick is less common. An example of this would be a trick you found buried in a book no one remembers. Unusual tricks can become common, so this designation may change.

O: Original – The trick is an original routine. A good example of this would be my marshmallow card trick.

The long term goal with this is to have a show that is all U’s and O’s. How you get there is by knowing where the C’s are and trying to eliminate them.

Use Everything…

Most magicians have drawers full of magic that they don’t use. Stuff they’ve bought and for whatever reason ends up in a drawer never to be seen again. I used to have that, however a couple years ago I decided I was going to actually use all of my props…at least a few times.

I’ll do the tricks from the “magic junk drawer” at about a dozen times. The goal is to learn what I can from the prop before throwing it away. Occasionally I’ve been surprised and something that I thought was junk became a keeper.

I think the reason a lot of good tricks end up in drawer is because the price to prop ratio is bad. What I mean by that is if you paid $50 and they gave you a blank card your mindset is that it was a rip off. The trick’s value when performed could be much higher!

However the majority of the tricks are simply bad tricks that someone either loved enough to sell…or was greedy enough to sell a bad idea. Bottom line is that if it doesn’t work for you after you’ve done it about ten times, don’t keep it!

One of the tricks I’ve always loved is the Haunted Deck. It’s an amazing trick, the first one I ever bought as a kid was horrible, half the deck was gimmicked, and you were attached to it, so it wasn’t the most practical version of the trick. It worked, but it could be better.

This is where innovating comes through, there’s are better ways to do the Haunted Deck, and it’s a good thing we didn’t stop at the version I bought as a kid. A similar version is the one popularized by Eugene Burger, which while similar in method, allowed you to use the deck after the trick. This is a huge leap in the method.

Then you have a version using Loops, which allows you to use a borrowed deck, but can be unreliable as the gimmick is fragile. A few years ago I discovered Haunted 2.0, which fit the bill for me. 100% reliable, allowed me to use the deck before and after the trick, it’s great and the version of the trick that I do. However last week at a magic session a friend of mine showed me an impromptu version. It’s at about the 37 second mark of this video:

I think this version looks amazing and the only reason I haven’t switched to it is that in Haunted 2.0 you don’t have to touch the deck, which is one of the strong points of that version.

If we stopped innovating with “good enough” the Haunted Deck would be a trick that I wouldn’t be doing now. So go out there and make good tricks better!

Change It Up!!!

Today I’m working on a prop that I love, but is a pain to build. I build a new one every now and then as it can take a beating on the road. What I don’t like about building a new one is that for part of it I take something and alter it to do what I want it to do.

It’s a pain to take apart something that’s not designed to be taken apart. Then it hit me, why not just 3d print the part? I’m amazed at the results, I get a better functioning trick because the part is designed to do what I want it to do, not altered to do what I want it to do.

A nice side effect is that the trick looks better because I’m making the part the size I want it to be, not what it is on the shelf.

I guess what I’m saying, is every now and then you need to look at your props and instead of maintaining them how you always have, you need think about how you can make them better!