In the school assembly, I have a joke, well, more of a line that I say to a kid. Normally, I do this with a 5th or 6th grade kid; however, yesterday, it was with a kid who was probably in 2nd grade. When I told the joke, I noticed a teacher “pull back”.
What I mean by Pull Back is that they kinda physically recoiled when I said the line. I’ve never had this happen with an older kid; however, the situation was that the group I was given was kindergarten to third grade. The reaction was 100% my fault for not thinking about how the line would play and just letting it pop out of my mouth.
I’ve cut the line out of the show, simply because I don’t want to have it come out again with a younger group. I don’t want the muscle memory of the show to override my brain.
Honestly, I’m making a bigger deal out of it than it is. Being aware of stuff like this and thinking about it hopefully makes me a more overall empathetic performer.
-Louie
Category: magic show tips
A Sample of the School Assembly Show
The other night I cut up some video to make a highlight reel of what the show I’m doing looks like. Here’s a peek at the show:
You’ll notice that on my prop box I have a TV screen. I use this when they don’t have a TV/projector that I can use. Nothing shown on it is 100% necessary for the show, but it does enhance it. It’s really there for me to get more comfortable using the production software and the ankle switch remote control.
I’m having a blast doing this show!!!
-Louie
Finally Got a High School Group
It was bound to happen on this tour, yesterday I got my first K-12 school. These are really challenging because you essentially have two audiences, and the way they seat them, you really have two different sections you’re playing to. If they were mixed up, the energy from one group can carry over to the other, but now when the kindergarten to 6th grade is on the left and the 7th to 12th grade is on the right.
This is a situation where my thinking that no matter what, the trick has to be good is important. If you do a trick where the routine is a lot of fun, but the actual trick is just “meh”, the routine will ultimately fall flat. If the magic effect is strong, the routine will ultimately play better.
One thing that I do when I have shows like this where they are giving me groups that are over the age that the show was written for is that I give a little talk to the older kids. What I do is that I say, “This show was written for kindergarten to 6th grade. Stick with me, there will be some stuff you’ll like.” This addresses the elephant in the room. I also include the older kids in the tricks, which gets them invested early.
Hopefully, I won’t have many more groups like this.
-Louie
Magic Shops in Minnesota
When I was a teenager, I lived outside of Minneapolis, MN. There were two main magic shops in the area: Eagle Magic in downtown and Twin Cities Magic and Costume in Saint Paul. There was also a Magic Max, which was a chain of pitch shops and a store called The Fun Shop, which was a novelty store that had a magic counter.
When I was a teenager, I primarily went to Eagle Magic, which is run by Larry Kahlow. Larry’s shop was very old school; people smoked in the shop, and there was a ton of props everywhere. The main reason was that the shop was easy to get to by bus! Sadly, this trip, I didn’t get to visit Larry at Eagle Magic.
I had completely forgotten about Twin Cities Magic and Costume. I was running some errands with my mom who lives in Saint Paul and drove by it!
This was a different location than it was at when I was a kid, but I swung by on my way out of town.
I really didn’t know Jim and Fred when I was a kid, but it was great chatting with Jim! He’s super knowledgeable and they have a great selection of magic there! I picked up a few older magic tricks for my collection!
I’m glad I stopped by and if you’re in the Twin Cities be sure to visit Twin Cities Magic and Costume and drive down to Eagle Magic as well!
-Louie
Battery Change Day
In the school assembly show that I’m doing, I have a few things that need batteries. The two Promystic Fux units, the media star remote, and the flic button. That’s in addition to two 5V battery packs, a wireless handheld mic with receiver, and the Bose S1Pro, but those get recharged daily. My show takes a lot of energy!
At the end of every week, I have a scheduled task to change the replaceable batteries of the Fluxes, media star remote, and flic button. It’s overkill; they should last the full month long run. However, changing the weekly only costs about $5 and gives me some peace of mind that they’ll always work.
The nice thing is that they are all redundant systems. The two Flux units back up each other and if the media star’s battery fails, I have the flic button and vice versa.
-Louie
BEKOS Smiley Face FTW!!
Right now, the only trick left in the school assembly that I didn’t really create is Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (Smiley Face Version). It’s the closing trick for the show, and it hasn’t been hitting all week, and I was going to cut it.
I rewrote the routine and took it from a different direction from the previous script, and it worked really well yesterday! The routine before was stuck with the theme and a loose “goodbye,” and I rewrote it as a heartfelt message. It isn’t a BS message that’s written to get a reaction; it’s something I truly believe in.
In one of the first shows that I did, the kids were seated in bleachers, and at the end of the trick, about 25 kids spontaneously stood up and cheered! It got an unprompted standing ovation from elementary school-aged kids!
I’m a fan of BEKOS (smiley face version)!
-Louie
Cutting Another Routine!
After the third day of shows for this school assembly tour, there are some changes that I’m making to the show. All of my shows today ran long, even after cutting out the egg bag routine!
The show’s set list was originally this:
- Ice Cream Routine: Spoon manipulation and ice cream to streamers.
- Post Card Across: Postcard Travels from one kid’s hand to another kid’s hand
- Torn and Restored Postcard
- Monopoly: There are 4 red buildings and 1 green house. Five kids each take one without me seeing who has what. I find the green house and reveal a prediction with the kid’s name who has the green house.
- Floating Rock: Zombie ball, but with a rock
- Egg Bag
- Appearing Golf Club
- Snake Trick: A snake eats a hole in a piece of paper
- Knots Off Silk: This is Jeff McBride’s BEKOS Smiley Face version
I know that feels like a lot of material, but several of those things are very quick tricks. For example, the floating rock is 55 seconds.
After cutting the egg bag yesterday, I’m going cut out the floating rock and the appearing golf club for today’s shows. I’m keeping the props for those routines in my case for the next few show days, just in case they’re needed.
The goal is to keep the show at 40-45 minutes. The show today was running at over 50 minutes.
-Louie
Cutting Routines From the School Assembly
Yesterday was the second day of doing my school assembly show. I’ve done some reworking of the show. The bit I was doing with the egg bag wasn’t really hitting how I wanted it to, so I cut it out of my last show yesterday. The show felt like it had a better flow without it.
The last show of the day also ran long, even with one less routine in it. I think this was because I had a sign language interpreter at this show. Whenever I have one, I try to slow down a lot so their job is easier.
After two days of shows, I’ve streamlined a lot of what I’m doing. Prop management and packing are something you can practice at home, but you really figure it out doing shows. You realized why a particular spot isn’t the best for a particular prop, or that if you turn a prop 90 degrees, it makes picking it up much easier.
I’ve recorded most of my shows over the last two days, but haven’t really had a chance to review any video. That’ll be something that I do this weekend, and I’ll probably make some changes based on what I see!
-Louie
First Show of the School Assembly Tour
Yesterday was my first show of the school assembly tour. Most of the stuff I thought would play well did. One of the things, which is an egg bag, I felt fell flat. When watching back the video, it was just OK, not great, just OK. I’ve got to make the hard choice between cutting it and rewriting it.
The show ran a smidge long, and I skipped a routine today, so I’m not worried about time if I cut the routine. I do have an idea to fix it and give the ending a bit of a emphasis. I’ll try that at tomorrows shows.
That’s the great thing about tours like these, you do a lot of shows in a short amount of time. This gives you many chances to change things!
-Louie
Any Card At Any Number
One of the days I was performing at the Moisture Festival, there was a delay in starting the show. The producers asked me if I could fill some time to keep the people in the theater occupied. I did my Any Card At Any Number (ACAAN). Here’s the full spot because there’s a joke that’s a callback and doesn’t make sense if you don’t see the beginning before the trick starts.
For me, ACAAN is a great stage trick; it’s solo with just me onstage, but it involves the audience, and it’s a good trick!
-Louie