magic show tips – Page 110

Magic Mondays in Seattle

In the Seattle area we have a show called Magic Mondays. This is essentially a magic open mic, and a great resource for local magicians to work on material, or just have a chance to perform in front of a real audience. This show has been running for years and has a built in fan base, and the audience came back when the show returned after 2 years off during the pandemic.

Last night we got to see Jim Earnshaw perform some coin magic, then David Regal’s Will The Socks Match. I really liked the sock trick!

Next we had Frederick Turner doing a “do as I do” style card trick, with a bell as the transition prop. I really liked the used of the bell and it was great signal at the end of the trick.

In the show was a new to the Seattle area performer, David Hirata. He did some great rope magic, card magic and was a lot of fun to watch!

Finally we had Master Payne who did his fabulous coin in bottle routine. He’s going to be doing a presentation at FISM in a couple of weeks and will be doing this routine, so he was practicing it.

Last night’s show was solid show and best of all, it’s FREE to the audience!
This is a great show to catch is you’re in the Seattle area on the second Monday of the month at Third Place Books (Ravenna).
-Louie

Masters of Illusion!

It’s official, I’ll be on The CW’s Masters of Illusion on Saturday July 16th! Here’s the teaser video of what I’ll be doing:

This is the cracker card trick that I starting doing in 2019 (I think). I was performing in Arizona at a fair and didn’t take any cards with me, thinking I could buy them in the town I was performing in. Unfortunately it was a smaller town and I couldn’t find anywhere that sold cards in town and the closest city was over an hour away!

At that time I did a card stab style trick, so I tried to figure out what other object I could substitute for cards and essentially the same jokes and routine structure. I decided on Ritz Crackers and worked out a routine for it. Over the course of the week I was performing the routine started to take shape. It’s different from the original routine enough, that they could be done in back to back shows, the only prop they share is the drop cloth.

I always love it when something created out of necessity becomes something bigger than what it was a placeholder for!

-Louie

Summer Day Camp Shows…

When I was a lot younger I used to do a ton of summer day camps. By a lot, I mean 2-3 a day all summer. Now I do about a dozen or two a summer. I really enjoy doing them, however I’m trying to get 5-14 day contracts and having a single day camp show can get in the way of booking those longer contracts.

Here’s my case from one that I recently did:

While this show isn’t what I would consider what “my art” is, it still has a lot of things in it that I find interesting. One of those is my hat coil routine. It runs about 5 mins and is what currently is closing the show. There’s not much to it, it uses a hat, electric deck, two loose cards and a hat coil.

A while ago I had a use for hat coils and had bought a bunch of them, then stopped doing the routine, it just wasn’t playing how I wanted it to. So they sat for a while and I decided I wanted to get rid of them, so I started throwing a couple in my case to try to find a use for them. Over a few years I eventually came up with a routine that works.

One the surface, hat coils are expensive at about $4-$5 each retail plus any shipping. However, I had bought a bunch of them initially, so I didn’t pay that much for them. Now whenever I’m at magic swap meets, frequently I can find them and pay virtually nothing for them. Enough old time magicians have these in their collections to keep me doing this routine for a while! Even if I have to pay retail, the routine is worth it!

-Louie

Google Alerts…

One thing you should do if you haven’t already is set up a Google Alert for your name or the name of your show. In theory whenever Google indexes something new with your alert terms, it will email you. I just got this alert:

So it looks like I’ll be on Masters of Illusion next week on Saturday 7/16/22. It’s a new episode and I haven’t seen the official press release, so I don’t know what routine I’m doing on the show. Hopefully I’ll get the official press release later today and can better promote it.
-Louie

Watching Audience Magic…

I don’t get it when magicians are annoyed when people in the audience want to show them a magic trick. If I was guessing it comes down to an ego thing. When I’m doing roving close up magic, I always let them show me their trick. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at what they show you…usually it’s just the 21 card trick.

Occasionally I get to see this two card change:

However sometimes you get to see an amazing trick, this is probably what I’d consider the greatest trick I’ve ever had someone in the audience show me!

Letting someone from the audience have their moment makes you a generous performer. Now there are times where it’s inappropriate to have them do a trick, but in 95% of times when they offer there’s really no reason for you not to let them show you the trick aside from you being worried that someone will steal your spotlight.

-Louie

Ending to a Card Set…

I’m trying to decide which is a better ending for a routine with a deck of cards:

1: Ending with the deck back in new deck order
2: Ending with all the backs in the deck of cards different (rainbow deck)

They are similar in effect in a very broad sense, visually all the cards are not how they should be. However the effects are different. When the backs are different it’s a transformation and the when they’re in order it’s a transposition.

The other question is whether to do both effects or just one? It’d be easy to get the second effect after the first one with a deck switch. That would make the color changing backs the kicker effect to the cards in order. I think I’ll just have to try it each way and figure out what I like…

-Louie

My Fav Flower Trick!

This video of a magic trick came across my social media feed:

It’s not a deep mystery, but I’ve watched it maybe 6 or 7 times and it makes me smile every time!

I’m not sure how or why you’d use it in a show, but I love that someone came up with it, wrote it up in a book and many years later someone else made one!
-Louie

Horizontal Ambitious Card – 3rd Phase

A few weeks ago I posted about how I’ve started doing the ambitious card effect with the cards spread across the table (read it here). I’ve added a third phase:

The ending with it in the card box is a great third phase.

I have changed the second phase a little bit since I made the video above. I’m putting the selected card second from the top of the deck. What I noticed was happening most of the time was at the second phase, people would very quickly point to the top card. When they do that, I show it’s not there and remove that card. Then I proceed as in the video and it’s getting a great reaction. If the don’t immediately point to the top card, I do the reveal with a double lift and that sets me up for the third phase.

I’ve also made a change to the third phase. I’m setting the card on the table (after the switch) and having them put it into the deck.

-Louie

What’s in a Name…

One thing that magicians frequently complain about is having a generic “magician” on a post and not their name. Here’s a 20 year old poster advertising a fair that I came across:

Look at the listing, at the bottom they list acts by name. There are specific titles and generic ones. For example, Scott Land Marionettes is the name of his show, so the full title ends up on the poster. Then there’s the generic Face Painter. Both of those titles tell the person going to the fair what will be there. A generic face painter may not do good for the face painter’s ego, but it is probably more exciting to a ticket buyer than “Shelby Winters”, unless that’s a prominent person from the community.

Let’s take a closer look at the listing, I circled an act:

I circled Grinn & Barrett, I know what what this act is and know the two people in the act, but 99% of the people going to the fair have no idea what it is. In that place a generic “comedy juggler” or “juggling show” would have gotten more people excited about than the name of the act.

This is something I’ve changed recently with my show. I used to bill it at fairs as Louie Foxx’s One Man Side Show, which is still the name of the show, but I don’t use that at events like fairs or festivals. It doesn’t really tell the audience what they are going to see. I’m now using The Magic of Louie Foxx and since I made that change, I’m seeing bigger starting audiences at my shows. This is nice, as I don’t have to build as hard as I did in the past.

Take a peek at how you’re being advertised in a program and think about if you didn’t know who you are and what you do, would you go see the show? Personally I’d rather be listed as a generic “magic show” in a program than just “Louie Foxx”.

-Louie

Flying with sound

Last night I hopped onto a plane to head to a gig and my carry on is my sound system. This PA fits in the overhead compartment, so I don’t have to check it. I do frequently check it inside of a suitcase, however I’m travelling light this trip.

I use a Roland Street Cube EX, what I like about it is that it can run off of battery power. It uses 8 AA batteries and not an internal battery. If it had the internal battery, I’m not supposed to check it. Also if I forget to charge it, it’s easy to replace them. I do use rechargeable AA batteries in the system, so I’m not constantly buying them.

When I bought this, I needed three inputs for my show, however I currently only need two. If I was to buy one now, I’d get the standard Street Cube and save a couple of bucks.

-Louie