The final day of Abbott’s for me was getting up early and giving Elliott Hunter a ride to the airport, then hitting the road for my next gig. I also forgot to mention the Elliott won first place in the competition!
On my way home, I stopped at the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin. I watch my friends Adam Winrich do his fire whip show and Lynx Kim do his sword swallowing show!
Both are them are top notch acts, and worth checking out if you’re in the area!
One thing I noticed at this particular fair and I think Ren Faire’s in general is that the audiences are there to have a good time. If I try to overanalyze it, they really commit to going. They get dressed up and spend time and money on that. That gives them the incentive and mindset that they are there to have a good experience.
Now I just need to figure out how to get my audiences to commit to my events before they leave their homes!
I got up early after sleeping in my car, and caught Franz Harary’s lecture. It was more of a Q&A and he shared a lot about how he thinks and how he works.
Then I had a little birdcage jam with Thomas:
We got really nerdy about the cages, it was a lot of fun!
Then I ran into Larry Kahlow from Eagle Magic, which was the shop that I went to when I lived in Minnesota!
It was great to catch up with Larry!
Before the convention, my daughter had made some buttons out of the George Shindler’s beginner’s magic book. I ran into George and gave him one of the buttons!
When I gave him the button, he told me that he does the trick on the button. I told him it was his trick from his book!
It was a fun show and got a deserved standing ovation!
I’m now trying to figure out how to get to Abbott’s next year. It’s pretty unlikely that I’ll be able to go, with me taking time off for FISM next summer.
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.
Yesterday I got into Colon, MI, which is a day before the Abbott’s Magic Get Together starts. The day begins at 10 am, so I figured it would just be easier to arrive the day before.
Somehow, despite not really knowing anyone here, I got invited to a amish chicken dinner! It was a lot of fun. The dinner was amazing, then we went to an amish farm and did a show for some families.
I was invited to perform, so I did my spoon act and it went over really well! I was worried about a few lines in it, but it played great and I’m glad that’s the act I did.
Today is the first day of the Abbott’s Get Together, and it looks like it’ll be a fun day!
Reflecting back on performing with World of Wonders last week, it really got me out of my comfort zone. Performing in a three minute context isn’t something I really do anymore. When I was starting out I built my show at comedy open mics in 3-5 minute chunks, however it’s been a while since I’ve worked in that format.
The big thing for me is that it’s gotten me to edit. I was cutting out things that really didn’t need to be there. Also when you’re doing a routine as a stand alone bit, you’ll notice what’s a strong joke or bit and what felt like it was a good joke, but it’s just your momentum from the whole show that helps you get a laugh.
I’ve also written some new jokes and come up with some new bits for the routines I was doing.
I’m really glad I did this, it’s not my normal thing. I learned a lot!
One thing I don’t get is performers who wear sunglasses when they perform outdoors. It blocks your connection to the audience. I don’t care if you have a sensitivity to light, it hurts your show. I get that standing in the sun is uncomfortable, but so is sweating in 107 degree heat.
At the ND State Fair, on the stage next to my stage is a music stage. Daniel Kosel is performing, and all week he’s been wearing sunglasses for his shows. I want to note that his show is a lot less of a show than the other acts I’ll be talking about later in this post.
Daniel Kosel performing at the ND State Fair
Daniel is just a guy with a guitar, who stands there and sings. He sings slower songs and mostly older songs. His performance isn’t very dynamic, there’s nothing he does that makes you want to watch him, he’s more of an ambient act, than a mainstage act. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I also don’t think this is the venue for that. He’d be better in a smaller, indoor type venue.
Yesterday on the same stage they had the 188th Army Band of North Dakota. This is one of the Army/National Guard Band, and if you ever get the chance to see any of the army bands, do it! They performers are all super talented and very dynamic. They do upbeat music, and their show is super tight! Any performer can learn a lot about watching these band.
188th Army Band of North Dakota
If you look at the pic of the 188th band above, you’ll notice the guy in the center is wearing sunglasses. While I’m not a fan, I also give him a pass, as he’s not the front person, it’s the lady to the left that’s the signer. The guy in the middle was doing a guitar solo when the pic was taken.
The final show of the day was Sting Rays Jukebox Rock. This show is a high energy show that’s full of production and is a lot of fun. Sting Ray plays oldies, but songs everyone knows. He’s got a great look and a tight show. He does a good job connecting with the audience. He’s very likeable onstage.
Sting Ray’s Jukebox Rock
You’ll notice that no one in Sting Ray’s show is wearing sunglasses. I know this pic was taken after sun down, but at his earlier shows while the sun was up, everyone’s eyes were visible.
I’ve always told performers you can learn more about performing by watching other shows than you can by doing your show. You learn what you like or don’t like, and once you know what you don’t like, you can try to avoid those things in your show.
One of the fun things work this week with World of Wonders this week is that I’m part of cast of performers. That means my duties are more than just my act. I’ve got a small part in another act. I pop my head through the curtain and say a couple of lines. This is something I’ve never really had to do before, aside from performing with my daughter.
In the middle of the run, I had another performer have an idea for my spoon act. This idea would use a second person to introduce my giant spoon. The idea took off! Backstage we then started riffing and before I knew it, it was a fairly fleshed out bit!
This is something that I can’t normally do in my spoon act, however I also don’t know that I’ll be doing the spoon act much longer as part of it probably isn’t very good for my health.
The important thing is even though I don’t know the future of the spoon act (I took it out of my show about 3 years ago), I’m still working on it. It’s got a brief life in the show for 9 days, but I still want it to grow!
One of the fun things in the World of Wonders show is they do the some great illusions! One of them is the headless woman. This is part of a larger routine, where a girl gets her head cut off, the head is displayed balanced on a sword on a chair (so you can see under the head) and then the body is displayed without a head!
It’s fun to get to slip into the illusions for fun, but it also gives me a lot more respect for people who do them. Not just sideshow illusions, but magic illusions as it’s a lot of slipping into places that don’t feel like they were designed for people to slip into!
I don’t do illusions, however I do think it’s important for magicians to try to slip into them. It’s easy to say, “I know how it works, she’s just in the base…“. the reality is that there’s a lot more to it than simply laying down.
Last night we recorded the whole show at the World of Wonders side show. Then later that night as a cast we sat down and reviewed it. It was really helpful and while I think I contributed a lot of notes for everyone else, I probably had the most notes for myself.
One of my notes for myself had to do with a joke, something that I had been working on taking out of the show, and adding a new joke. The reason I was taking it out was that it stopped playing as well as it had used to. The joke may simply have aged outof being funny.
For context, in the routine, I’m sticking spoons to my arm. Here’s the original line:
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. I’m awesome at the airport, I always get the extra pat down”
It’s not the strongest bit, but when it was written, the TSA was in the news a lot with how they were hand screening people. At the time, it was topical and while still relevant, it’s not something that’s at the forefront of people’s minds.
A couple of weeks ago, I worked on writing a new joke to take it’s place with my friend Eric Haines (who is an amazing performer). Here’s the new joke:
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. The bonus is if I ever get lost, my arm always points north!”
That’s a decent joke, and gets a laugh. The problem was I got greedy and would tell them together to try and get two laughs, instead of simply replacing the joke.
“…I had to surgically implant magnets into my arm. I’m awesome at the airport, I always get the extra pat down. The bonus is if I ever get lost, my arm always points north!”
I think the first punchline didn’t hit hard enough, so the second one was starting off in a hole. By removing the old joke and simply doing the new one, it make the new punchline play stronger. It also tightened up the act!
This week I’m performing in Minot, North Dakota. I’ve worked out here many times over the years. When getting into town, I drove by a Menards hardware store.
Normally this isn’t a huge deal, but this is the hardware store where I bought all the stuff to create my Evaporation trick! It’s also the store where I bought a lot of the parts for all the previous unsuccessful versions of the trick.
Many magicians think that finished ideas just pop out of people’s heads, and while that does happen, it’s rarely the case. Usually it’s a idea, that eventually after a lot of work gets to the final idea.
The key is to trying to create a new method for a trick is to not give up. I tired many, many bad (in retrospect) ideas for how to make the trick bottle. However each bad idea taught me something, and they all moved me closer and closer to the final goal!
