magic show tips – Page 43

Doing Shows in the Rain and Wind

I don’t really perform Halloween shows, normally I turn them down. However I got a call for a unique one that I thought was just weird enough that it’d be fun. It was a glow in the dark Easter egg hunt at a Christmas tree farm for Halloween! It’s all the holidays crammed into one, and so I said sure!

The show was outdoors and my show was after dark and that particular night it was windy and raining, so the show had a lot of challenges. The big challenge was that the wind was blowing from behind and it kept wanting to knock my case over. Luckily I was doing my nest of boxes that night. I use the David Charvet No Assistant Nest of Boxes, and they’re HEAVY, so I put it in front of my case and that solved the problem.

The other problem is the weather turned from summer to late fall temperatures this week. It as tshirt and shorts weather a few days ago, and for the gig, it definitely wasn’t! Luckily in the trunk of my car, I have travel emergency supplies. One of the things I travel with is a bulk pack of hand warmers and they really saved me that night!

The final challenge was selecting material. I looked at what I had and saw what definitely wouldn’t work because it was really windy. I’ve worked in the wind before, and can do my normal show in average wind. I’ve also done my show with 40-50 mile per hour gusts, I just wasn’t expecting that at this particular show. I was only doing 30 mins and packed the 45 min show, so having that buffer of being able to select the 2/3’s of the show that would work best with the conditions was a nice luxury to have.

Despite all of the challenges the show was a lot of fun! I love it when interesting gigs pop up!

-Louie

Psychic Medium

A couple of weeks ago I did a show at a retirement community and this post isn’t about that, it’s about the other act that the had follow me. They had a “Psychic Medium”!!!

Before I write anymore, I will say that I was only there for about the first 5 minutes of her presentation, so that’s all I’m basing this on.

She started he presentation by introducing herself as a psychic medium. She then defined it as “I talk to spirits and people in heaven“. Then two people immediately started heckling her, yelling out that she’s a fraud! It got pretty bad, and the activity director had to get up and tell them to be quiet and that they needed to approach this with an open mind. The psychic medium continued her presentation, and there was still some rumbles from the audience, but nothing as crazy as it was before.

Then I left, so I have no idea how the rest of it went.

One thing is that the psychic medium was a “shut eye”, which means she believes that what she’s doing is real. A better way to do it is how Sheila Lyon did it in her book on roving fortune telling. She does group palm reading and it’s fun and doesn’t have nearly as much of a reason to be heckled.

I give a lot of kudos to the Activity Director for trying something different and sticking up for the psychic medium when she got heckled.

-Louie
PS if you’d like to learn more about performing for seniors check out my book; How to Perform for Seniors

It’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!

A couple of days ago I posted about a new vanishing birdcage. It was sold to me as a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. It turns out it’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!

vanishing bird cage info by doug edwards

Thanks to the super knowledgeable Doug Edwards!
He also informed me that the “T” stamped on mine meant it was sold through Tannen’s Magic in New York.

It’s always great to learn new things!!!

-Louie

New Cage for the Collection!

Another Vanishing Bird Cage has been added to my collection. This is (probably) a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. This is the original design that Milson Worth used for their Silver Meteor Vanishing Bird Cage, but the Milson Worth Cage was smaller.

This has an “S&” stamped on one side near the clip and a “T” on the other side.

The reason I’m not positive that this is a Sherms is that there’s one on eBay listed as a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage and it has the same “S&” stamp on it, and it has brass bars.

No matter who made it, it’s a cool cage!

If you have positive info on the maker, let me know!

-Louie

Birthday Party Magic Show

It’s been years since I’ve done an in home kids birthday party magic show, and recently I did two of them back to back! Let me say, I’m not above doing them, they just don’t work with my performing schedule. I did these two to help out a friend who booked them, but had to leave town to go to a funeral, so I stepped in and did them for him.

One thing that was interesting to me was that ALL of the adults watched the show with the kids. They stood in the back and watched the show and the kids sat on the floor.

One thing I read in magic groups on social media is that magicians complain that the adults won’t stop talking during their show. I didn’t have that problem for either of the shows, in fact I had a parent say, “This is the most fun birthday party I’ve been to“. I think the problem is that many magicians do a children’s show, and not a family show. There’s a huge difference between the two. If you look at your audience and there’s a lot of adults, you should be doing a family show and not a kids show.

I think of my show as a show for grown up that kids like. My style is very different from a lot of people who perform for families, there are not colorful props. It’s basically me with handheld props that are pretty basic looking. However I fill the stage with the kids personalities. I talk to them, and with my style of play, it works. I like it when the kids fight back with me in a routine when I say or do something dumb, but I also call them out when they do!

I also have jokes that are not just for the kids, one of my opening bits with my rope line is an insurance joke. Doing that early on, it teaches the parents that this is a show also for them.

For someone starting out doing birthday parties, simply saying, “you gotta engage the adults” isn’t a magic pill that will solve the problem. Your job is to entertain the kids, get good at that. However while you are getting good at that, slowly start working at figuring out how to engage the adults. Maybe adding a line here or there, or making sure the magic in your show is STRONG! The only way to learn to do this is do A LOT of birthday parties and over time you’ll get better.

Keep working!
-Louie

Justin Willman – The Illusionati Tour

Ove the weekend my wife and I went out to check out Justin Willman’s Illusionati show in Portland. I’ll start with saying that I think his live show is great! He probably has one of the best opening tricks that I’ve seen. It wins over the audience and sets up his personality perfectly!

The other thing that Justin does really well is his use of the “close up camera”. All of the stuff that he does with it are enhanced by the camera, and not reliant on the camera. It’s all sorta interactive, it’s not just a close up on his hands while he does tricks. It’s all part of larger things. If you’re thinking of using a camera in your show, you really should go see Justin’s show.

The other thing that he does really well is letting spontaneous things happen. He’s the star of the show, but he doesn’t mind sharing that spotlight. That’s a huge contrast from a lot of “comedy magicians” where the second someone from the audience does something funny or interesting, they shut them down. It’s these spontaneous things that make a live show fun!

If Justin Willman in your town, be sure to check him out!

-Louie

Why is there a Fourth Card?

One of the things that I’ve noticed when going through old packet tricks from the 1970’s and 1980’s is that a lot of them will have a strange point where an extra card just appears. A good example of this is Mexican IV by Karl Fulves.

Here’s what the trick looks like:

@louiefoxx Bet you can’t follow the card! #game #gambling #betyoucant #magic #cardmagic #magcian #threecardmonte #louiefoxx #karlfulves #amazing #waitforit #magiciansoftiktok ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

It’s strange when 3 cards turn into 4 cards, I don’t know how I feel about that. I was trying to give the trick some context and make the appearance of the fourth card make some sense, so here’s what I came up with:

@louiefoxx All about the famiily! #family #dog #wife #magic #baby #cardtrick #magician #louiefoxx #car #surprisebaby #story ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

Having the baby appear gives the fourth card appear some context, instead of a four turning into two aces. Another thing that I added was the change of the dog card to the dog and cat card, so there’s a little bonus effect in there!

If you’re learning a trick and something doesn’t make sense, figure out a way for it to make sense!

-Louie

Get Your Stuff Together First!

The other night I was chatting with a magician that I had met at a zoom magic show. He was asking me about working comedy clubs.

There were a couple of things, first he didn’t know his Laughs Per Minute (LPM). That’s a huge thing to know if you want to work in comedy. It’s a good metric to how funny your show is. To calculate this, count all of the laughs in your show and divide that by the length of your show. So if you get 90 laughs in a 45 minute show your LPM’s are 2. A stand up comedian will get about 6 or more, however most magicians won’t get that high. Magic has information that needs to be conveyed for a trick to work. As Bob Sheets once told me there’s comedy time and magic time and they don’t overlap.

Then I asked this magician for his website and video and he said his “site sucked” and his video wasn’t good. I told him that you NEED the correct promo if you want to level up or move into another market. I guess the other option to move into the market is to be soo good that you get work, but that’s a much longer and harder road to take. You’d literally be doing garbage gigs to hope someone sees you that books better gigs and then keep stepping up. There’s nothing wrong with this way, but it’s a lot more legwork than just sending out video and having bookers visit your website.

In a nutshell, my advice for levelling up your show in your current market or to break into a new market is to look at what people who are already in that market have for promo and get your stuff to that level and then start selling! If you reach out to a booker and they ask for a 2-3 min sizzle reel and two 5-8 minute unedited full routines, can you immediately send that? No booker wants to wait a month for you to send them stuff. Sure there’s the odd exotic request for an unusual piece of promo that may take you a couple of days to make, but the booker will understand if it’s truly a strange request.

I know this isn’t a fun answer to how to get work, but it’s what most people need to hear. If you don’t like your promo, how do you expect anyone else to?

-Louie

Howie Scharzman Presents Babushka!

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s before magic became a global market, it was harder to get a trick that was made in a different country. What would happen is magicians would bring things back when they travelled to another country. One magician that did this was Howard Schwarzman and he would write instructions in English and sell the tricks as “Howard Schwarzman Presents…”.

One of these tricks was called Babushka. Here’s the what the trick looks like:

@louiefoxx What the heck is this thing? #whatisit #russiandoll #wow #gone #magictrick #vintage #louiefoxx #howardscharzman #1992 #magic #where ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

This is a trick where the method is fairly “Rube Goldberg” in that’s it’s probably way more involved than it needs to be, but it’s fun to do! It reminds me of 1990’s Tenyo magic, it’s a super clever method!

Now for a little Howie Schwarzman story. I never met him in person, but I did sell him a couple of collectable tricks on eBay. After he won the auction he told me he wanted me to send him the items THEN he’d send me a check. I didn’t accept checks as a form of payment and reminded him of that. He said, “Do you know who I am? I’m Howie Schwarzman”. I told him I didn’t care who he is. I did let him mail me a check, but I held it for two weeks for it to clear, he wasn’t happy with that. That’s was my only interaction with Howie.

If you can find a Babushka, it’s totally worth tracking down to play with!

-Louie

Milson Worth Silk Cabby

Over on TikTok I post a lot of videos of vintage magic trick and a recent one was of my Milson Worth Silk Cabby. There are two ways I do these videos. The first is EXACTLY how the instructions say, then if I don’t have the original instructions, I try to add a little bit to the the basic function of the trick.

Here’s what I came up with for the Silk Cabby:

@louiefoxx A look back at the 1980’s #magic #1980s #magictrick #scarf #silk #milsonworth #vintage #magician #how #what #theend #louiefoxx #illusion #magiciansoftiktok ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

So the trick has a little bit of a routine, besides the standing production. It’s got three vanishes and then the kicker ending. I was trying to maximize how much I could get out of the Silk Cabby beyond just a production of a lot of silks.

I think it came out well.

Also if you’re on TikTok, follow me at: https://www.tiktok.com/@louiefoxx

-Louie