Pictures – Page 24 – MagicShow.Tips

Stand Up Comedy at a Fair?!

One of the styles of acts/shows that you don’t really see at a fair (aside from grandstand shows) are comedians. I think there are several reasons for this, but the main one is that comedy doesn’t really work before about 6pm and it needs a lot more attention than a juggler or magician.

Last week there was a comedian at the fair that I was at!

The comedian was Dan McGowan, and I was usable to catch his shows his first day, but ran into him at the grocery store that night!

I recognized him because he was wearing the same shirt he’s wearing in the video on his website! We chatted for a bit and he’s super friendly! I came in early to the fair the next day to catch a little bit of his show.

Dan is a solid comic and blended material with going off script and doing crowd work with the audience. Performing a show at 12:30pm is not for beginners, I think this is also another reason that you don’t see a lot of stand up comedians at fair is that the experience level you need to be at, there aren’t a lot of people that can do it.

A huge challenge for Dan was the gap between the stage and the audience. There was gap was huge, so it’s extremely hard to make a connection over that “moat”.

Dan had a lot of obstacles and he overcame them!

Many fairs that I perform at have a gap between the stage and the audience and it’s a HUGE challenge to overcome. Usually what I will do when I encounter this is do in my in the grass in front of where the audience is sitting. Sure, I’m in the sun, but the way I see it, I’m being paid to be there, so I can stand in the sun.

If you’re thinking of performing at fairs, you need to figure out the best way to handle a gap between you and the audience for your show or style of performing

-Louie

Unique Vintage Circus Poster

Magic collectors always ask me where I the stuff for my collection. I do most of it old school style and hunt for it in person. This is a cool find (non-magic) that I found in person by going to a flea market.

vintage Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey circus poster

It’s a circus poster that was in a tube with RBB&B label on it from April of 1978. I’m guessing this was a going away present for the person who the poster was shipped to. He was a Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey circus promotions person. Since it was sent in 1978, I’m guessing it’s that year’s cast that signed it.

Here’s a close up of the signatures:

This is the sort of thing that I seek out, a unique circus poster! It’s the thrill of the hunt that’s fun for me, not simply googling something and buying what comes up.

-Louie

Silk in Selected Balloon

Last summer I started working on a trick where a silk appears in a selected balloon. It worked alright and got decent Reponses from the audience, but it was lacking a lot. Like the point in the routine where the silk disappeared never really figured itself out.

The bigger challenge was that sometimes you could see the silk through the balloon. I tried doubling up the balloon, and that cut down the instances of people being able to see the silk through the balloon by about half, but it was still too frequent. Then I had other things to work on and I really haven’t messed with the routine until almost a year later.

The solution for hiding the silk in the balloon was very simple, I used a black balloon inside a colored one, instead of using two of the same color. Then next challenge was how to suspend the silk inside of the balloon as I didn’t want the silk to fall to the floor. This was very simple, I just used a bit of fishline tied to the end of the silk. This fishline was tied into the knot at the top of the balloon.

Now with most of the technical problems solved, I can get back to work with the routine.
-Louie

Hanging Out

Yesterday I mentioned supporting shows when they are in your area. Another thing that I do is I hang out with magicians that are passing through my area. I hang out with magicians who are in town to hop on/off a cruise ship or have a long layover.

Recently I hung out with Christopher Weed who runs Showtime Magic (in addition to a lot of other things) when he was in Seattle doing a Foam Event.

It was a blast hanging out with him and Cesar. If you see on social media that someone you know is in your area, shoot them a note and offer to meet up. This is how community gets built.

-Louie

Supporting Live Magic

I’m amazed at how many magicians don’t go out and support live magic shows when they’re in their area. Personally, I try to go out and support as many people out there doing their craft.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bunch of magicians come out to visit me at the fair that I was performing at. I was bad at taking pictures, so I only have a pics of a few of the people that swung by.

If you have a magician passing through your area, buy a ticket and go out and see them or shoot them a note and offer to hang out with them!

-Louie

Packet Trick in Spanish

Earlier this summer I started doing a packet trick in Spanish. The trick is Emerson and West’s Gourmet Mouse. What I like about this trick is that it’s very simple and I can do it for kids. The plot is easy to follow, you have three cards. One has a picture of a mouse, one cheese and one a slice of cheesecake. The cheese ends up disappearing and the mouse ends up changing to a picture of a cat (that ate the mouse).

The trick is pretty simple to speak in Spanish and that’s helping me connect with audiences that I’ve struggled with in the past due to language barriers.

Here’s what the trick looks like:

@louiefoxx Help me learn spanish! #spanish #learnspanish #helpme #magictrick #rat #gato #cat #cheese #cardtrick #louiefoxx #learnalanguage ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

To learn Spanish, I’m using DuoLingo and asking for help from people I work with who speak Spanish. I’m getting better, nowhere near conversational, but getting better.

-Louie

Know Your Audio!

A couple of weeks ago we went to a “drag brunch” and I’ve always said you can learn a lot from watching any type of performance, not just magic.

One of the things at this venue was the audio. They had two speakers running and the preshow music and host mics were fine, but they act’s music was only coming off of one speaker. That lead to soo much less energy being put into the crowd with the music when you can hear forks clink on the plates.

With my basic knowledge of sound, I can tell you whatever program (or cord) they were using for the music for the acts was sending the signal to the speakers with one side of the stereo output. When I was waiting for the bathroom, I was chatting with one of the acts and mentioned that whoever was running the sound needed to bump their music as it was only coming out of one speaker. The act asked me if I could fix it, I told them that “While I work in live events, it’s not my gig or my place to tell they sound person how to do their job….But if you tell them what I just told you, it would make it better.“

This is why you need a basic knowledge of things like sound, if the sound is bad, or not enough, you need to be able to communicate to whoever is running sound what you need. Frequently a lot of sound companies send out people whose job isn’t as a sound engineer, but more someone whose job is to load in/out the equipment and make sure that no one steals it.

The second half of the show was soo much better as the music filled the room much better. The “sound guy” had to work a lot harder than the first half because they had to turn the volume up for music and turn it down for the mics In reality, it’s barely any work, but a lot more than the nothing they were doing before.

-Louie

Need a Coin Tray

The “need a penny” tray that I’ve been playing with for a little while has been getting good reactions. It was time to tweak the design to make it look better and slightly more deceptive. The new one (on the right) is next to the old one:

The two main changes that I made was that I beveled the edges of the tray and I printed the bottom portion in black. Here’s a few more views of it:

The beveled edged and black bottom make it look soo much thinner. This is a great example of why you should learn about all types of magic. Essentially I took some stage illusion principles and applied them to a close up magic prop to make it more deceptive. I guess reading Rand Woodbury’s Illusionworks book when I was a teenager finally paid off!

Don’t Let Them Intimidate You!

Last week I had a gap in my schedule, so I threw my crank organ in the car and went to the Pike Place Market to busk with it.

The market has a permit system and rule about how long you can be in a specific spot. When I got there, there was a piano player in the spot I wanted to use, so asked him how much time he had left and put my name next in line. The piano player was visibly annoyed that I got in line to perform at that spot. I should say that since he has a piano, he’s very limited on spots he can do. Me getting in line, cuts down the amount of time he can perform that day.

When he time was up, he angrily packed up his piano. I set up my organ and started to play, and I quickly noticed he was glaring at me from across the street! I took a pic, and you can see him circled in red.

He stood there for about half and hour, then walked by me twice after that to look at my permit. Here’s the moral of the story, don’t let anyone intimidate you when you’re street performing…especially in a permitted situation where there are rules!

-Louie

There’s No Plan B for Your A Game

A couple of days ago I finished reading the book There’s No Plan B For Your A Game. I was told it was good by another magician. This is not a magic book, but a “self help” style book.

For me one of the big takeaways is to act like you’re already doing what you want to be doing. For example, I want to work more theaters, so instead of wishing I could do more, I should be acting like I’m currently doing them.

What does that mean?

Aside from marketing to them as if I’m currently in that market, I should have my show up to that level. That means having all the things done (or working on them) for that venue. For example, I want to use projection for part of my show, so I’ve been breaking it in a library shows over the summer. I’m acting like I’m in a venue that has projection capabilities.

This book has made me think a bit more about how to take the next step.

-Louie