Pictures – Page 34 – MagicShow.Tips

Assigned Street Performing Spots are Lame

A few weeks ago I was performing at a fair. I was doing street style shows and they gave me an assigned spot and assigned times. On paper this sounds like a good idea, however in practice it’s usually a horrible idea. 99% of the time the entertainment coordinator doesn’t walk the grounds at different times of the day to see where the shade is.

Here’s one of my assigned spots a few minutes before my assigned start time:

I should mention it was over 90 degrees out and you’ll notice there’s no shade. If you look to the right, you’ll see my case is in the shade, but most of the case is in the sun. There’s zero usable shade at this spot and very few people will stand in the sun for more than a few minutes. I personally will stand in the sun as I’m getting paid, but I don’t expect an audience to do that.

However a little bit up the pathway there’s this spot:

There’s plenty of shade and I decided to “go rogue” and do my magic show there with shade for the audience. I was able to get people to stop here and watch the show.

Personally I’m a “ask for permission” person and not a just do it and “ask for forgiveness” person. However this was a situation where it made sense and if anyone asked about it, I could simply show them the pictures and I think they’d agree with me. Also I’d probably walk that person into the full sun spot and then show them the pictures and talk for a long time and watch them get uncomfortable in the sun to emphasize my point.

-Louie

Close up magic vest

When I was a teenager there was an ad in magic magazines for a close up magician’s vest. The thing that made this vest unique was that it had something like 50 pockets! That’s a lot of close up magic to carry around with you…50 tricks!!!

When I was at Hocus-Pocus a couple of weeks ago, I ran into one of them and it was glorious (in a strange way)!

This is something that I think is supposed to be worn under a coat, so its not super visible…however I can imagine seeing a clueless magician wearing this as outerwear to show off how many tricks they have on them!

It was great to finally see something that I had only seen the ad for and even back then thought it was a questionable idea…but I’m also glad that someone had a vision and brought this to market. I think you have to go too far to know you’ve gone too far!

-Louie

Low to the Ground

During one of my street style sets at the fair yesterday I had a group of younger kids show up and I knocked my table down so that they could see the table top.

I was surprised that this instantly built a larger crowd. I’m not sure why more people wanted to watch. It does make the table top more visible to the front edge of the crowd and maybe it makes people huddle in and look like they’re watching something interesting. I’m not sure why it worked, and maybe that was a one off sorta thing, but I’m going to try it again today and see what happens.

-Louie

Happy Birthday USA!

In the USA it’s Independence Day, which is the birthday of the United States. Way back in 1796, which is the country’s bicentennial, there was a trick put out called Happy Birthday USA: The Bi-Centennial Card Trick by Shigeo Futagawa.

This is a card trick where you have cards that all have red and white stripes on the back, and the numbers on the front. The numbers are 1976, and they change into 1776 and then the backs change to make a flag!

Here’s a demo of the trick:

@louiefoxx Fourth of July Vintage Magic Trick! #fourthofjuly #4thofjuly #america #1776 #usa #cardtrick #closeupmagic #vintagemagictrick #antique #louiefoxx #vintage #independenceday ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What I thought was interesting is that in a era of Emerson and West packet tricks with confusing instructions, this has very well laid out instructions that are easy to read!

This trick is a good example of capitalizing on an event in the future. I wonder how many of these that were sold, but I also wonder how many were unsold and thrown away on new years day in 1977!

-Louie

Rice, Vase, and Checkers by MagicCrafter

I love hunting down magic vintage magic, and in my hunt I recently came across a more modern trick from about 2013, but it is highly collectable. It’s Rice, Vase, and Checkers by MagicCrafter (Brian Cook and Master Payne).

This one was in Florida and the auction house and I managed to get a crazy deal on it! I’m hoping it’s complete, I should have it in about a week. Luckily I’m friends with Brian Cook over at MagicCrafter and I can have him take a look at it and hopefully repair anything that needs fixing.

This is a cool looking prop, but not the style that I personally collect. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it or sell it. I’m just glad I saved this from it from probably being bought by someone who doesn’t know what it is and it end up in the garbage!

If you’re interested in buying this, send me an email and we can chat!

-Louie

Magic Jam!

The Magic Jam that I put together in Seattle on Tuesday was a blast! We had a good turn out of people I knew and magicians I didn’t know!

For me one of the takeaways is that it reminded me that there are soo many different styles of magic out there and there’s not really one right or wrong way to do it! Peoples styles are heavily influenced by where they perform, whether that’s just for their family and friends, busking, corporate shows or whatever. The venue dictates a lot of the material you do.

Thanks to everyone that came out to hang out!

-Louie

Straitjacket and chains escape

For a few gigs this summer I’m going to be doing the straitjacket wrapped in 50+ feet of chain escape. One thing I started doing about a 8 years ago when I first started playing with the straitjacket and chains was take off the crotch strap.

Here’s before and after pictures of the straight jacket:

I realized that no one knows the crotch strap is missing if it’s not there. I discovered this when I was visiting the Oregon State Museum of Mental Health about 10 years ago. There was a straitjacket on display and it didn’t have a crotch strap and the information placard said that they weren’t used as a restraint, but to keep people from unconsciously doing self harm, Like thru scratching themselves.

Most people rely on the crotch strap as the main point of humor in their routine. I decided I didn’t want to do any crotch strap jokes, so there’s no loss there. Sure my routine may be funnier, but it’s not what I want to put out there as my art.

-Louie

My 2024 Summer Library Show

Each year I do a unique library show. Sometimes material gets cycled back into the show, but it must wait till the third year (two years off) to come back into the show.

Here’s this years set list:

If you look at the set list, there’s one spot where there’s three tricks. I could do: Dad jokes, mind reading or shell game. The variable there is if I can use a TV in the room, I do shell game. I there isn’t a TV that I can use, then I do either my Dad Jokes trick or Wayne Dobson’s Spectrumlist with the librarian doing the trick.

Here’s what this year’s case set up looks like:

This is a pretty quick set up for the show about 30 minutes right now, but it will be 15-20 minutes after a couple of shows. I have about 4 extra tricks that I’ve packed with this show to make sure I have enough material. After this week of library shows, the set list will be locked in and I’ll ditch the extra material…well, I’ll keep one extra bit.

-Louie

New Addition to Library Shows!

Last summer when doing library shows I noticed that probably 95% of the library shows that I did (indoors) had a TV screen in the room that I did my show in. So this year I planned a trick (actually two and a half tricks) that could use the TV as projection for close up magic.

There’s really not much to my set up, it’s an iphone with a camera app, an HDMI adapter and and HDMI cord. This very basic set up allow me to do the two full trick and one revelation with the screen.

In the beginning of the show during my warm up I do my ambitious card that uses projection. Then later in the show I do my Russian Shell Game routine and finally I use it for the reveal of my nest of boxes routine.

It’s working great and every library I’m doing (indoors) this summer has a TV in the room for me. I do have alternate material in case I can’t do use the TV for whatever reason. I’ve only done it once (so far), but it plays great for those routines and I’m glad I’m using something that’s already in the room!

-Louie

Magic Shop Fires

Within the last 12 month’s there have been three fires at magic shops. Last summer there was the fire at Steven’s Magic Emporium. Then this month there was the fire at Vanishing Inc‘s warehouse and the fire at Magic Shop San Diego.

These could be completely unrelated incidents, or there could be a link. I have zero information about any of these fires, but I wonder that with more and more magic using Lithium Ion batteries in the trick or in the packaging (like Murphy’s Anverdi Color Match package) that these could be the cause. I have zero evidence and this is just my personal theory as to a possible cause. It’s too much of a coincidence to have three of the few remaining magic businesses in the USA all have fires in the last 12 months.

It’s good to hear that no one got hurt in the fires and hopefully all of the businesses will make a full recovery!

– Louie