Pictures – Page 36 – MagicShow.Tips

Indoor and outdoor shows

Show business is funny. In less 24 hours you can go from performing outdoors in the full sun (I’m not complaining, I love outdoor gigs):

To performing indoors at a really cool theater!

While both shows are similar, there are things that I do indoors that I don’t do outdoors and things I do outdoors that I don’t do indoors. There are reasons for that, the audiences are different. Inside I can take a little bit of time with things, so I can do some slower tricks. Outdoors everything is a bit quicker and I’m a little more aggressive when I perform.

I enjoy indoors and outdoor performing, and both have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages. As a performer you need to learn what material of yours works in each situation.
-Louie

The Comedy Helpline

I picked up the book The Comedy Helpline recently and read it while I was stuck in line for two hours to get an oil change!

This is an interesting little book, kind like Wayne Dobson‘s book 50 Shades of Gold, that has a lot of little tips in it. It’s not a “how to” for comedy magic, but will make you think about a thing or two. I’m glad I read it.

-Louie

Props in Real Life!

There are some props that have always baffled me as they don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. The props for the Rice, Orange and Checkers trick is one of them. Below is a Rings n’ Things set that I own:

The middle container is the rice vase where you fill with rice, then rice turns into an orange. At the hotel I’m at, I found what I think it’s supposed to be in real life:

I don’t think anyone has really used containers like that in my lifetime, but I found what they rice vase is supposed to look like! I now only slightly less dislike the Rice, Orange and Checkers trick.

-Louie

Phone Pouch…

A few nights ago I saw Amy Schumer perform at a theater in Seattle. She was great! Amy has a very defined character and point of view. That point of view may not be for everyone, but when you get to her level, “everyone” isn’t your audience. As a stand up, you need a point of view, and that’s to to eliminate some people who don’t agree with you.

Going into the theater, they had us lock our phones up in little pouches. This is becoming more and more common. I think that we as a culture have proven our inability to keep our phones in our pockets during a show, even after a no photo/recording announcement.

My first thought was that these pouches would be great to do a Key-R-Rect or 7 Keys to Baldplate style trick with. You’d just need to put grommets on both sides of the flap. Now you can borrow or use your phone and put it in and do the key trick with it.

The challenge would be getting one of these. It doesn’t look like they sell them direct to the public, so you’d need to find someone who goes to a school that uses them, buy theirs, and have them say they lost theirs.

I haven’t thought of a routine yet…but I think it’s a good prop for locking up a cellphone.
-Louie

Uncle Stinky’s Magic

A couple of weeks ago I was at a festival and saw “Uncle Stinky” pitching the Squirmle. If you’ve never seen one, it’s an old magic toy pitch where a little worm moves around. I believe this was an extension of the Magic Mouse Pitch.

He did the pitch really well, honestly I’d be afraid to use fishing line in full sun in a festival setting, but he did it fearlessly!

There’s always a lot to learn from pitchmen, and I love watching them!

-Louie

Storing Your Show…

Right now we’re in the middle of the summer outdoor performing season. One of nice things about performing at fairs which are multi-day events is that you only need to load in once and load out once. After the first day my gear lives at the fair. Normally they are supposed to have a space for me to store my gear on the grounds, however that doesn’t always happen.

Last week my stage was a trailer and to avoid doing a complete pack out everyday, I locked my show to a chain that was under the stage!

Is this the most secure way to store a show? Probably not, however anytime you store your gear anywhere you are taking a risk. The amount of “locked” storage areas where I keep my trunk which seem to never actually be locked is very high! At some point you have to have faith that no one is going to the fair to steal your show. It does happen, I know of people that have had things stolen, however it’s pretty rare if you take basic precautions like locking things up.

-Louie

Single Use Props…

Many times after shows magicians will comment on how much is must cost me to perform my show. I have several spots where I use props that I can’t reuse each show. Honestly, I don’t have too many props that are single use. Here are my consumable props for my day at the fair:

Each show I use a paper coil, kabuki streamer, bar of hotel soap and a banana. In addition to the picture I also give away some of my wristbands which I sell after the show. Every show costs me about five dollars to do. To me this isn’t a big deal and since I’m getting paid, it’s just the cost of doing business.

If spending $5 or $100 to do your show is what your vision as an artist is, then it’s money well spent!
-Louie

Magic Mondays!

Last week I was in town for a hot second and apparently had agreed to perform at Magic Mondays in Seattle.

This is a cool magic open magic that’s been going on for over 25 years! The show is fun, but the real fun is hanging out afterwards!

One of the new guys (Bohdi) did a fun mismade torn and restored card:

And some magic jamming!

It still baffles me when magicians say they don’t hang out with magicians. There’s soo much you can learn, and it’s fun to hang out!

-Louie

Move the Monitors!

Normally when I perform on a stage, I have the monitors moved, so the front of the stage is clear. That gives me more real estate to perform on at the front of the stage and it also removes a physical barrier between the audience and me. Last week while performing at a fair I was watching the bands that I shared the stage with and realized how much better the stage looks without the monitors.

Here’s a band with the monitors on stage:

I think audiences are used to seeing monitors onstage. However once you remove them, it looks soo much cleaner!

The two bands without monitors were using “in ears” monitors. I don’t think they are right for most magic acts but using them to eliminate the monitors for a band looks great. It also gives the performer a more powerful position onstage with no physical barriers between them and the audience.

If your stage has monitors, you can ask to have them moved…if you don’t need them.

-Louie

Making it Rain!

Performing as many shows as I do around the country at all sorts of different venues you encounter a lot of things. I just had a new one, it was a gorgeous sunny morning, but it was raining onstage!

What had happened was it was really dewey this morning and moisture had collected on the underside of the stage’s canopy. The top edge of the canopy wasn’t pulled very tight, so it had little valleys the water could pool on and form droplets that fell down on me during during my show.

It was the strangest thing because the audience really couldn’t see this, so it was something that I had to deal with. I did mention it to the audience, so that they were aware of it. That was it didn’t look strange when I pulled out wet props!

I did have to move things around to keep more water sensitive things dry. For example my notebooks (svenpads) I put another prop over to keep them dry.

This is a case of be ready for anything that can happen when performing. You never know what you’ll be walking into!

-Louie