Pictures – Page 4 – MagicShow.Tips

New School Assembly Show

Well, tomorrow is the first show of my new school assembly show and the first show day of this month long tour! The show is designed to set up and strike really quickly, in less than 15 minutes. The show will run 40-45 minutes in length and will have to play for 150-500 people per show.

Here’s the front of the case:

I have a screen on the front of the case for visuals if the school doesn’t read my requirements list and doesn’t provide me with a projector or TV. The visuals aren’t necessary, but they help make the show feel bigger.

Here’s the view of the back of the case:

The props in the case are laid out for the show. The only thing missing from the picture is my snake box, because it’s not in the case during the show. The snake box sits on a table (provided by the school) during the show.

I’m very excited to see how this plays. This show is 95% new to me. The 5% that’s old are a couple of jokes/gags that I’m recycling. Hopefully, I won’t have to change much. When I was writing the show, I was worried that it wouldn’t be long enough. Now that I’ve been practicing it, I’m worried it will be too long! Having too much material is a way better problem to have than not enough.

-Louie

Hosting a Variety Show

A few weeks ago, I was the host for a couple of shows at the Moisture Festival in Seattle. This is a fast-paced variety show with a live band! This is a very challenging show to be an MC at because there are about a dozen acts each show, and most of the transitions are really tight. Here are my MC notes from the two shows:

One thing you’ll notice is that I handwrite the introductions. This helps put the intros into my head. I also do my intros that are more bullet point-based, then paragraph-based, unless an act insists that I read the intro exactly as they’ve written.

Hosting a show is a lot more work than being an act in a show!

-Louie

Flea Circus News Clipping

I bought a box of junk magic and as I was going through it, I found this news paper clipping:

When I read this I was amazed by the little article, until I read the date written on the back, April 1, 2013.

-Louie

Vintage Magic Junk Shop Find

Magicians always ask me where I find all the vintage magic tricks that I have. The answer is simple, I hunt for them. Recently, I was performing in a small town and was walking through a junk shop and found this box:

It’s clearly an older prop, my guess is 1960’s. Here’s a pic in the mirror of my hotel room so you can see the front and back:

What’s really weird about this is the arrangement of the window and door. Here’s a video walkthrough of the prop and what I think is going on:

It’s definitely interesting….

-Louie

Opening Night at the Moisture Festival!

Last week was the opening of this year’s Moisture Festival! I was part of the cast of the opening night show, then I’m back on March 28th and 29th. The Moisture Festival is a fast paced variety show. Each act does about 5 minutes.

Everyone in the opening night show was super cool, and were also amazing acts!

Doing variety shows that have other magicians in the cast is where my style of doing non-standard magic in non-standard ways really helps me. I don’t really have to change what I do because there’s another magician in the show. Last week at the festival, I did my marshmallow act. For the 28th and 29th, I think I’m MC for two of the shows, and the last one, I’ll probably do my bullwhip act.

Hosting the shows at the Moisture Festival is a lot of work, but the host is really the glue that holds the whole thing together onstage! You need to be able to fill time for the stage crew to set/strike props, which can sometimes be fairly involved!

One of the things that the Moisture Festival does really well is create a family backstage! Everyone is super friendly, and it’s just fun to be there!

-Louie

Monopoly Magic !

I like the idea of the mentalism premise where you have a 5 objects that are all the same and one different one. People from the audience all hold one of the objects, and you find who is holding the odd one.

That premise is fun, and I have a few themes for it. The other day I thought of one using Monopoly game pieces.

The hotels and houses lend themselves to a presentation about finding your way home.

This set of houses and hotels was 3D printed and is gimmicked to work with Promystic’s Flux. One of the challenges of using an electronic gimmick is what do you do if it doesn’t work? What’s the out? For some things, I’ve decided the best way to do it is to have a second gimmick. Luckily, Flix isn’t too expensive, and running two gimmicks at the same time isn’t very complicated.

I look forward to trying this out!

-Louie

Take Up Reels

Today I’m making a couple of take up reels! These are reels that are typically used for the vanishing birdcage. They don’t have anything to do with the actual vanish of the cage, they simply take up slack in the pull and lock it short. This allows you freedom of motion before you do the cage vanish.

People frequently ask me what kind of cage this will work with, and the answer is that it’s great for any cage that works on a wrist to wrist pull. That means an Abbott’s style will work as well as an Owen vanishing birdcage.

The take up reel can be used for more than the birdcage. The Chimney Vanish with a silk will work or pretty much anything that goes up your sleeve. If you have any question about if this will work for you, feel free to contact me!

-Louie

Spoon Dropper!

One of the things that I need for a routine I’m working on is a spoon dropper. This will allow me to steal a spoon from my jacket. The first idea was just a magnet. The issue that I encountered was that if I moved too much, the spoon would get knocked off the magnet.

One solution would be a stronger magnet, but it needed to be easy to pull off the magnet. What I did was glue some magnets to a bowl of a spoon, then cover that with black fabric.

The spoon bowl’s shape holding the spoon kept the fabric from my shirt/jacket from dislodging the spoon.

This was a fairly simply solution to the the problem!

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 3

The final day of last week’s Portland Magic Jam had the Paul Draper lecture. He does a choose your own lecture where the audience asks him to talk about things and he talks about what the audience requests.

Then there was a panel Q and A with all the weekend’s headliners.

Then David Kaye and I snuck out so I could take him for the most Portland lunch, which was eating at a food truck pod!

Then the weekend for me ended with the magic contest.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more pictures of the contest. There were a couple of extra charge workshops going on after the contest, but I had plans with my wife, so I couldn’t do any of them.

The weekend at the Portland Magic Jam was a ton of fun! I wish I could go to more of these, however, my performing schedule doesn’t let me.

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 2

The second day of the Portland Magic Jam (last weekend) was a lot of fun. The day started with Daniel Garcia‘s lecture, which was great! I’ve used his One Card index since I worked with him in November. It’s great, if you need a folded card index, it’s worth looking into!

The highlight of the convention for me was watching David Kay perform for a room of 75ish kids plus adults.

For someone that’s a “kids magician” his knowledge of comedy techniques goes way beyond 97% of children’s magicians that I’ve seen. There’s soo much that any performer can learn from watching his show!

Also, working with Paul Draper the night before was great, and Paul and I are working together this week in Seattle at the Moisture Festival.

The convention venue (Portland Airport Holiday Inn) was garbage. My room had blood on the blankets, which is great if you’re a vampire! They new a convention was coming in, but didn’t appropriately staff their restaurant for use. The first night the turn around time for food was crazy long. For the second night, I drove to Costco which was a couple miles down the street and bought a bunch of pizzas for all the hungry magicians!

Then the evening show was John Shyrock, Daniel Garcia, and Rhy Thomas. The show was great!

This is a solid day of magic and learning!

-Louie