A couple of weeks ago I went to Disneyland with a bunch of variety entertainers after an event in Anaheim.
One of the things we saw was the piano player at the Golden Horseshow Review.
The format in the show (20ish mins) show was song, jokes, song, joke and that repeated. This is a solid formula for a show and format that’s great for a magician, just substitute tricks for the songs.
Why does it work? It changes him from an ambient act to an engaging show. The jokes also make you connect to him, he’s not just a piano player, he’s a person. That’s the goal with a magic show, to be a human. If you want to learn more about being a person on stage and not just tricks, check out Jon Armstrong’s Masterclass on Vanishing Inc. That master class is really great!
The middle show of the three city tour I did last week was a cabaret show. This show was themed, and the theme was “cults”. I don’t normally do themed stuff, but came up with a way to use cults to get into something that’s normally in my show.
The premise was that my wife and I like cult documentaries. Then I had a list of them, someone picked one and it matched a prediction and that led me into my cat routine.
One of the jokes that I wrote that my wife didn’t like, but I did anyway was the final cult was “blue oyster”. It got a great laugh in the show! I think the demographic of the audience that night really helped it play, and my wife wasn’t really who that joke was for.
It was fun to do a bit of writing for something I don’t normally do. I also kinda like the premise of cult documentaries and I think people relate to them as they’re popular now. I may try to play with the premise a bit more and see if I can come up with something that I can use in my normal show.
Last week I did a little three city tour, in two states over three days. I performed at a casino in Redding, CA, a cabaret in Seattle, WA and a comedy club in Spokane, WA.
The first show in California was a logistical challenge and it really shouldn’t have been. I flew into the Redding airport, however my flight was over 2 hours late, so when I arrived the rental car desk was closed. They said they’d honor my reservation for the next day, unfortunately I was only in town for something like 20 hours and didn’t need a car the next day.
The casino was about a $20 Lyft ride from the airport. After I got checked into my room, I remembered that I needed to go to the store for a couple of props (this is why I rent a car). The casino isn’t really near anything, and the closest store was about a $23 Lyft ride each way. I needed a bottle of juice and two bananas, so a $3-$4 purchase, but $50+ if I figured in the Lyft prices.
I just happened to notice a poster in the casino for their comedy night and comedy night was that night. It had their headliners listed for the month and I knew all of them…except for the headliner that night. Then luck stuck, I happened to walk by the comics as they were checking into their room and I chatted them up. We knew all the same people, and I managed to convince one of them to give me a ride to the Walmart for my props!
This is why you make friends with other performers and put out good energy into the world. You never know when you’ll need to lean on a network of people!
On Saturday I performed my show for a sold out audience at the Spokane Comedy Club! When I’m performing at on the road at a public show, I always try to reach out to the local magic club. The Spokane Magic Club turned out in force for the show! It was great having them in the audience.
These daytime shows are a lot of fun to do. Years ago when I was in my early 20’s I opened for Brad Upton at a lot of comedy gigs. At the time I was doing a lot of school assemblies during the day. Brad mentioned that being able to get paid to do entertainment during normal people’s workday was like finding gold. At the time, I didn’t realize how correct he was. As I’ve gotten older and when I’m home, I got to bed at 9pm, the later gigs are more work. I still love doing them, however these 4pm shows I’ve been doing at comedy clubs are great, I’m done by dinner time!
Here’s my 55+ minute show from Saturday in 44 seconds:
Another thing that’s fun is that these shows put kids into an environment that is normally just for adults. That gives these shows a special energy that you don’t get at a community center gig and leads to amazing shows!
When I was 17 years old I won a magic contest at a magic convention. I don’t remember if there was any cash in the prize, but there was a lot of magic donated from the dealers. One of the things that I got was Shimada’s Stevens Greater Magic VHS tape. That tape introduced me to magic Shimada. One of the acts that Shimada was famous for was his parasol act.
I’ve always thought that producing parasols looked great and better than a more modern umbrella. I think that people connect umbrellas with the self opening feature and less so with a more Asian parasol. Yes, I understand that umbrella and parasol mean the same thing, and intentionally using them to refer to different things.
Parasol productions are very cool, visual and fill the stage, however I don’t think most routines pass the “drive home test”. That’s were people in the audience talk about the tricks on the drive home. Parasols pack small and pop open and everyone knows that. That’s the weak spot in parasol productions.
OK, so I’ve wanted to do a parasol magic for years, but is doesn’t really fit my personality (and costuming). Then the other day I was at the store and saw some cocktail parasols. I bought a couple of packs of them and started playing with different ideas of things to do with them.
My airplane reading last week was On The High Wire by Philippe Petitt. While not magic, it’s about variety/circus arts which is relatable. I thought this going more of a biography, but it’s not it’s a technical manual for high wire walking!
By technical manual, there’s not a lot of specific and it teaches it in very general terms. It’s a very fun read. The way he talks about high wire walking, he’s clearly in love with it and that passion carries the book.
It got me wondering why there aren’t really magic biographies for the general public written as technical manuals that teach techniques in broad strokes. They wouldn’t have to really give away any specific secrets that would spoil any tricks. It’d be an interesting read if someone was able to write one. I’m nowhere near a good enough writer to do that.
I finally used MakePlayingCards.com to have a custom gimmicked deck made! I’ve used them in the past to get large size double blank cards, but those weren’t custom printed.
There wasn’t much from a design standpoint as I just used their standard card faces. This deck is a deck of double faced cards, but the back is all the same card. I had these made to do my version of something that Eric Stevens had shown recently at the NW Ring of Fire magic club.
The cards came out great, and I would totally use them again!
My core market is performing at state and county fairs across the USA. I do perform in a lot of other markets, but that’s the one that’s the biggest chunk of my income. Magicians and other performers frequently ask me how to get into fairs. Most fairs book at conventions, and here’s what a day looks like at a fair convention.
Get up and head to the coffee shop for breakfast and to do my morning writing and to get any work out of the way as I’m going to be busy until I go to bed. Then it’s a walk back to hotel to get changed and head to the convention center.
I’ll be exhibiting at the trade show as well as showcasing my act later in the day. I get the tradeshow floor early to chat with people and do some networking. You can get a lot of work from friends referring you for a gig because they’re unavailable, or from an unrelated act that a booker mentions they need a magician to.
The trade show was open 5 hours, so I spent most of that time talking to people and doing close up magic at the booth.
After a couple hours in the booth, I ran over to the showcase stage and did a 15 minute showcase.
After the showcase and briefly talking to people at the stage, I headed back to the booth to wrap up the tradeshow day doing close up magic. The trade show booth is immediately packed up once the trade show closes.
Now that the tradeshow day is over, I head back to the hotel room and freshen up before I head out for an evening of networking. This is where the real relationship building happens. I’m out around town meeting and hanging out with people. I normally just hang out and don’t do a lot of magic for people, but occasionally I do when it makes sense. Also when hanging out, many of the people who run fairs are my friends, so I’m chatting with friends and not always trying to sell my show.
Another thing that I like to do at these is find other magicians and jam with them.
Some performers think that jamming is a waste of time at these because you’re not out talking to bookers. I do it for a couple of reasons. First it shows bookers who are all around and see this know that I’m a MAGICIAN, not some dude that does a couple of magic tricks, and second I love jamming magic!
Then I go to bed, and get up and hop a flight home!
These conferences take place over several days and it’s exhausting, but also a lot of fun. I think they’re a great way to book shows, however they’re not necessarily the best way for everyone to book shows. Some people aren’t good in a trade show booth, or can’t nail their show every time at a showcase. Then there’s the financial consideration, these are expensive to go to, and without any sort of guarantee of a payout…and the gig won’t happen for months!
I love magic history, and learning where things I did come from. I’m still working through the JP Vallarino book and got to Vallarino’s Ambitious Card routine.
In it he mentions the first place that the Ambitious Card was publish. It was in a french book called Recueil de Tours de Physique Amusante. That title sounded familiar, so I went to my bookshelf and I have that book!
Unfortunately I can’t read french, so I can’t confirm it’s in there. It was cool to be reminded of a bit of history that lived on my shelf!
One thing that really annoys me with magicians is when they post on social media that, “someone should make a…” and they list a prop that they’d like. Usually the prop is pretty specific and probably doesn’t have a wide appeal and that’s why no one has mass produced it. Sometimes it’s a good idea that has mass appeal, but that’s the rarity.
My response when I see that is usually, “Why don’t you make it?” and I usually never get a meaningful response. That tells me that those people are lazy and really don’t want the prop. I’ve personally invested tons of time and money into ideas that I’ve had because I wanted the magic prop to become a reality.
A year ago my buddy Matt had his first kid and I wanted to get a baby book for them. I wanted to get a fun, faux kids book for him to read to the baby about conspiracy theories, but unfortunately no one had written one and it didn’t exist. The lack of something I wanted prompted us to write that book!
This book has a different conspiracy theory for each alphabet letter and an rhyming description of what the conspiracy theory is. It took about a year to write and work with the illustrator from when we started writing to today when the book is officially available for sale!
The easiest way to get one is on Amazon, however I will have a limited number of hardbacked books that will be autographed by Matt and me. You can order them direct here and get free USA shipping:
C is for Conspiracy: The ABC’s of Conspiracy Theories $25
If there’s something you want to exist, put the time in and make it a reality!
