Pictures – Page 51 – MagicShow.Tips

A Day Booking Fairs

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!

-Louie

The First Ambitious Card

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!

-Louie

Bring it into the World!

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!

The book is called C is for Conspiracy: The ABC’s of Conspiracy Theories !

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:

[wp_cart_button name=”C is for Conspiracy book signed” price=”25″]

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!

-Louie

Flag Magic Done Bad

One thing that drives me nuts is how performers use and treat the US flag in their show. I’m not the most patriotic person in the world, however one thing that stuck with me from school as a kid is when we learned about the US Flag Code. The Flag Code are rules that define the US flag, but also how to display and handle it. Once you learn it, you’ll see violations everywhere from flags hung backwards at the grocery store, to displayed on vehicles wrong (FYI, flying it from the middle of the tailgate of your pickup truck is incorrect).

Now let’s get to performers using flags. If you do the bag you put silks into and then that turns into the flag, technically you’re violating:

§ 8 (h) The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

However using the flag as a receptacle isn’t seen to the audience, but does that make it right?

If you do mismade flag, its it neatly folded before you load it into the change bag, or do you stuff it in there? And then at the end of the trick, what do you do with the flag? If you put it in your case, do you make sure no other props get set on it?

A few months ago I worked with a band who had a flag hung from their singer’s mic stand.

Unfortunately the flag is hung upside down! This is a big NO NO for hanging the flag. There’s a very specific reason to hand a flag upside down and it is:
§ 8 (a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

If you use a US flag in your show, you should read and know the US Flag Code and follow it!

-Louie

Gimmicking Post Cards

I do a card trick that I call “choices” where the audience narrows down cards by eliminating them until there is one card left and that matched a prediction that I have made. The overall presentation is about me making bad choices in life, and honestly from a presentation standpoint doesn’t need to be a card trick, it could literally be anything that’s narrowed down.

Since it doesn’t need to be playing cards, I was trying to think of what I could replace them with and decided to use postcards.

You can read more about the postcards on a previous blog post here.

By switching props from jumbo cards to slightly smaller postcards I can add an additional way to show the postcards all to be different. I should note this routine at its bones is essentially Al Koran’s 5 Star Miracle. One of the things that I added to the postcards was to cut them short, so I can do a riffle display to show them all different.

This little bit allows me to show them a bit more freely. The postcards are soo visually different that if I spread them all in a face, I think the repeating pattern would be more obvious than with playing cards.

Now I need to make a choice and figure out if I want to keep the presentation as is, or try to write something new.

-Louie

The Case Against Classics

If you know me, you know I don’t believe the theory that you should do classic magic tricks because, “classics are classics for a reason“. You should do classic tricks like linking rings or whatever because they have a purpose in your show.

I do believe that as a beginner, learning and doing those trick has a purpose. However as you grow, you should grow out of them, or create a reason why they’re in your show.

When I was reading Psychology of Magic: From Lab To Stage, this paragraph stuck out to me:

Audiences are smart, and contrary to a lot of “advice” many have seen a lot of magic on TV and social media. With shows like Fool Us and America’s Got Talent, your typical audience has seen stuff and you just banging out the linking rings because “it gets a reaction” doesn’t cut it anymore.

If you’re doing a classic, figure out how to give it purpose in your show to move the story of you further and not because it fills time.

-Louie

Creative Problem Solving at the Gig!

One of the holiday parties I did this month was a HUGE event with 1,600 people. One thing the event planner didn’t give me was any sort of credentials to get in and out of the building once the event started. I honestly didn’t think about it until after my roving set and I was going to move that gear and clothes to my car to make packing out after the show quicker.

Luckily the green room was for all the “vendors” and I happened to be chatting with someone from the security company. I asked if the security at the parking lot door would let me back in and he said no. His suggestion was to call the event planner and ask for a lanyard. With the event underway and an event this large (it took up two floors of the convention center!) they last thing I want to do is bug the event planner for a lanyard/badge. They’re probably dealing with a lot of problems, like catering issues or whatever.

Here’s the solution I came up with. I learned that the security company was all retired cops and they all knew each other. I took a picture with the guy I was chatting with and got his name and number.

When I tired to get back into the building I was stopped by security how pressed me about me not having a lanyard with a badge. I showed them the picture and told them to call Jeff and he’d vouch for me. As soon as they saw the picture, they let me in!

Sure, asking the event planner for a badge is 100% reasonable. However I try to be easy to work with and minor problems myself. That’s a big secret to success in entertainment, be easy to work!

-Louie

Smile Harder!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do show wearing a mask, but recently did one!

This was a show at a senior assisted living facility and many still have mask policies, however most allow you to take it off while performing. This show didn’t allow me to take it off during the show.

Performing while masked makes connecting with the audience soo much harder! One thing that I do is I smile soo much bigger than I would do in a normal show. People can tell when you’re smiling while wearing a mask, but you need to smile BIG to have it play further back.

Also the show that I do at senior facilities can be done as a “no contact” show with no audience volunteers onstage or handling any props. This is a good option to have for your senior show as its not always an option to bring people onstage.

-Louie

When The Stage is the Floor

A common thing when performing in ballrooms is that your performing area is the floor. For whatever reason there is no stage, or the stage is unusable. Working on the floor is like performing standing in a hole. Pretty much anything held below your armpits can’t been seen by the second row.

Here’s my “stage” from a recent gig:

To add some height to my show I travel with a folding stool.

I stand on the stool for a lot of parts of the show to elevate me to make my hand held props much more visible. It also makes ME much more visible to the audience and makes it easier to connect with them as I can look them in the eyes.

A folding stool is cheap and easy to travel with. Get one, put it in the trunk of your car and you’ll always have it ready to go!

-Louie

My Favorite Deck of Cards!

My favorite deck of cards are the old Cincinnati, OH Bicycle Cards. They moved to Kentucky in 2009, so these cards having been made in almost 15 years! As I travel I visit junk shops and whenever I find these unopened or decks with the seals intact, I buy them.

Here’s my current hoard of them!

I don’t use these cards for shows, I use them as my person practice/fun decks.

When I find something I like, I stock up on them!

-Louie