It was bound to happen on this tour, yesterday I got my first K-12 school. These are really challenging because you essentially have two audiences, and the way they seat them, you really have two different sections you’re playing to. If they were mixed up, the energy from one group can carry over to the other, but now when the kindergarten to 6th grade is on the left and the 7th to 12th grade is on the right.
This is a situation where my thinking that no matter what, the trick has to be good is important. If you do a trick where the routine is a lot of fun, but the actual trick is just “meh”, the routine will ultimately fall flat. If the magic effect is strong, the routine will ultimately play better.
One thing that I do when I have shows like this where they are giving me groups that are over the age that the show was written for is that I give a little talk to the older kids. What I do is that I say, “This show was written for kindergarten to 6th grade. Stick with me, there will be some stuff you’ll like.” This addresses the elephant in the room. I also include the older kids in the tricks, which gets them invested early.
Hopefully, I won’t have many more groups like this.
-Louie
Category: Tricks
Battery Change Day
In the school assembly show that I’m doing, I have a few things that need batteries. The two Promystic Fux units, the media star remote, and the flic button. That’s in addition to two 5V battery packs, a wireless handheld mic with receiver, and the Bose S1Pro, but those get recharged daily. My show takes a lot of energy!
At the end of every week, I have a scheduled task to change the replaceable batteries of the Fluxes, media star remote, and flic button. It’s overkill; they should last the full month long run. However, changing the weekly only costs about $5 and gives me some peace of mind that they’ll always work.
The nice thing is that they are all redundant systems. The two Flux units back up each other and if the media star’s battery fails, I have the flic button and vice versa.
-Louie
BEKOS Smiley Face FTW!!
Right now, the only trick left in the school assembly that I didn’t really create is Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (Smiley Face Version). It’s the closing trick for the show, and it hasn’t been hitting all week, and I was going to cut it.
I rewrote the routine and took it from a different direction from the previous script, and it worked really well yesterday! The routine before was stuck with the theme and a loose “goodbye,” and I rewrote it as a heartfelt message. It isn’t a BS message that’s written to get a reaction; it’s something I truly believe in.
In one of the first shows that I did, the kids were seated in bleachers, and at the end of the trick, about 25 kids spontaneously stood up and cheered! It got an unprompted standing ovation from elementary school-aged kids!
I’m a fan of BEKOS (smiley face version)!
-Louie
Cutting Another Routine!
After the third day of shows for this school assembly tour, there are some changes that I’m making to the show. All of my shows today ran long, even after cutting out the egg bag routine!
The show’s set list was originally this:
- Ice Cream Routine: Spoon manipulation and ice cream to streamers.
- Post Card Across: Postcard Travels from one kid’s hand to another kid’s hand
- Torn and Restored Postcard
- Monopoly: There are 4 red buildings and 1 green house. Five kids each take one without me seeing who has what. I find the green house and reveal a prediction with the kid’s name who has the green house.
- Floating Rock: Zombie ball, but with a rock
- Egg Bag
- Appearing Golf Club
- Snake Trick: A snake eats a hole in a piece of paper
- Knots Off Silk: This is Jeff McBride’s BEKOS Smiley Face version
I know that feels like a lot of material, but several of those things are very quick tricks. For example, the floating rock is 55 seconds.
After cutting the egg bag yesterday, I’m going cut out the floating rock and the appearing golf club for today’s shows. I’m keeping the props for those routines in my case for the next few show days, just in case they’re needed.
The goal is to keep the show at 40-45 minutes. The show today was running at over 50 minutes.
-Louie
Any Card At Any Number
One of the days I was performing at the Moisture Festival, there was a delay in starting the show. The producers asked me if I could fill some time to keep the people in the theater occupied. I did my Any Card At Any Number (ACAAN). Here’s the full spot because there’s a joke that’s a callback and doesn’t make sense if you don’t see the beginning before the trick starts.
For me, ACAAN is a great stage trick; it’s solo with just me onstage, but it involves the audience, and it’s a good trick!
-Louie
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
A Toast to Nick Trost #3
In the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost there’s cool trick called Double Pinochle with an Elevator Finish. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:
It’s a nice change of four cards. What I don’t like about it is that it’s themed with the game of Pinochle, which isn’t as common as it was in the past.
Here’s what I came up with to update it:
The first change I made was for it to use four jokes, instead of two queens and two jokers. Then I used my Elmsley For Video move that allows you to show all four kings when you do the Elmsley Count and not have to show one card twice. Then procedurally, I needed to add a displacement so that I could get a clean display at the end, so I did a weird sort of top change off the bottom of the packet to the top of the deck.
Hope you like my changes
-Louie
Abbott’s Surrounded Livestock Vanish by Arturo
Thanks to the power of social media, I figured out what the magic prop that I found at a junk shop yesterday is!
It’s an Abbott’s Surrounded Livestock Vanish by Arturo!
After reading the description, I’m amazed that I pretty much nailed the handling of the box with my guess!
-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
Balloon Swallow Trick Idea…
I had an idea for the trick where the magician swallows a balloon animal. Let’s start with me saying this is something I’ll probably never do, simply because I don’t do the balloon swallow trick. I have several issues with it, one of which is that it really lacks an ending. This is my attempt to give it an ending.
After the magician swallows the balloon, they take an ice pick and jab it into their belly button. You hear a pop, and the magician pulls the deflated balloon out of their mouth.
That gives the routine a finish.
All you need is a Comedy Ice Pick and a Bingo Shooting Device. Glue the Bingo Shooting Device to the Comedy Ice Pick, and when you’re ready for the pop, set it off!
As far as I know, this ending is original to me; feel free to use it if you do the balloon swallow trick.
-Louie