Another batch of Applause Please 2: The Encore will be ready soon! This is the prop that I use for the object in light bulb effect. Traditionally this effect uses a lamp onstage, but I’ve changed that lamp to an applause sign!
I don’t have these in stock all the time as the outer applause box I don’t make, Phil over at Ackerly Builds currently makes them for me. That means that I get them in batches of about a dozen and those are then all gimmicked at the same time and offered for sale at the same time and usually sell out pretty quickly.
One of the challenges working as a magician is that it can be a very solitary experience. You travel alone and frequently perform alone. The other night I got to work with Brian Ledbetter, who I’ve known for years. It was great to BS in the green room.
In my off seaon (not summer) I’m usually working by myself, so this was a nice change. Gigs with friends are the best and I look forward to them!
Sometimes I have an idea and I have no idea what an audience will think of it. That’s where open mics come in! I simply drove down to an open mic and gave the idea a try in front of real people.
My idea was for the card to pocket routine that I used to do. The second time the card goes to my pocket I wanted smoke to come out of my pocket, then reach in and pull the card out.
The smoke was easy, as a while ago I picked up a remote control smoke gimmick. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but knew if I didn’t get it that I’d come up with a cool idea for it and wouldn’t be able to find them. I just taped it inside of my pocket . When I tried it, it got the reaction I was looking for! It made the appearance of the card more of a moment.
If you have an idea that needs an audience, go find an open mic and give it a try!
A few days ago we went to see my secret favorite Christmas movie, which is Love Actually. This was at the Oregon Symphony and they played the music to the movie. This is a popular trend with movies like Harry Potter or Jurassic Park and it brings a lot of people out to see the symphony who might not normally go.
The problem is that there’s a lot of uneducated people about the etiquette for live shows. The big one for this was at the end of the movie. The movie ended and the symphony plays through the end of the credits. However once the credits started, about 1/3 of the audience got up and left while the symphony was still paying.
This was super disrespectful as the performance was still happening. I understand that there’s a certain muscle memory that you leave when the credits start if you’re at a movie theater. However the symphony was still actively playing.
It’s like someone leaving your magic show halfway through your closer to beat traffic. Honestly I felt really bad for the symphony. When the credits finished they remaining audience applauded them.
How does this relate to a magic show? Well, a lot of people have never been to a live show and don’t know the etiquette. You need to teach them. This can be done in several ways, with preshow announcements, during your show or whatever.
You need to let them know your expectations. You can’t expect people to not record your show if you don’t tell them not to.
Once a month I pop into popular online market places like eBay to see if there are any counterfeit or knock off products of mine. It’s been a while since one has been on eBay, but one recently popped up.
This particular eBay listing violated two parts of my registered intellectual property. The first was in the description it used my ad copy, which I registered with the US Copyright office.
Sites like eBay or AliExpress will pull stuff faster and 100% of the time (at least in my experience) when you have a registration number. I filed a copyright claim with eBay, which is super simple and takes less than 5 minutes.
Within about 48 hours I got an email from eBay confirming the item was removed!
Super simple, I’m surprised more magicians don’t file their ad copy and art with the US Copyright Office. It costs about $70 to file it and get your registration number.
Oh, the second way that this listing was violating my intellectual property was that “Louie Foxx” is trademarked, so the listing was violating my trademark. I could have included this violation with the copyright claim but didn’t. I like to save that one in case the item pops back up with different text, but still uses my name in the title or anywhere in the listing. I can get them a second strike for violating IP.
There’s a levitation illusion going around, and there’s something I don’t like about it. Before I go any further, the illusion is fine, there’s just a visual thing that I don’t like. If you can get past this, than it’s a great trick.
Here’s the style of levitation, I think the two pics below are different makers.
What I dislike is the cloth wrapped around the person floating. Specifically how it dangles on the end. This is also my issue with most chair suspension routines. The cloth really serves no purpose, aside from hiding the method.
I get that you can justify the cloth as it’s a magic cloth that makes people float…but then why isn’t all of the cloth floating and some of it dangling?
Yes, most levitations of a human have do deal with gravity. In my opinion the dangling of the hair and dress make the illusion look better visually. Where the cloth wrap doesn’t look anywhere are good as the person uncovered.
I understand that it’s not real magic, and you have to make concessions to hide the method. That’s a valid artistic choice, to have a purpose in your show for a levitation and due to venue limitations you need to use a method that you might not like to move the show forward.
Personally for me, I’d save the levitation for a theater where it can be done without the trade off of having to wrap the person with a cloth.
While I was on the road in Oklahoma last week, I flew in a day early to drive a couple hours to visit a fair that some friends were performing at.
To my surprise, there was also a magic show at the fair.
I don’t know Pat and Tess, but watched the show. It was interesting, it was a 20 minute show and about 6 minutes of that was a merch pitch. I don’t know how I feel about that. Sometimes what is seen as the audience lacks knowledge of whatever financial deal is happening behind the scene and the pitch being 1/4 of the is the deal that was made with the booker.
The show was a quick change act, then the multiplying bottles, the product pitch (activity book and Squirmel) and then juggling. In the show I saw Pat had a lot of drops. At the end of the show, I was going to go up and say hi and introduce myself, however he was onstage re-running the juggling stuff to work out why he was dropped. That’s the mark of a pro! He didn’t just accept the drops, the tried to fix them. That really impressed me!
I’ve been doing my version of the Multiplying Coin Tray for a while now. I call it the Bodega Coin Tray. It’s gone though some tweaks over time with the design of the tray, but am loving the current version!
The full routine starts with a four penny trick, that has a few phases to it. Then I do the coins to spectator’s hands. It’s a great sequence and using the tray that looks like a “need a penny” try from a corner store allows me to get the tray into the routine with a joke. Then doing tricks where the tray isn’t the method takes heat off of the tray when I use it for the method.
I have an introductory price on these now through the end of september 2024. The normal price will be $25, but I’m offering them at $20 right now, with free shipping in the USA!
While I don’t do a ton of shows at senior communities anymore, I still do a fair amount of them. Here’s one from last week, you’ll notice that I’m now using projection in these shows.
I have a very simple set up and don’t ask for it, but if they have a TV or projector in the room, I use it!
The two tricks that I specifically use the projector for at: The Russian Shell Game That Way More (my version of the ambitious card)
Both of these routines are interactive, in that they aren’t tricks that the audience just watches. They are involved in some level of the trick. For me, I think that it’s important when doing things that can only be seen with projection is to have an interactive component to the routine. That’s my style, not everyone is like that.
That said, I’m really liking my video set up, it’s small and easy to travel with!
-Louie PS if you want to learn more about performing for senior communities, check out my book: How To Perform For Seniors
I finally broke down and bought a box of the NERTZ game playing cards that Bicycle puts out.
They’re $24.97 and you get six deck of cards, each is a different color.
What I don’t like about these is they’re jumbo index and not regular index cards.
I’m going to try to come up with a trick that uses these cards. I’m trying to avoid coming up with a packet trick where the payoff is the cards aren’t red or blue.
