In about a week, my season of performing magic shows at state and county fairs begins. The show transitions from indoor audiences to outdoor, transient audiences. These shows can be challenging and are very different from most indoor shows.
When performing at fairs, some of the challenges are:
-An audience that doesn’t necessarily arrive at start time, and won’t necessarily stay till the end. They’re leaving early or arriving late because they have/had other things to do, or be at.
-The weather that can beat up your props. Rain is bad for most props, but so is the sun! If you use your phone to play your music and it’s sitting in the sun, it will overheat!
-The wind, this is its own challenge, it comes out of nowhere and can ruin tricks, especially if you’ve got something hidden behind a silk!
-You’re competing with the noise of the rest of the fair, so it’s hard to have quiet moments in the show.
Despite all of these challenges, I love performing at fairs! It’s one of the few places where you can do a lot of shows every day and really polish material! Performing at fairs is where I developed my 6 R’s to Working on Your Show system for improving my show.
Every summer, I get multiple routines that go from an idea to a polished A level trick by performing at fairs!
-Louie
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