MagicShow.Tips – Page 149 – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Senior Show Set Up…

Yesterday I took a quick break from performing on the fair circuit and did a senior show. This was a “monthly activity” for seniors at a retirement community. Most of these places need entertainment and host multiple entertainers a month to perform at things like monthly birthdays, holidays, etc.

If you’d like more info on performing senior shows check out my book How To Perform For Seniors which teaches you how to market and perform shows at these communities.

My current 40-45 minute show fits into the black case, which is briefcase sized.

The yellow case is my audio gear.

The show was put together to visually fill a little bit of space and not look like I’m just using flat handheld props that were selected because they easily fit into a briefcase.

The nice thing about this show is that it can be done using people from the audience, and it can also be done “no contact”, so no one from the audience joins me on the stage or handles any props.

Aside from any COVID restrictions, the no contact option is handy as sometimes you’ll have a less mobile group and it’s not easy to have people join you on stage. Having them interact from their seats is good, however if you physically go to them in the back row, a lot of the audience can’t see what’s happening. When you talk to them from the stage and the magic still happens onstage the whole audience can see what’s going on.

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – Just Felice

In this episode of the Moisture Festival Podcast we triangulate locations over zoom and welcome in Just Felice. We learn about how she got started in magic, how she wrote her thesis on street performing and how that inspired her to start doing street shows herself.

We also learn about how she uses her comedy to turn stereotypes on it’s head and what inspired her to take that approach. She also teaches us what an Ethnographer is and how to pronounce it. A great conversation with a great mind in the performing world.

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Magic Mondays!

Last week I was in town for a hot second and apparently had agreed to perform at Magic Mondays in Seattle.

This is a cool magic open magic that’s been going on for over 25 years! The show is fun, but the real fun is hanging out afterwards!

One of the new guys (Bohdi) did a fun mismade torn and restored card:

And some magic jamming!

It still baffles me when magicians say they don’t hang out with magicians. There’s soo much you can learn, and it’s fun to hang out!

-Louie

Move the Monitors!

Normally when I perform on a stage, I have the monitors moved, so the front of the stage is clear. That gives me more real estate to perform on at the front of the stage and it also removes a physical barrier between the audience and me. Last week while performing at a fair I was watching the bands that I shared the stage with and realized how much better the stage looks without the monitors.

Here’s a band with the monitors on stage:

I think audiences are used to seeing monitors onstage. However once you remove them, it looks soo much cleaner!

The two bands without monitors were using “in ears” monitors. I don’t think they are right for most magic acts but using them to eliminate the monitors for a band looks great. It also gives the performer a more powerful position onstage with no physical barriers between them and the audience.

If your stage has monitors, you can ask to have them moved…if you don’t need them.

-Louie

Ace Production…

I’m cleaning out videos from my laptop and found a video from last year’s Abbott’s Magic Get Together. I was hanging out at “the Legion” and some teenagers weren’t familiar with Paul Harris, so I showed them one of my favorite Paul Harris tricks!

It’s such a great ace production, unfortunately I don’t remember the name of it. Here’s a video of Paul doing it on The Magic Palace:

There’s a lot of gold in the Paul Harris books and there’s a rumor of a new one coming out…
-Louie

Making it Rain!

Performing as many shows as I do around the country at all sorts of different venues you encounter a lot of things. I just had a new one, it was a gorgeous sunny morning, but it was raining onstage!

What had happened was it was really dewey this morning and moisture had collected on the underside of the stage’s canopy. The top edge of the canopy wasn’t pulled very tight, so it had little valleys the water could pool on and form droplets that fell down on me during during my show.

It was the strangest thing because the audience really couldn’t see this, so it was something that I had to deal with. I did mention it to the audience, so that they were aware of it. That was it didn’t look strange when I pulled out wet props!

I did have to move things around to keep more water sensitive things dry. For example my notebooks (svenpads) I put another prop over to keep them dry.

This is a case of be ready for anything that can happen when performing. You never know what you’ll be walking into!

-Louie

Turn it up to 11!

Last week while doing my sound check, I had the sound guy ask me to turn up the volume on my handheld mic.

This is a scenario where knowing your gear comes in handy. This was a Shure SM58, which is a very standard microphone and 99% of handheld mics don’t have volume knobs.

I asked the sound guy for clarity, that he was referring to the corded handheld I was holding. He said yes, and repeated that I should turn up the volume on it. I told him I was unaware corded handheld mics had a volume knob and didn’t know how to adjust it, and he’d have to show me. At that point, somehow he magically made the sound go up using only his soundboard.

The whole week ended up being a struggle with this sound company. From them wanting to sound check a band 10 minutes before my show after I had already starting to my “talk up” for crowd building, to them telling me my gear was bad when it ultimately was their snake that had bad inputs.

The moral of the story is to not let anyone push you around, and know your gear, so that you know how it works, why it works and that will usually give you a clue as to why it’s not working when it doesn’t.

-Louie

Fair Sizzle Reel

One of the things I’ve started doing to “add value” for the fairs that book me is to make little sizzle reels of me performing at the fair.

Here’s this weeks video:

You’ll see me do my version of Sticker Kicker in this video. I’m still working out the flow of the trick. I like it and it’s such a strange visual when you peel the back off of the card. I really like it!

-Louie

Sticker Kicker

When I was at FISM, I didn’t buy much at the dealer room (compared to some people I know). One of the things I picked up from the FISM booth was Sticker Kicker by Jamie Williams.

This is a fun little trick where a sticker stuck to the back of a card becomes the card, and the back of the card becomes a sticker.

Here’s the promo video for it:

I have a slightly different idea for how I want to use it. It will be a later phase in a card routine. However this led me to another idea. I have a pack of Card Stickers. These are simply stickers that are the face of playing cards that are poker size. In theory I can put them onto the face of a blank face card. Then at the end of the routine, I could peel the face off the card and put it into a notebook full of other people’s card stickers.

I think that’d be a fun and strange ending to a routine with a signed card. Also as a bonus, I’m going to imagine it will act like a thick card as well.

-Louie

New Birds!

I’ve finally had a chance to add my new Silk Parakeets to my vanishing bird cage. Sometimes when I’m on the road, I can find time to get things done!
Here’s the old set up:

Here’s the new bird in the cage:

With the new bird, I don’t think I’ll need to attach it to a finger tip as it’s larger and easier to grab from my pocket at the end of the routine.

-Louie