close up magic – MagicShow.Tips

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

Visiting Trick Supply’s Live Stream!

Yesterday I visited with Doug Conn on TrickSupply.com‘s live stream! You can watch it here:

It was a lot of fun to chat with Doug Conn about the Portland Magic Jam and what I’m up to!

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 3

The final day of last week’s Portland Magic Jam had the Paul Draper lecture. He does a choose your own lecture where the audience asks him to talk about things and he talks about what the audience requests.

Then there was a panel Q and A with all the weekend’s headliners.

Then David Kaye and I snuck out so I could take him for the most Portland lunch, which was eating at a food truck pod!

Then the weekend for me ended with the magic contest.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more pictures of the contest. There were a couple of extra charge workshops going on after the contest, but I had plans with my wife, so I couldn’t do any of them.

The weekend at the Portland Magic Jam was a ton of fun! I wish I could go to more of these, however, my performing schedule doesn’t let me.

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 2

The second day of the Portland Magic Jam (last weekend) was a lot of fun. The day started with Daniel Garcia‘s lecture, which was great! I’ve used his One Card index since I worked with him in November. It’s great, if you need a folded card index, it’s worth looking into!

The highlight of the convention for me was watching David Kay perform for a room of 75ish kids plus adults.

For someone that’s a “kids magician” his knowledge of comedy techniques goes way beyond 97% of children’s magicians that I’ve seen. There’s soo much that any performer can learn from watching his show!

Also, working with Paul Draper the night before was great, and Paul and I are working together this week in Seattle at the Moisture Festival.

The convention venue (Portland Airport Holiday Inn) was garbage. My room had blood on the blankets, which is great if you’re a vampire! They new a convention was coming in, but didn’t appropriately staff their restaurant for use. The first night the turn around time for food was crazy long. For the second night, I drove to Costco which was a couple miles down the street and bought a bunch of pizzas for all the hungry magicians!

Then the evening show was John Shyrock, Daniel Garcia, and Rhy Thomas. The show was great!

This is a solid day of magic and learning!

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam

Last weekend, the Portland Magic Jam happened. This is a fun, local magic convention in Portland, OR, with around 75 attendees. For me, this was a working convention, not just for fun. I was the MC for the Friday evening show. My show set list for the show:

When you’re MC, these things are always in a state of flux, and they will change, and they sure did! The show went from four acts to two! That drastically changes what I need to do. I had a recurring gag that works when they see me 4 times, but not when they only see me twice.

In addition to the Friday night show, I also had a dealer booth.

I was selling the magic products that I make, along with some of the magic stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. Having a dealer table really makes for long days at a magic convention; you really don’t get any time off, unless you want to skip lectures or shows.

-Louie

Portland Magic Jam – Day 1

The first day of the Portland Magic Jam started with the registration and dealer room being open. Then, a bit later David Kaye did a pre-lecture about what to look for in the show he was going to do the next day, which then would be followed by a post show breakdown of what we just saw.

I think that’s a great format if you’re going to do a show and then talk about it. One thing that I noticed is how much David knows about comedy. He’s a kid show guy, but all of the principles he talked about are for any age group!

Next was John Shyrock who also did a show/lecture. He did a 20 min close up show and then talked about it.

John does some really strong magic, and there’s a lot to learn from his use of music (even in a close up show). He brings a lot of bigger theatrical techniques to close up magic!

Then it was the evening show which was just three acts. I was the MC and did a spot along with Paul Draper and Richard Turner.

It’s had to do an MC spot on a small stage with no curtain, where a lot of equipment is being moved around. The spot I did was kind of a hybrid MC filling time and a scheduled spot.

The closing spot was Richard Turner doing close up tabled card magic.

To be 100% honest, I’m not sure how I felt about Richard Turner’s show. The card magic is great, but to me (this is my opinion), he really came off as a dirty old man the way he interacted with the two people onstage. The card magic was amazing, but his patter is from a different era, that’s not a modern style, especially for a town like Portland.

After the show, it was hang out time!

The late-night stuff is where all of the fun, weird, amazing magic happens! Also with this convention taking place at an airport hotel, there were some people who missed a connection at the airport and ended seeing some crazy magic tricks! I think it made their delay much more fun!

-Louie

A Toast to Nick Trost #2

Here’s the second trick in the book The Card Magic of Nick Trost. The Seven Card Trick is a “repeat” style magic effect, where you keep taking away a card, but still have the same amount. Here’s what the trick looks like as written:

And here’s my update with my thoughts on why I made the changes that I did:

Ultimately, the challenge with any “repeat” trick is the ending. I used to have a trick called Whiplash where a six card repeat was followed by a six bill repeat, then ended with the six bills turning into six cards, which gave it an ending.

With the 7 Card trick, or in the updated 4 card trick, the ending with just one card gave it a different moment. I had an idea that I like more than just ending with one card. Here’s what happens, you have one card, and you tear it into four pieces. You count the four pieces, and they are five! You then toss away one of the pieces, and when you go to count them again, the card has been restored!

-Louie

Dice Cup Chop Cups!

It’s been a while since I’ve made any chop cups, and yesterday I made a batch of dice cup chop cups. I made these to take to the Portland Magic Jam this weekend.

Internally, there’s not much to it, it’s a magnet in a cup. I 3D print a magnet puck, and cover it with the same material that lines the cup.

Then I make a set of chopped dice, so one is regular, and the other has a magnet load.

I’m going to package these with an 8 Ball for the final load and sell them as a set. If I have any left after the Portland Magic Jam, I’ll offer them for sale here.

-Louie

A Toast To Nick Trost #1

Here’s the first videos of what I’m calling A Toast To Nick Trost. These are videos where I do a trick from The Card Magic of Nick Trost as written, and then I do a variation of the trick that I’ve come up with. Usually this is just adding a move or theme that didn’t exist when Nick came up with the trick.

Here’s Nick’s Observation Test:

And here’s my updated version of the trick:

Here’s a quick tutorial of my version:

I think what I like about my update is the final display of the cards face up, then flipping the cards face down to reveal the color change!

-Louie