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
Tag: county fair magic show
The Pole!
One of the things that’s a challenge when performing at fairs is when there’s a visual obstruction right in front of the stage. A couple of weeks ago the fair I was performing at had a tent that the stage and audience seating was under, but it had a support pole directly in front of the stage.
Before I go any further, I will say that I will take an audience with shade and a visual obstruction over an audience in the sun with a clear view every day!
The challenge with the pole in front of the stage is that no matter what, someone’s view is going to be blocked. In my morning shows, which are slower, I pack everyone to one side of the audience and that solves the problem. Later in the day when it’s busier, that’s not really an option.
After years of trying to come up with ways to deal with this, I think I’ve finally figured out what to do with it. My solution is to accept that it’s there and simply do my show as if it’s not there. That’s really the only thing you can do. Once I mentally decide that the pole is part of my life for 45 minutes, it’s much easier for me to not pay attention to it and just do my show.
If you have a solution that works for you, let me know, I’d love to hear what you do!
-Louie