magic club – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Magic Clubs…

Tonight is my local magic club’s monthly meeting, and I’ll be there. In the USA club attendance is down for pretty much any type of club, not just magic. I think the internet and all of it’s groups have created a sense of community, without ever actually meeting someone.

For me as a kid learning magic, my local magic club helped me out a lot…mostly. It gave me a place to see people who were better than me, and learn from them. I know, you can do it on the internet, however I don’t think the same. Maybe from a technical level, but not a human level.

Magic clubs in retrospect also have given me a lot of bad advice…but so does learning from the internet. I think that’s part of the learning process, learning that some people love to tell you how to do it, when they don’t know. You need to realize who they are and unfortunately you don’t really realize it until you grow beyond them.

Personally I try to go to the magic club because I love magic. I also try to give back to a system that helped me a lot!

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about his before, and I’ll say it again, we live in an amazing time to be magicians. You can watch videos of old master magicians perform, or the new upcoming magicians on YouTube. You can stream a magic lecture from your favorite magician without leaving your couch.

While all of this is great, I also thing an important part of being a good magician is “jamming” with other magicians. Not just demonstrating tricks, but playing with magic. When you play and start “riffing” with tricks, some amazing stuff happens!

Go out to your local magic club, meet some people and start jamming, you never know when you’ll stumble upon the next big magic trick!

Local Magicians…

Last night I was at a comedy show and one of the comedians asked me if I knew a local magician. I said yes, and they had mentioned they were chatting with them earlier today. One thing that came up was the magician said they had a hard time with the local magic crowd. Right … Continue reading “Local Magicians…”

Right now in the Seattle area we have a pretty active magic scene. There are three national magic clubs, then a weekly magic meet up that’s not affiliated with any club. In addition to that there are a couple of monthly “magic open mic” type shows.

The magician that thinks the local crowd doesn’t support them, doesn’t go to any of these magic clubs or hangouts. This magician frequently tries to get other magicians to hang out, HOWEVER it’s done in this way, “Let’s hang out. Come to my show on Thursday, and we’ll hang out afterward“, and then there’s a link to buy tickets.

If you want to meet the other local magicians, why not come out to one of the eight magic events that happen each month. The whole “buy a ticket to my show to hang out with me” thing makes me not want to hang out with this magician.

There are a lot of local magicians who have worked hard at building a magic community in Seattle, one that doesn’t require buying a ticket to a show. In fact all of them have a component that’s free (i.e. you could attend and never pay a dime).

The moral of the story is when you support the magic community, it will support you.

Magic Clubs and Newer Magicians…

I love magic, and I love supporting magic. I support magic wherever I go, by going to see shows, visiting magic clubs, visiting with magicians, and doing good magic. One thing that gets me about magic clubs is a lot of the “old guard” are so set in their ways they can’t see past their … Continue reading “Magic Clubs and Newer Magicians…”

I love magic, and I love supporting magic. I support magic wherever I go, by going to see shows, visiting magic clubs, visiting with magicians, and doing good magic.

One thing that gets me about magic clubs is a lot of the “old guard” are so set in their ways they can’t see past their own biases. This isn’t good for people newer into magic. Frequently at one of the magic clubs in my area (there are three) when someone does a card trick an older magician will say “oh god, another card trick…” outloud for every one to hear.

This isn’t good for magic. People get into magic for a lot of reasons, and to tell them their reason is wrong hurts magic. It makes it less welcoming for new people.

Also, the advice that is given to newer magicians is horrible. One of the worst pieces of advice when someone tries something new is, “stick to the classics, they are classics for a reason…” Whenever I hear that I want to ask them to take out their phone and tell me what kind of music is on it…is it classical? Do they use a Acomputer…or stone a chisel (the classic method)?

Jim Steinmeyer wrote an awesome book called, Allow Me To Give You Some Really Awful Advice.

This book should be required reading for all leadership and pretty much anyone giving advice about magic at a magic club. They should also read Joshua Jay’s article from Magic Magazine called What Do Audiences Really Think.

Jim and Joshua’s writings confirm and back up with data why 90% of advice given at most magic clubs is wrong. Magicians need to be out there doing what they love, and innovating, not living in the 1970’s. We also need to be positive to newer magicians and tell them what they are doing right, not what we like or don’t like.