| Tips for Travelling With Your Show! My “summer season” started early with a 10 day outdoor fair in Southern California in February. Normally my outdoor season doesn’t start until March or April, so I’m out working on my tan early! Amazon Lockers: Most cities have Amazon lockers and they can be a lifesaver if you’re flying to a gig or staying at an AirBnB. Amazon Lockers are around town at things like gas stations and grocery stores. You can order things to be delivered to them the day before you get into town and everything will be waiting for you. No more running around to stores to get things you don’t fly with. For example, I’m at a 10 day gig, and will use probably 20 decks of cards. I don’t want to fly with them, it’s too much weight, so I simply ordered two bricks of cards to an Amazon Locker and they were there waiting for me. Cash: I always try to have $100 on me at all times for emergencies. That will get me to the next gas station and it’s handy just pay cash for your portion of dinner if you go out with other people. I also try to have five $20’s as it’s more versatile than a single one hundred dollar bill. AirTags: These are GPS trackers that work with iPhones (there’s an Android equivalent). It’s always nice to know that my show that’s checked luggage made it on the plane! |
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| Roadside America: This is an iPhone app and website that has all sorts of quirky and unusual things around the USA (and a little bit of Canada). It’ll help you find cool things in to see or do in the area you’re performing in. Magic Clubs: When I travel to cities I look up local magic clubs and try to visit them. You can find lists of them on the S.A.M and I.B.M. websites. AreoPress: This is a small little gadget that makes great coffee and is easy to travel with! All you need is ground coffee and hot water. No more gross hotel coffee! Hope there’s a tip in there that makes travelling with you show a little more fun! -Louie |
Tag: magic show tips
3D Printing Magic
I can’t imagine life without my 3D printer! There’s many props that would have neve seen the light of day without it. Right now I’m working on a batch of my Take Up Reels.
These are the the first lock of the Take Up Reel that locks the string long. These would have been impossible to make without a 3D printer, or at least impossible to have at a reasonable price!
If you haven’t played with 3D printing, you can play with design software and try to make something without having a 3d printer. Websites like Tinkercad.com are easy to use. If you’ve never played with making your own designs, go to one of these sight and play with them, you’ll be surprised at what you can make!
-Louie
Familiar Feeling and Crushing It!
What a difference a day makes!
On Saturday and Sunday I was struggling with my show at a venue that was very different from what I perform at. Then on Monday, I was performing at a convention for 550 people and the whole show felt really natural and easy.
Honestly, there’s a lot to be said about performing in a venue you’re used to. By venue, I really mean that the audience was seated for a show, versus a transient, standing audience who weren’t planning on watching a show.
You should always challenge yourself and try venues and situations that you don’t normally perform in. It makes you a better performer, or at least a more knowledgeable one. Know why your show doesn’t work is as important as knowing why your show works.
-Louie
Linking Ring Parade
Well, it looks like my fourth Linking Ring Parade came out this month!
I’ve only seen this online, I haven’t gotten the physical magazine yet. If you’re an International Brotherhood of Magician’s member check it out!
Louie
Sharing a PA!
One of the things that I do when I share a PA with other performers and there’s no official sound person is take a picture of my settings.
This allows me to turn my channels down when I’m not performing. That way I don’t need to worry about something getting on my mic’s wireless channel or my music getting bumped and playing.
Turning down or muting any active channels you’re using is a courtesy for other acts you’re working with. It’s easy to do and if you take a pic, that pic is reliable to reset you audio.
– Louie
Brent Fiasco
Last weekend I was working at an Oddities Expo with Brent Fiasco. Brent crushed his shows and does a great street style show. He does a solid crowd built, and a great job of uniting the audience.
In his 30 min set, he does four routines. He does three routines in the first 12 minutes and one in the last 18 minutes. The show does a good job of building the crowd in the first three routines and then selling the “big trick” and prolonging it as long as possible in the last 18 minutes.
Brent’s show is a great lesson in how to structure a street show and he also does a great job of living in the moment. If you get the chance, his show work worth checking out!
-Louie
Standing Audience
This weekend I’m working at an oddities expo in Phoenix, AZ. I did one of these last year in Michigan and with this one being my second one, I’m viewing it with a different lens than my first one.
The first challenge is that the audience is standing, there’s no seating for them. Here’s my view from the stage before the expo opened.
With no seating, getting audience members to commit to the show is very different than if they were seated. This is really street performing on a stage, versus a stage show.
In the last year I’ve been transitioning my show to be more of a theater style show, so this was a challenge for me material wise. Each show the first day I made some changes and it’s gotten better, but it’s still got a long way to go to hit hard for this situation.
I’d love to say how hard I killed, but I didn’t, I’m doing OK and treading water. If I did more than one of these events a year, I’d probably get way better at it, but with only one, improving the show for the venue is slow and difficult.
Today I’ll be better than yesterday.
– Louie
Cards for Color Changing Card Backs
When I was buying some props at a Walmart I came across the Nertz game that is put out by Bicycle. It’s got different colors of the rider back cards. These would be great for making color changing card tricks. The only downside is that these appear to only come in jumbo index.
and a funny little thing that I noticed is on the back it lists all the colors and which ones are new. It lists red as a new color?!
If you’re working on a color changing card effect, I think it’s worth it to pick up a pack of these!
-Louie
Will Goldston Magic Books
I’m going though stuff that I have and on my shelf I have a really cool set of Will Goldston Magic Books. These are the Locked Book Series where the first three originally came with a leather binding with a lock on it. Unfortunately most of the copies that have their original bindings are in rough condition and usually the lock is unattached.
The set I have are numbered first editions and have been rebound and it’s previous owner was John Pomeroy who owned GEM Magic.
I mentioned the previous owner to David Charvet and he said he thinks that Pomeroy put the new covers on them himself!
This is a cool set of books and they’re available as reprints that you can find on Amazon. They’re worth looking into!
– Louie
Hook For the Giant Linking Pins
One of the things that I’m trying to figure out for the Giant Linking Pin / Thumb Tie routine that I’m working on is what is the presentation hook. It’s the why am I showing this to the audience. This is usually the hardest piece of the puzzle to figure out when creating a routine.
I’d been doing it as “the first trick I ever learned“, but artistically, that’s pretty lazy. That premise is a good placeholder to get the routine onstage, but it’s now a good long term one (usually).
It hit me the other night, I personally have a needle phobia (in a medical setting). I could use that as the hook by saying that I did “exposure therapy” starting with carrying around safety pins in my pocket and eventually moved up to the giant pins. That tells the audience something real about me, and gets an unusual prop (the giant safety pins) into play.
I need to play with it more, but I think it’s a good idea…
-Louie