magic show tips – Page 61

Improvised Storage!

This week the stage I’m performing on has a dressing area off to the side of it. I’ve been using it as storage for my show props overnight. I don’t just leave my props set up overnight because the dressing area is a tent. I pack the show back up, but leave the cases in the dressing area.

Since the fair is still open after I’m finished for the day, and no one is really patrolling the dressing area when the fair is closed, I lock up my gear.

I’m using a bicycle cable to lock my gear to one of the tent posts. Sure, someone could probably cut the cables or locks, but I’m guessing the average person doesn’t bring cable cutters to the fair!

This gives me a bit of peace of mind and keeps me from having to lug my gear across the fairground at the beginning and end of day.

-Louie

Getting Better With Anverdi Color Match

Well, it looks like a few things are starting to come together with using the Anverdi Color Match! The last few days I’ve had 100% success rate with all the pens giving me a signal.

One of the things that I have changed is what I tell the person from the audience to get them to exaggerate their initial motion with the pen. I tell the to, “Take a pen, hold it up and show it to the audience“. That seems to get them to make a larger motion that’s more reliably triggering the pen.

I do need to rewatch the instructional video, I seem to remember seeing something about the receiver being able to tell you if a pen is low on batteries. I could be remembering wrong, but hope that’s a feature that exists!

-Louie

Anverdi Success Rate…

The Anverdi Color Match set is something I’m still trying to make work. I’m still at about 70% failure rate, where at least one pen doesn’t send a signal. This isn’t the end of the world, as I can still figure out what they colored where, but definitely not the ideal situation.

There seems to be no consistency as to when color fails. If it was only one color failing, that’s not a huge deal as I can make an educated guess. Right now I can’t, as it seems pretty random.

In an attempt to make this work, I bought a second Anverdi Color Match set. The idea will be to put two sets of the gimmicks into each pen. I probably can’t use the pens that come with the set, however I bought a refill pen set to see if I can alter the ink cartridge a little bit to make room for a second gimmick.

Having some redundancy will give me some piece of mind…if it works!

-Louie

Notes From a Fellow Traveller by Derren Brown

A while ago I ordered Derren Brown‘s book Notes From a Fellow Traveller and its finally shipped!

derren brown notes from a fellow traveller

I’m super excited to get this book, I’m a huge fan of Derren’s and from what I’ve heard from people who have already gotten their books, it that it’s a great book.

-Louie

Vanishing Bird Cage on the News

Here’s one of the short media spots that I recently did. For the short spot, I decided to do the vanishing bird cage.

@louiefoxx Parakeet Trick on the News! #birdtricks #parakeet #birdcage #magictrick #kgw8 #magician #washingtoncountyfair #bigfairfun #louiefoxx #disappear #drewcarney ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

The nice thing about this trick is that it’s really visual, and doesn’t require really any explanation. For something like a pick a card type trick, there’s a lot of explanation and process that needs to happen before the magic. With these news spots, they say you have a minute or whatever, but in reality you may have a lot less!

-Louie

Doing Media

Frequently I have to perform for news or morning shows to promote my shows at public gigs. They can be challenging. The last fair I was at they had me do two morning news shows at the same time! I didn’t know about the second one until I got on site at 6am!

One of the things that makes these challenging is that you don’t know how much material you’re doing until you’re there. I ended up doing 3 three minute bits and 4 one minute bits. While that doesn’t sound like a lot of material, it all had to be different and something that I could wrap up at any point due to time.

The thing with doing media that’s not is a studio is that you don’t know how you’re doing timewise. A bit could run long…or a producer could cut your bit short and you don’t know until you’re cut short in the middle of the routine!

When I do media, I like to do the routine for the host off camera so they know what’s going to happen. That way they know whether they need to cue me to wrap up, or if I’m already close to the end. That little bit of pre-planning makes a huge difference!

-Louie

Anverdi Color Match – A Good Day

Yesterday was a good day for the Anverdi Color Match set. I did three shows without an issue. This is a good development and really helping with my confidence with this prop!

The challenge is figuring out why it’s not sending the signal when it doesn’t. The closest thing I can guess is that someone isn’t moving the pen enough, however it appear from reviewing video that the pens have plenty of movement. Unfortunately if not enough movement is the problem, I can’t think of a good solution to get the person to move the pen more. I can’t say, “pick up the pen and shake it like it’s 1987 and it’s a can of Aquanet“.

I did have the thought of buying a second set of the Anverdi color match and put two gimmicks into each pen. That would give me a redundant system and allow me to have two receivers.

I’m going to see how the success/fail rates play out over the next few weeks before I buy another set.

-Louie

Failure Rate With Anverdi Color Match

Well, it kinda sucks, but I’m currently having a at least one pen not signal with the Anverdi Color Match in 75% of my shows! It’s not consistently the same pen that’s not firing. Luckily I have a backup plan that will bail me out of when I don’t get a signal from the pen.

This is something I’ve always said about electronic “push button” magic, it’s some of the hardest stuff to do because when it fails, it fails HARD!

Essentially when I do a trick with this style of method, I run a second method at the same time to cover me in case the cleaner method (electronic) fails. It’s a pain in the butt to do, however it’s what has to be done to have it appear to the audience that you have a 100% success rate!

I still have a few more days at this gig, hopefully I can lower that failure rate!

-Louie

Final Kid Show of the Summer!

In the summers I do shows for kid’s summer camps. I just did my last one of the summer! My goal this year was to create a show that was something that I could set up and pack up in 10 minutes.

The case that the show fit into is the size that fits into the overhead bin of an airplane. I don’t fly with this show, but wanted it to take up minimal space in my car.

The tricks in this show don’t borrow props for any other show that I do, so what’s in the case stays in that case and it has it’s own audio gear. The only thing in that show that I use that’s in other shows is the speaker.

It’s super hand to just grab the case and go!

-Louie

Using Anverdi Color Match

Yesterday I tried out the Anverdi Color Match in the show. I was super nervous trying it out and didn’t do it my first two shows, but did it in my third show. It worked as it was supposed to, there were no surprises. The thing with electronic tricks, is that you really only learn how and why they work when they fail.

One of the things I don’t like about the Anverdi set is that with the receiver, I can’t keep it in my sock. However I did learn that if it’s in my pocket, I can touch it with the roll of duct tape that’s in my left hand and get the signals very clearly through the roll of tape.

That really helps me out with my routine, in case I need to use the reset button.

I’ll keep doing using it and hopefully I’ll have a failure so I can learn a little bit about why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t work.

-louie