magic show tips – Page 92

Creating With What’s Around You…

Right now I’m on a cruise ship and it’s pretty bumpy out, and I noticed that all of the floors at the stairwells have “sick bags”. These look like paper lunch sacks, but are made of plastic and have a tab at the top to seal them.

I grabbed one and took it back to my state room to see if I could figure out something to do with it. Here’s my brainstorming from this morning:

Chew up some food, spit it in…then blow up the bag and pop it and it’s confetti
Someone reaches into the bag and pulls out a single cookie (it’s the only thing in the bag). You take a few bites and spit them back into the bag. Shake the bag and dump out a whole cookie
You have the bag sealed. You tell the audience you breathed into the bag after breakfast and have someone try to guess what you ate. You have a note that confirms they are right!
Someone from the audience breathes into the bag, and you tell them what they had for breakfast
you have a line of people onstage. With your back turned, someone breathes into the bag and seals it. It’s handed to you and smell the bag and tell whose breath it is
You put food into the bag and it turns to rubber vomit
You say you opened the bag on the plane and captured the air at your seat. Someone smells the air and guesses your row and seat number.

What I like about this is the specific property of the bag, it being plastic and sealable ended up taking me away from tradition paper bag tricks. I really like the idea of trapping air in the bag. I think that the row and seat number might be the winner as it doesn’t involve anyone’s breath, so it’s not cringy.

I don’t know if I’ll ever do this stuff, but it’s a fun creativity exercise.
-Louie

A Tight, Loose Comedy Magic Show

When watching Phil Cass’s show the other night, and I’m such a magic nerd, I saw the early and late show on the same night, I was amazed at how tight the show felt, while still feeling loose and unscripted.

Phil has a ton of verbal and physical jokes and bits to use when the occasion presents itself, but he doesn’t always use. These gags are what fill the dead spots in the show and give it a sense of happening now, versus him just saying the same lines every night over and over again.

This tightness is something that takes years to develop and you need a mental toolbox full of jokes, bits and gags that you can pull from whenever a situation happens. It also makes you stay present is your show, as sometimes you’ll use a joke from later in the show because it fits something that just happened.

If you get a chance to see Phil Cass, I recommend it, there’s a lot to learn from watching his show!

-Louie

Going Rogue…

One thing I believe in is that when everyone is good, it’s better for everyone who performs in an industry. I was at a conference last week and there’s not a lot of content for the performers who want to get better. A buddy and I came up with the idea of a problem solving session. It wasn’t on the official program or even endorsed by the conference, so I had some flyers made and we distributed them and made it a word of mouth thing.

We had a great turnout, my picture below is about half of the room:

What was really cool is that a lot of the people who book entertainment showed up. They were able to hear what our challenges were, and able to have a dialogue with use about how to solve them!

There are some people who have asked me why I’m helping my competition, and the answer is simple:

We’re all on the same team.

I don’t look at anyone as competition. Not because I’m better than anyone, we’re all on one big team. When people hire good entertainment that’s easy to work with, they want to hire entertainment more and that’s more work everyone!

-Louie

A Sip of Water

Last week I was working with Lanky the Clown and he always has tons of little gags in his clown costume. He showed me a fun little gag where you offer someone “a sip of water“, then offer them a tiny bottle of water.

I thought the gag was hilarious and he gave me one of the tiny bottles.

You can get the Tiny Water Bottles by clicking here!

After playing with the gag, I have a little magic trick with it. I do the gag, then the bottle disappears and reappears from a handkerchief, which ends with the production of a full size unopened water bottle!

If you’re a Paul Harris fan, you’ll recognize this as King Soloman’s Drink from his book the Close Up Entertainer and in republished in The Art of Astonishment Volume 2.

It’s a fun little routine to do!

-Louie

Silver Dollars or Paper Dollars…

In my show I do a bit where a kid gets a dollar, loses the dollar, and eventually gets another dollar bill. I thought it would be fun instead of giving the kid a paper dollar. I swung by a coin shop and picked up some Eisenhower Dollar coins.

The problem I’m running into is that the kids don’t know what a silver dollar is and maybe 10% don’t want to take it. The finale of the routine plays a lot better when the kid takes the dollar (paper or coin) at the end. If the kid doesn’t take the dollar, the routine has a feeling like I hustled the kid, and that affects the applause at the end.

I’ve added a line that adds some context to what I’m handing the kid. I say, “…a silver dollar…also known as a giant quarter” and that’s upping my acceptance rate. I’m also thinking of buying it off the kid for a two dollar bill. I’ll have to swing by a bank and pick some up, that may be the solution…

-Louie

Good Enough…

In less than two weeks I’m showcasing at a booking event and my retractable banner is missing. I needed to order another one ASAP, but of course, I’m on the road and can’t find the original files.

Working off a picture of the old banner, I had it recreated with a couple of more recent pictures and some new credits.

Having to remake the banner was sort of a blessing in disguise as it needed to be redone anyway. That and the retractable base was getting pretty banged up, it didn’t work very smoothly.

If I was at home I had pictures on a hard drive that I would have rather used, but sometimes you just need something that’s “good enough”. This will get me through the event and with banners at about a hundred bucks, if I only use it once before I redesign it, it’s totally worth it!

-Louie

Unique Visuals!

Something I try to do in my show is have my show visually different from most other magic shows. Right now I’m closing my show with my Straight Suit comedy escape routine. The headline band at the fair was Midland and they were at my show yesterday.

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A post shared by Midland (@midland)

Doing an unconventional show like mine is a much harder way to go than simply taking a standard path with standard tricks like most magician. However I feel taking a nontraditional road is worth the extra effort.

Thanks Midland for checking out the show!

-Louie

What’s in a Name?

Not too long ago I wrote about simply having a description of your show on a schedule being more effective at putting butts in seats than your name. Here’s the daily sign on the stage that I’m performing at for a 12 day contract:

My show’s name is the only one that has any description of what it is. It’s the only one where if someone sees the sign, they are going to go out of their way to see (if they want to see a magic show). The other two acts with no description probably won’t make it on people’s mental schedules.

Sure having just your name is great for your ego, but it doesn’t help with crowds. I’d rather have “magic show” than “Louie Foxx”.

The name that I gave my show is, “Louie Foxx’s One Man Side Show“, however usually either Louie Foxx or One Man Side Show made it on the sign. It was my agent’s idea to call the show The Magic of Louie Foxx for the fair/festival industry. It’s really made a difference in my starting crowds!

-Louie

Virtual Show Prop Shelf

The dismantling of my Virtual Magic Show is continuing. Today I took apart the spinning shelf that held all of my props for the show.

As the show progressed, I simply rotated the shelf counter clockwise to get to the next set of props. From an efficiency standpoint, it was great! It was also nice to glace at the holders, and if there was an empty one, then a prop wasn’t set for the show or was missing!

I’m getting rid of the board, and keeping all the holders. If I need to recreate this, it won’t be hard to do.

-Louie
Click here for more information about learning to build your own magic props.