I’ve been working on my show this week at the fair. One thing that I’m doing is trying to correct little things. Little things are easy to fix, and can add up to a much tighter show!
In my show I do object in ball of yarn. I have a bowl that’s on a stand and it’s been on stage right with me and someone from the audience standing center stage. In it I give the person from the audience a fishing pole to reel in the yarn. Because the fishing pole is right handed, the person is using their upstage arm to turn the reel. I think the picture would look better if you saw the person’s hand cracking the reel.
The super simple fix was to having the bowl placed at stage right. Now you can see the person’s upstage hand cranking the reel. It really didn’t take much effort to figure this out, other than paying attention to the show.
On it’s own, it’s not a huge leap for the show, but bundle this with a dozen other small changes and it starts to be noticable!
Tag: magic show
Simple Solutions…
This week I’m performing at a fair and here’s the view of the audience from the stage:
The table and chairs are for the judges of the pageant which happens at the end of the day (after my shows). Also all of the chairs have notes that say “reserved on them”.
This particular fair has trouble getting audiences to watch shows at this stage.
Can you guess why?
If you answered there’s no where for the audience to sit, you are correct. Most people given the choice will choose to not sit on the grass.
For my first show, I told people they could sit on the chairs. Quickly I filled all of the chairs for my show. With the success of giving people somewhere to sit, for my second show I drug over a bench. That bench filled. For my final show I drug over two more benches and those benches filled.
The solution was soo simple, give the people somewhere to sit, and they’ll watch the show.
Empty Venue vs Full Venue…
A couple of nights ago I went to a Seattle Mariners baseball game. It was interesting as there was virtually no one there. In the state that I live in they can have vaccinated sections as well as pod seating. I sat in the vaccinated section, which was pretty empty…the whole ballpark was pretty empty.
What was really interesting was the things that they played to get the crowd pumped up. All the little graphics with sound effects fell flat on the crowd. Whoever plays the sounds was playing them like it was a bigger crowd. I don’t know if they have incentive to mess around with other techniques, especially when our state opens up in less than two weeks.
Performers know that you really need to work a small, spread out crowd differently than a packed house.
Here’s what worked: The interactive things on the jumbotron, we have a hydroplane race where the crowd cheers for a color, and they do a shellgame with baseball hats and a baseball.
Seeing that I would have tried doing some facts or trivia about the batter, then rolling the reaction into a sound/graphic that pumped up the crowd. I don’t know if it would have worked, but it would probably have done at least as well as what they were doing.
Get To It…
When I was hosting the stage at a fair last week, I noticed a thing that separated the more professional bands from the ones that were probably more hobby bands. Before I tell you what it was, let me describe the scenario. We had an attraction near the stage that was active during our change over time, and when the attraction ended, I introduced the next band. the goal was to get people to leaving the attraction to come to our stage. During the band set up I would tell the band what the plan was, and as soon as I introduced them they should start.
The reality was that the majority of the bands would say they were ready to go and when I introduced them, they weren’t, or for whatever reason didn’t immediately start. This really confused me as to why they wouldn’t start. I would have about a 30 second intro of hyping the crowd and their intro. Then most bands would do the little “band huddle” or tune their instruments and sometimes it was a couple of minutes before they started playing. At that point they had lost all of the crowd walking by that was leaving the attraction.
What does that mean for a magic show? Be ready to start when introduced. It may mean walking from the wings, or whatever, but be ready to start your show. Don’t waste time by fiddling with props when you are introduced. Get to it. That doesn’t mean you need a flash opener, what I mean is that you need to start your show.
Table Top View…
In my show I primarily work out of the little bin on the top of my table. It allows me access to my props without having to reach squat to reach down into a case that’s on the floor. It also lets me look into the case and see everything quickly and easily. This is what my table top looks like at the beginning of the show:
As some of the larger props get used they get moved to the trunk on the floor. This is a fairly efficient way for me, as a one man act to manage my props.
Many years ago, I used to work out of my show case that was on the floor. When I was younger I didn’t mind squatting down and grabbing props. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t like to do that, also, ducking behind a case visually doesn’t look good onstage.
Still Figuring it out…
This week is challenging with performing outdoors in a noisy environment for people who are far from the stage and masked. I can’t hear them, or if someone says something I can’t tell who is saying it. I can also have no one on stage. I’ve been working on no contact material for a while, but the not being able to hear people is really throwing me for a loop.
I’ve been leaning heavily on jokes to add length to my show. The nice thing is that they require no props and that I can do and tell them without needed to hear anyone. It’s almost like telling jokes on a zoom show…but you can’t see people laughing.
I’m remembering reading in Wise Guy, Harry Anderson‘s book about performing band breaks at concerts and not being able to use the audience onstage. That’s where he developed his mismash card, and the monarch monte.
I’ve got a couple more days of stage shows before I shift back to doing just roving. It’s fun trying to figure out how to work these shows…hopefully I won’t have to deal with this ever again.
Figuring it out…
This week I’m performing at a fair and it’s a fairly challenging experience. The crowd is fairly far from the stage and the seating is socially distant. It’s challenging to get them to unite as a crowd. Hopefully I’ll have it figured out by the end of the run.
The other challenge is that I can’t use people on stage. It’s a no contact show. This is fine, but has some problems. The big one being the audience is masked, so talking to them is difficult. It’s hard to tell who says something, and it’s hard to understand what they are saying. Indoors in a theater where there is less ambient noise, it’s much easier. This is something I didn’t anticipate (I should have).
I’m working out how make my show more successful this week, hopefully I’ll only need it this week. It looks like most COVID restrictions on the west coast are going to be lifted in about a week. Too late for this fair…
Summer Costume…
When I perform at fairs outdoors, I don’t wear pants, I wear shorts. They are part of my “costume” and look that I’m going for. The shorts that I wear are actually pants that I’ve cut into shorts. There are a couple reasons I do this, the main one is that they fit differently and hang on my body differently than most shorts do.
In the past I’ve always taken them to my local tailor and had them do the conversion. However their shop closed about six month ago, so I couldn’t take them to my normal person. I decided to try to remember what I learned in 8th grade home economics class and do it myself. I spent about 45 mins cutting and hemming two pairs of pants and they turned out pretty well, but hemming pants isn’t a very difficult project.
Many magicians are surprised when they hear I wear shorts in my show. They think it’s not part of a costume, or what a magician should look like. They are entitled to their opinion, but they are part of a coordinated look, I’m not just throwing on shorts. They may not like that look, but it fits with what I want the audience to see when they see me onstage.
Back on the Road…
When I was first starting out performing and I had a gig, that would literally eat up my whole day. From packing for it, to travel and performing, even for a local gig. Then as I got more confident in my show, it got much faster, I knew everything was in my case, and didn’t need to double check anything. I was also a lot more confident and had more experience as a performer, so that if a prop was missing or whatever, I could still make it happen.
I’m heading out to my first fair contract in about 18 months and it’s an out of town 10 day contract. Another challenge on top of not having performed at a fair in a year and a half is the scope of work I’m doing. I’m pretty much doing whatever they want me to do. I know I’m doing some stage shows, stage MCing and some roving. Once again, this wouldn’t have been an issue in 2019, but it’s a lot of stuff to figure out how to pack.
So why not do it how I did it a couple of summers ago?
Well, every summer I work on a lot of new material at fairs, so the packing of the show will be different than it was before. Also I’m not sure the level of contact, or social distancing that people will be comfortable with. One of my routines a couple summers ago was an 8 minute bit where someone fed me marshmallows, and that’s something I probably can’t do for a little while. Sure I could get someone on stage and ask them to do it, and they probably would…but I’m worried it would be “cringy” for people watching it. I don’t want that.
I’m going to spend a day stressing out on how I’m going to pack the show, then hopefully the next contract will be much easier!!!
In Person and Virtual Shows This Week…
This week I’ll be doing some virtual bits for the Kids’ Entertainer Fest! I think you still can register, and this is a solid line up.
During the day this week I’ll also be performing at the San Mateo County Fair in San Mateo, CA. If you’re in the area, swing by and say hi!