magic show – Page 31 – MagicShow.Tips

Listening To My Own Advice…

One thing I love doing is watching other acts and thinking of ways that they can improve. If they are friends of mine and open to it, I’ll share my notes with them. Recently I watched a friends show and they are controlling their music with a smart watch. One of my notes was to get an actual remote, not your watch to run your music.

Using a smart watch to control you music looks bad. It looks like you are constantly looking at the time. Also to use it as a music controller, you need to look at the face of it, you can’t really find the button locations by feel. With a remote like the iJet or Audio Ape you can feel the buttons and use them without looking.

Yesterday I was out doing my flea circus and decided to run it off my apple watch. My reasoning was to simplify a set up and to give it its own dedicated audio set up. This was also the first time I’ve used the apple watch to control music in a live show. It’s clunky as heck when you have to look a the watch and then hit the button.

If you were to use an apple watch, a better system would be to mount it somewhere and push it. Wearing it on your wrist ties up your hands and eyes. It’s easier to glace at your table than it is to glance at your wrist. My advice is to get a remote control unit with buttons you can feel.

Seal It Up!!!!

One of the two new routines I’m working on this week is my cracker routine. It’s a card trick with a cracker and it’s got a long way to go, but made some huge strides. Basically it’s card trick with saltine crackers. One of the things that it’s lacked is an ending.

The other day I was having breakfast with some other performers at the fair and we were brainstorming and one of them suggested that at the end the signed cracker reappear inside a sealed cracker packet. I liked the idea, but didn’t think I’d be able to come up with a loading system that would work using the limited tools and materials I have with me.

Luckily I kept my eyes open and saw a pie lid that worked perfectly for what I wanted to do. I built a cracker packet loading device and I’m happy to report that the loader is working great!!!

Today is my first day of the two week fair that I’m performing at. In the next two weeks I’ll be doing 58 shows! I’ll be doing four shows a day, plus a couple of volunteer things. That’s going to give me a lot of chances to work on new material. If I set a goal of coming up with one new joke or bit a day for my show, that will give me 14 new bits, that’s a lot.

Hopefully this goal isn’t too ambitious. That’s a lot of writing that will have to happen in a day that’s already pretty full. I think I’m going to do my best to record (either audio or video) every show. Unfortunately the stage I’m on isn’t the best set up for video recording my shows. Video is the best way to learn and critique your show.

There’s a lot to be learned through audio recording. One thing you’ll really notice are dead spots. These can be harder to spot when you watch your show on video as there may be an action happening that makes the dead spot less obvious. So there is a lot of different information that can be learned from just audio.

Let’s see how today goes…

Making the best…

A couple of days ago I wrote about seeing an amazing act perform under horrible conditions (you can read it here). Yesterday I was performing at a festival and I got to be a good act performing with not so idea conditions. I’m not one to complain, as I’m honestly grateful for any gig and do my best to make it work.

The gig yesterday had a raised stage, which is good. Unfortunately the stage was only about 6 inches high, so it didn’t offer the same visual advantage as a 12 or 18 inch stage would have.

The ground that the audience sat on sloped downward away from the stage, so any advantage from the short stage was quickly lost. The picture was taken with my camera held at eye level from about the 8th row. You’ll notice that you can only see one performer on the stage, in reality there were six people! They were a Taiko Drum act, a they have some very large props, however you’ll also notice you can’t see them in the picture.

The stage also had to metal poles that block sight lines and a barricade in front of the stage. The metal pole and barricade are more psychological barriers for the audience. However there were four giant pillars in the middle of the audience blocking the sight lines, which were actual barriers.

How do you make this work?

There are some things you can’t control, like the big pillars or the sloping ground. The first thing I did was move the barrier from in front of the stage. Now there’s one less thing between me and the audience. Then I did a lot of my standing on the stool that I keep in my car for situations like this. It makes the show much more visible. These two things made a huge difference in how the show was received.

You can complain about situations, or you can do you best to make them the best they can be!

Using Music…

Not too long ago I worked with an act that was a talking act, but used music. He did used music as a background to talking pieces and also did acts to music. The music should have added a lot to his show, however it didn’t. The way he used the music wasn’t “seamless” and it wasn’t loud enough.

Let’s tackle the last problem first, since it’s the easiest. There are times when you want music quiet, there are times when you want it loud, and there are times when you want it to vary. The simple solution is to re-record your music tracks at the approximate levels you want them. Background music tracks are quieter than tracks for acts to the music. Simple…Yes, however I’m always amazed more acts don’t do this.

Now for the problem of using music seamlessly. The act I saw had an ipod in their case, and whenever they needed to play music, they had to stop what they were doing, run to the case and change the music. This created a lot of dead time and took the audience out of the moment. The first solution is to use a cue sheet and give it to the sound person. The next solution is to use a remote control. This is one of the better solutions because you can make sure your cues happen when you want them to. It also allows you the freedom to go off script.

Using music effectively from a technical standpoint is easier than ever to do. Years ago recording your tracks with varying audio would have been insanely expensive and using a remote control is simple and reliable now.

Sound Guys…

There are tons great people that run the sound at fairs, however most of them don’t understand much about what makes a show or contest work. A good example are simple things like having music loud or quiet during your show. The tend to strive for an even volume throughout and that’s not necessarily what the act wants.

Another good example is how I run my fair show, I like to select my audience, versus trying to hold the audience from the previous show. The reason I want to turn the audience is that if you are there to see the classic rock band, you’re not there for my show. Sure I can try to win you over, however if I don’t you’re eating a seat for someone else that would be a better base for my audience. I’d rather have a smaller starting audience that builds to a bigger audience at the end than a big audience that walks leaving me with a small audience at the end.

When the sound guy gets on the mic and tries to bring people in by saying, “if you can hear me, come fill up the seats for the magic show“, they aren’t helping. First of all, they aren’t helping, I do my preshow in a very specific way. That is to build a base that’s committed to me and the show and weed out the people that will walk and not be down with what I do. I’m not a show that’s for “everyone”, but no show is.

It was also interesting that the sound guy this week would only try to pull in people for the beginning of my show, and not the other acts. I also asked him to stop doing it on the second day as it made my job harder. What I was doing clearly was working as I had the biggest crowds on the stage all week. I’m sure he was just trying to help, and that’s good, however he should really ask before doing anything on the mic during my time, just like I always ask before I put anything into, or out of his equipment.

Don’t Be Like a Band…

In the summer time I share the stage with a lot of bands and I can tell how successful they are within about two or three songs. This has nothing with how good musicians they are, or the genre of music, but with how they treat their time one stage between songs.

How I see it is the time you (or your band) is on stage, that’s not just your time, that is the audience’s time. When I’m watching a band, if they waste time by doing a huddle between each song while they discuss what they are going to play next, they are wasting my time. I’m not sure why so many bands don’t have a set list? Shaving off the huddle time, they’d be able to play at least one more song.

How I see it is one way you are doing a show and the other way you’re jamming with your buddies. Jamming with your buddies has a place, but not on a stage. Also if you have a set list, you know how long your show will run, and are able to cut things down and make it work if you are running long, or have alternate songs planned if you are running short.

How does this apply to a magician? Simple, have a plan, have a set list, it will make your show tighter and you won’t be wasting the audience’s time!

More Crackers…

At the fair yesterday, I tried the cracker magic trick in my preshow. It went well, and the audience liked it. That said, there are a couple things that I need to improve on. The big one is writing a script, and the other prop management.

For prop management, this will come with doing it. I had to dig around too much looking for the cracker or bowl, that’s mostly because I don’t know what I’m doing. There’s not a clear “flow” to the routine as far as what goes where.

For a script, I basically said something like:

I couldn’t find a store that sold a deck of cards in this town. I ended up having to buy something to try to make it work. So we’ll do a cracker trick! Pick a cracker, remember it, put it back and mix them up. Is that your cracker!!

How about you write your name on it, so we can tell it apart.

It goes into this bowl, we’ll cover it up and shake it to mix them. When I count to three you’ll toss the crackers into the air and I’ll reach out and catch one, it’ll be your cracker. If I can’t do that you win what’s inside this cup.

One…Two…Three!

Was that your cracker (show crushed cracker)?

Wait, there’s the cup…inside the cup is a cracker…read the name…Oh, that’s not your name.

We’ll make it disappear. All I need is some magic dust…and that makes it change into your name!!!

It’s a pretty bare bones script, not much going on. I’ll try to “punch it up” a little bit later today.

Old Style Magic…

I’m a huge supporter of magic clubs. They are very useful for learning magic, as well and giving a sense of community. I made a couple of comments about a few things being an “older style of magic“, unfortunately I don’t recall the specific things I referred to. We also had someone new to magic … Continue reading “Old Style Magic…”

I’m a huge supporter of magic clubs. They are very useful for learning magic, as well and giving a sense of community. I made a couple of comments about a few things being an “older style of magic“, unfortunately I don’t recall the specific things I referred to. We also had someone new to magic at the magic club and they asked what I meant by “older style of magic“.

Like anything people change the way they do things and there are trends that come and go. An example of this is card tricks. More modern card tricks have less work that is tabled, however that’s changing due to the popularity of close up acts for TV. Modern card tricks also tend to have a lot less procedure and higher payoffs than the card tricks in Tarbell.

Stylistically what people are doing is more in your face than it was 20 years ago. I’m not saying that it’s good or bad, but different. Being aware of the styles and trends will keep your magic feeling up to date and fresh.

Character Mash Up…

Right now I’m reading the book Be More Funny by Christoper T. Magician. When it arrived, I was amazed at how thick of a book it is, most comedy magic books aren’t nearly this heavy. Currently I’m about a hundred pages into it and am liking it! One of the things he says in the … Continue reading “Character Mash Up…”

One of the things he says in the beginning is to find a character, you take two things and put them together. Essentially it’s magician plus something else, so basically a charcater mash up. Once you have that angle everything else starts to get easier.

This got me thinking a little bit about character and one thing that has grown in my performing persona is travelling. I talk a lot more about travelling, so what if my performing character was magician PLUS travel show host? I already talk about many of my adventures in my preshow, and it’s part of the hook in many of my routines, so why not dig deeper?

Travel is something I’m personally very passionate about…I love finding strange things in off the beaten path places. For example a couple weeks ago I was performing in Menlo, WA, and that town has a pioneer buried there under very interesting circumstances. That person is Willie Keil, also known as the “Pickled Pioneer“. Essentially his body was moved cross country in a coffin filled with wiskey to preserve it.

When I travel for shows, I always find things like this and am surprised at how many locals are unaware of it. In my shows try to write little jokes about them. After I told the story about Willie, the joke went:

“Do you know what they call a modern day person that crosses the country full of whiskey? A Delta Airline Pilot!”

It’s great that this book made me realize that this is something that my character on stage has grown into, and I’m going to explore it a little bit more and start seeing what turns up!