magic show – Page 34 – MagicShow.Tips

One or Two Spots…

When working in a show with multiple acts and an intermission, the show producer frequently splits up my act into two spots. One before and one after the intermission. Usually this happens in shows that have a burlesque background. The reason is the dancers can’t do one long set, they do two shorter ones. The producer then lines up the show so that everyone does two short sets.

Personally I prefer to do one longer set. The reason is that it allow me to build momentum. As a talking act, I can build to a big ending in 10 minutes. In two 5 min chunks, essentially you’re doing two openers. Sure in the second set, people already know you, but you can’t build off the energy you built in the first set.

Another thing with split spots is that your second spot is building off of the energy of the previous act. If the act before you is super high energy, and your closer is a slow burn, it makes it much harder for the audience to get into it.

The final reason I prefer one spot is that if your have a rough first spot, you don’t have time to win the audience back. You’re finished before you get a second chance, then when you do come back for the second spot, you are starting in a huge hole. It’s so much easier to dig yourself out of a hole in one long spot.

My advice is that if you are a talking act the best thing to do is a single spot. Just because everyone else is doing split spots doesn’t mean you have to!

Make Them Come To You…

This week I’m doing a lot of local gigs and it’s nice to be home. In the summer I do many summer day camps for kids. Usually I’m doing them for school age kids, but this week I’ve been doing mostly younger kids in the 3-5 age range. This is a smidge younger than my demographic, however the shows are doing fine.

One thing that I consciously don’t do in my show is any standard kids show material. No break away wands or anything like that. I want do make them come up a level. This isn’t something that’s easy to do. Making the wand break is easy, making counting pieces of string entertaining to a kid is hard. I’m purposely taking a harder route, but in doing that it makes me a better performer.

Challenging the kids to be more sophisticated separates me from most other kid shows. It also teaches the kids to be better audiences, and that listening is an important part of watching a show, and more important than screaming. Many kid shows are simply getting the kids amped up, and that’s it. They have one gear. I have some slower parts to the show, and some more high energy parts. Having texture in your show is important, even when performing for kids.

Figure It Out…

It’s rare to get an indoor show at a fair, however that’s what I have this week. It’s great to not be out cooking in the sun, and having an audience that’s also not getting heat stroke. With all of the bonuses of being indoors, I’ve been struggling through my shows, and not quite sure why.

Then yesterday morning I was reviewing video of my show and to work on a routine and noticed something. In the video I couldn’t understand what what I was saying. What the mic on the camera (which is never crystal clear) was recording was a lot of echo. To confirm it wasn’t just the camera’s placement I put my small digital recorder in the audience and recorded my first show. The audio from the audience was also very hard to understand.

I narrowed it down to the sound guy blasting the music louder than my voice. And my voice he had very loud, so it just bounced around this and the audience couldn’t make out what I was saying. I asked him to lower my volume and recorded the next show. It sounded the exact same. My conclusion was that he didn’t lower the volume, or not very much.

Here’s how I fixed it. I did my show on the floor in front of the stage. Now I could control of the volume of the music because I was in front of the speakers and could hear how loud it was in the room. This is where running your music with a remote control is helpful. Also standing on the floor he couldn’t have my voice too loud because I’d feedback. So that fixed the problem of me being understood. It worked out great, and I have my first rockin’ show of the week.

The moral of the story is that if your show isn’t working, don’t just chalk it up bad audiences. Yes, something audiences are bad, however if you are struggling multiple shows, it’s probably something you are doing.

Unique Visuals…

One of the things that I try to do with my show is to give it unique visuals. I think I’m starting to really achieve that in my show. It’s a lot of work, and commitment, but in the long run it’s the way to go. When someone describes my show to another magician, I want the magician to know it’s me by the description.

Sure a card trick looks like a card trick, however there are some ways to make them look different. For example the Card Stab trick. In my main show I use a Rat Trap, this is a less common version of the trick. I also do a unique card stab using a dinosaur costume!

In my local market, if someone describes either of these version of the card stab to a magician, they will know it’s me. I wouldn’t say either is my “signature” trick, but both are associated with me locally.

What tricks are associated with you? Are they tricks that no one else can buy? That’s the goal with the dinosaur card stab, it’s something I created, you can’t buy it, it’s 100% mine.

Learn To Play With Others…

It’s rare that I work on the fair circuit with an act that I’ve at least never heard of, however this week that happened. They act is a superhero character, and while there’s a lot wrong with his show, the thing that bugs me the most is that he doesn’t know how to work with other acts. being able to share a stage is a skill that will take you far in show biz.

When I arrived at the venue, I introduced myself to him and asked him how long his show was. He told me 45 minutes, and I mentioned that after his show we’ll need to turn the stage, as my show starts 15 mins after his ends. He said he had no gear to move off stage, and I’d have pretty much the full 15 mins to set up.

Well, that’s not what happened. His “crew” put away the front half of chairs. When I noticed this was happening, I mentioned that we need to get them back because I can’t crowd build without them there. They said no problem. This is the point when I realized this guy has never worked a fair, or with another act. The actual content of his show will be it’s own blog post, however I should mention that he didn’t need the space he cleared up by putting away half of the chairs.

His show ran way over his time…by way over, I mean he did 56 minutes and he was going to keep going until I told he girlfriend she needed to get him to wrap up.

This gave me 4 minutes to set up my show if it was going to start on time. Plus they still needed to put the chairs back. This guy burnt my set up time, and crowd build time. I had to start my show with zero audience because of him, normally even if I have 5 minutes to do a crowd build I can make something happen. However, I can’t do crowd building while they are putting out chairs and I’m setting my gear onto the stage.

The moral of the story is that when working with other acts you: Do your time

When you go over time, it really can effect the other shows. If the booker walks by at my start time and sees no audience, due to the other act running super long, it can effect whether I get booked back.

On The Road…

This morning I’m at the airport heading to California for a week of shows. I packed my mobile gimmick making kit and am hoping to get some work in on a couple of gimmicks that I want to use for a more formal close up set. One of my goals this summer is to get some sort of a close up show in the works.

My mobile gimmick making kit consists of two zip lock bags with variety of items that can be used for making gaffed cards and general magic gimmicks. Here’s some of what’s in there:

Dental Dam
Elastic Thread
Rubber cement
Hobby knife
Cutting mat
Magnets
Double stick tape

That’s not a comprehensive list, but gives you an idea of what I travel with to make gimmicks while I’m on the road. Being able to make or repair gimmick while travelling has saved me a ton of headaches over the years!

More Thoughts On Shin Lim…

After having a day to think about the Shin Lim show I saw in Vancouver, I’ve got a few more thoughts. I’m still disappointed that the majority of the show wasn’t him, Colin Cloud (who did the majority of the show) is great and I think he’ll end up with his own big show out of this. However I was buying a Shin Lim ticket, not a Colin Cloud ticket.

First of all, I think one of the amazing things that he did was do close up and actually perform for the camera! Previously magicians had simply done their act, and it just happened to be on camera. While a small shift, what Shin did was perform to the camera, not the audience or people sitting at the table. This makes it soo much more fun to watch.

Playing to the camera is a subtle shift, but will change how magic is done on projection. Just like how David Blaine changed how magic on TV is performed. Blaine turned the camera to the audience and made it about their reaction, this also made it more fun to watch.

Shin performing to the camera feels like he’s performing for you, not that you are watching a performance for other people. I like this, and something that I need to consider as I thing more about putting together a formal close up set.

If You Build It, They Will Come…

There’s a place in McMinnville Oregon that I’ve always wanted to visit called the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. Every time I’ve driven by it, it’s either closed, or I don’t have time to stop. It’s in a town about an hour from Portland, kinda in the middle of nowhere. This is a huge museum … Continue reading “If You Build It, They Will Come…”

This is a huge museum with water park and people come from all over to visit. Why to do they travel so far to look at airplanes, or go down a water slide? Simple, they have a couple of pretty unique offerings. The museum has the Spruce Goose, which is the largest wood plane ever constructed. In addition to the Spruce Goose, the water park has a 747 that’s been converted to a water slide!

How does this relate to a magic show? Simple, if you create a product that people can’t get else where, they will come to you. This is more than just a unique personality, every air museum has a personality, this one has the SPRUCE GOOSE and that’s the only place in the world you can get that. What unique offering does your show have where you are the only place an audience can get it?

Sometimes New Things Hurt…

It’s been a while since I’ve really bombed at a show. Last night I got to remember what that feels like. I was doing a show in a comedy room, and I was only doing a 10 mins, however it was ten mins of new material. They put me as the show closer, no big deal with my normal stuff, but with new stuff, I was already uneasy.

It was a long show, and by the time I got up the audience was tired. I’m not making excuses for myself, that just made it harder for me to pull them up. I didn’t bomb, but I wasn’t happy with the show. They audience was with me, but they the material I was doing didn’t have any jokes or premises, it was simply the trick. There was nothing for them to really engage with besides the trick.

Effect wise everything went well, but there’s soo much more than that. It’s encouraging that the tricks work and are deceptive, but I need to sit down and write some jokes, figure out some premises and make these routines better.

10 Card Poker Deal…

In my continuing quest to make the Ten Card Poker Deal play on stage, I did four shows for middle school kids yesterday and included it in my show. I was a bit worried, about whether or not they understand the rules of poker. The poker craze peaked 15 or so years ago, so it’s not a huge as it was. They all were aware of poker and I helped them out with the order of hands.

What I love about the Ten Card Poker Deal is that the whole thing seem so fair. I basically told the kids I was going to cheat. It was interesting, they started to put conditions on the deal. Of course due to how the trick works, they can pretty much do anything they want, I just might have to guide it a little bit.

The real reason for the trick is to get to the kicker ending I’ve come up with. I prediction the outcome of the final hand of cards. This ending has been playing really well. I like this ending and it makes the trick feel less like I got lucky three times, and puts an ending to the trick. As is (95% of the time) , the ten card deal really has no finale.