It’s crazy how the stages that I perform on vary. One night I’m on this stage that’s state of the art with a 7 person tech crew!
Then the next show I’m on a stage like this with very minimal tech and no crew.
How I do my show, the core show is without any production and when I can use production, it’s a bonus! However it’s a bonus that I’ve planned for!
-Louie
Last week I was at an entertainment showcase. These are where performers do a bit of their show for people who book acts/shows. When watching bands, my number one note for them is to not talk! The amount of banter they do is ridiculous, it’s not a show, you’ve got 15 minute to wow a booker and when they waste 3-5 mins on uninteresting talking on the mic, their show doesn’t look tight.
I love it when I see an act come in to get booked. A good example is Patrick, he came in did a high energy 15 minute set with no wasted time!
I was there showcasing my crank organ as a “roving act”. This is different from stage showcase, you can connect with people differently and have more time. My roving showcase had 45 minutes.
With that time I try my best to connect with people and educate them on how they can use this act at their event. Trying to sell something like the crank organ for events is a bit harder because most people have never seen one and don’t know how they’d use it for their event.
If you’re not using showcases to sell your show, you should look into them, virtually every market has some sort of showcase!
-Louie
We’re 22 days into the year and Inject 2 has only been working for about a week. Greg Rostami’s last update was two days ago:
While hindsight it 20/20, if Greg had started to move Inject 2 during the first outage almost a month ago, it’d almost be done and up and running. He keeps claiming there are back up plans, but we have yet to see any of them implemented. There’s no reason he couldn’t start working on the backup plan while still trying to resolve the current issue. Sure it takes time, but it appears he’s just in a holding pattern with Google.
App’s are interesting, but if they’re internet based, they aren’t reliable. This is for many reasons, and this is just one of them. There’s plenty others, like I work a lot of GIANT events where there are just soo many people the internet works at a snails pace. There there are times with magic apps where the server that the app lives on gets overwhelmed because there are a ton of magicians using the app at the same time. This happened to an app (I don’t remember which one) on New Years Eve a few years ago.
Then there are times when your phone that the app is on updates overnight and now there are compatibility issues with the app and your phone that weren’t there the day before.
Before you buy an app you need to consider how you’re planning on using it and how it can fail you. If the app goes out mid trick, what are you going to do? If the app glitches and all of the sudden the spectator’s screen shows something they’re not supposed to, what would you do?
Plan for failure!
-Louie
When you perform and there’s a stage, use it! It took me a while to learn this, and I’m glad I figured it out a long time ago. Before I go further, there are times and reasons to be in front of the stage, or in the audience, so this isn’t a hard rule.
Here’s an example, I was watching a performer do the cups and balls and they’re performing on the floor in front of the stage. Here’s what I could see sitting in the back:
The lady standing was moving to the back to where she could stand to see. Don’t worry about her, she’s not what this is about. It’s about the cups and balls on the table and about waist height to the performer.
What does this picture tell you?
It tells me that if I’m on the same level as the audience (the floor), anything held below my shoulders can’t be seen six rows back.
So how do you do the cups and balls onstage?
That’s the challenge because if your tabletop is flat, then the people in the front rows can’t see as the bottom of the table is blocking their view.
You could move the table further upstage and that will help a bit. What I did when I used to do cups and balls was put a “rake” to my table, so the front end was lower than the back end. My table also had a small lip that would stop the balls from rolling off. It was a workable solution and an option.
One thing that’s helpful is to watch magic shows from different seats in the audience and pay attention to when you can’t see things. Not just when they’re performing, but if a magician walks into the audience, how much of them can you see? You can use this information to help you decide to go into the audience and if you do, how to do it so that things can be seen.
-Louie
While I was running at the gym I had an idea for an interactive “touch the screen” style trick for this new year. It’s pretty simple, you’re going use 2025 and New Year
2 0 2 5
The audience touches any one of the numbers in 2025. They are going to jump the number they are touching. The rules are you can go left or right, from block they are on is touching to the block next to it. If they are on the 0, they don’t move.
After they finish moving, they stay on the number they ended on. You will remove the 5 as they’re not on it and it’s no longer in play. What’s left is:
202
They will then spell NEW jumping one space per letter, going back and forth for each letter. You now eliminate the the one of the 2’s (could be either). What’s left is:
20 or 02
They then spell YEAR jumping one space per letter like before. Now you eliminate the O and all that’s left is the 2 which they should be on.
There you go, an easy little interactive math trick!
-Louie
Last month I was out in Wisconsin performing at the comedy club in Appleton. It was a fun gig, and on my way back to the airport in Milwaukee I stopped by Big Guy’s Magic.
I’ve heard a lot about this magic show, so I was excited to stop by. However the guy working (who wasn’t “Big Guy”) was really disappointing. He kept telling me how nothing new was in magic (which I totally disagree with) and how live shows don’t hold audience’s attention and that no magicians tour anymore because no one wants to see a magic show. He never asked why I was in town… I was a magician ON TOUR and had about 150 people at my show at the comedy club the night before. Of all the places where someone should be enthusiastic about magic should be the person working at a magic shop.
When I travel I try to support magic shops by spending money at them. Normally I try to make a meaningful purchase, not just a deck of cards, but a book or some antique prop if they have one. I really didn’t want to spend any money here based on how the guy was bad mouthing magic, but I did make a small purchase.
I do understand that sometimes a “warm body” is needed to run the magic shop when the owner can’t be there. I hope that was the situation, and I’ll probably give the magic shop another chance next time I’m in Milwaukee.
Now for what’s good about the magic shop, it was really well stocked!
They had a ton of current magic as well as vintage magic! They also had some of the world’s largest mouth coil!
It’s always good to see an older style magic show that has a lot of stuff in stock!
-Louie
One of the questions that I get asked a lot by magician who see my show is “how much does it cost you to do your show?” My show has a lot of disposables, here’s what is thrown away after the show:
When I do my full show, it cost me about $10 to do my show. Sure that adds up over time, but at $10 it’s not that much when you consider everything else it costs to do a show, like travel or hotel.
If your vision for your show costs money each show, but it will help you achieve your artistic vision for the show, then $10 is nothing. If it cost me hundreds each show I may reconsider some stuff, but ten bucks I’m totally fine with.
-Louie
Last week my wife and I went to see a show called Liberace and Liza, Holiday at the Mansion. The premise of the show is that the audience are guests at Liberace’s house at a Chirstmas party that’s hosted by him and Liza Minnelli.
I really had no idea what to expect when I showed up. It was a fun show, and I didn’t expect as much audience involvement as there was in the show. What made it great was there was no “fourth wall” the performers were talking to you, not each other within a scene. This is what a magic show is like, there is no fourth wall (usually) and you are talking directly to the audience.
One of the great things was there were a lot of “call backs” to things that people in the audience did. This makes the show special and unique to the audience at that show. In my magic show, I look for things that I can comment on, then refer back to later in the show. It’s a great technique to create a unique show!
If you’re curious about the show, here’s the promo video for the show:
It was a fun show, and if you pay attention you can learn a lot that will apply to a magic show!
-Louie
A couple of weeks ago I performed in a show at the All American Magic Theater in Portland OR. It’s a fun little theater in a magic shop inside of a mall.
It’s always fun to perform in a variety show! One of the challenges for me since I’m used to doing 45-70 mins is doing a shorter 15 min set. A 15 min set is structured very differently than a longer full show. As an act, your opener is less of a “warm up” and you kinda need to get right into the act.
It’s fun to flex that different show length muscle!
-Louie
Last night I got home from another booking conference and saw some amazing acts!
One of the helpful things about going to these conferences and seeing all the other acts showcase is that you kinda know where you are in the pack. You can gauge whether you’re a top tier act, or whatever.
It’s also inspiring to see people do their best 15 minutes of material! I totally recommend checking one of these out if you get a chance, even if it’s just to watch acts!
-Louie
