magic show – Page 58 – MagicShow.Tips

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!

Stuck in 1990…

I think that a lot of the way that illusions are presented by magicians are stuck in the 1990’s. The magician’s assistant isn’t much more than a prop and not a personality. Yes, there are assistants that are personalities, however most of the ones that I see are simply someone that’s pretty and willing to … Continue reading “Stuck in 1990…”

I think that a lot of the way that illusions are presented by magicians are stuck in the 1990’s. The magician’s assistant isn’t much more than a prop and not a personality. Yes, there are assistants that are personalities, however most of the ones that I see are simply someone that’s pretty and willing to fit into the box.

Recently I saw a magic show where the illusionist had three assistants. Only one had a personality, and it was pretty limited based on what I saw, however they were an act within the show and not the whole show, so she may have had a bigger role. The other two were simply stagehands with fake eyelashes and gowns.

This is where I think magic is stuck 20+ years in the past. The magician is the dominate one over everyone else on the stage, and not everyone is equal. Why not have a female assistant that looks like the theater’s stage crew, but has dialogue with the performer? Do they have to wear a bikini? I think we’ve grown past the magic show having to have “sex appeal” for people to watch. People watch all sorts of theatrical shows without scantily clad ladies…why not a magic show?

Yesterday there was a folk duo at the fair I’m performing at, and we are on the same stage. In between shows, the lady commented that she likes how I ” randomly make fun of people“. I had to correct her, because that’s not what I do. Yes, I do make fun of people, but … Continue reading “”

Yesterday there was a folk duo at the fair I’m performing at, and we are on the same stage. In between shows, the lady commented that she likes how I ” randomly make fun of people“. I had to correct her, because that’s not what I do. Yes, I do make fun of people, but it’s not random.

I make fun of peoples actions, never on how they look or what they wear, and never out of the blue. There is always some choice that the person has made that will cause me to comment. It could be a teen texting in the audience, or whatever, but there’s always an action that causes it.

Currently our society really looks down on bullying, and randomly picking on people in a Don Rickles sort of way is a great way to alienate yourself from your audience.

Here’s an example of what I don’t do. Recently I saw the Lance Burton and Friends tour and Fielding West does a bit where he scares someone from the audience by asking them to touch something, then making a sudden loud noise and startling them. In my mind that’s an old school thing, that I think works with his character, but not some much with younger people. That sort of thing is considered inappropriate by most modern performers.

What I’m trying to convey is that it’s OK to comment and play, but not okay to bully.

Being In the Moment at Dinner…

Last night, I had dinner with a musical comedy act named Joe Stoddard. Joe plays guitar and sings original and parody songs. One thing that Joe does really well, is being in the moment and looking like he’s having fun. This is something I used to be really good at. And I’ve been struggling with lately.

I think I’ve written about this before, but trying to be present in the show, not just hopping joke joke is something I’m trying to be very conscious about. This year I’m doing pretty good at it.

I have a routine early in the show that lets me play with the audience. And that’s great and really helps out with all of that. One of the things Joe and I talked about last night was how he stays in the moment. He says he always tries to be aware of things happening in the audience, so he can comment on it, and work it out into the show where he calls attention to it. That’s something I’ve been doing a lot lately is looking for opportunities to bring up real things that are happening. I had a kid yesterday in the show who was chewing gum, and I’m pointed out that he was chewing gum, and the kid wouldn’t stop laughing.

It was a very real moment and he started offering people gum. Then someone else is pretending to chew gum but they didn’t have gum. It was a great, real moment that I expanded upon, because I noticed it was there and got a lot of mileage out of it. So being present in the show is something that is very, very important.

It’s The Little Things…

There are some tricks that I like, but never work for me. One of these tricks is the Slydini Silks. This is the trick where people tie two handkerchiefs together and they magically untie. It’s a trick that’s always fallen flat for me when I’ve done it. Recently I came across a video of Slydini … Continue reading “It’s The Little Things…”

There are some tricks that I like, but never work for me. One of these tricks is the Slydini Silks. This is the trick where people tie two handkerchiefs together and they magically untie. It’s a trick that’s always fallen flat for me when I’ve done it.

Recently I came across a video of Slydini doing it:

One thing I learned from watching the video was that he used a cup to put the handkerchiefs into. I wasn’t using the cup, so I added that the other day. I was amazed at the difference adding a prop that made no difference in the trick made! All of the sudden people were responding positively to the trick.

The small things make a difference. Sometimes the most insignificant addition or change can make at trick!

Well, That Worked…

One of the great things about performing at fairs is that you have a lot chances to work on new material. A couple of days ago I mentioned an idea for quickly getting a borrowed dollar bill (you can read it here). I tried it at two of my three shows yesterday and it played a lot better than I thought it would.

Basically a kid draws a picture and it turns into a dollar bill, and I will borrow that dollar bill in the next trick of the show. Later the picture reappears in an impossible location.

Here’s what I learned yesterday. The first show I asked a kid to draw a picture and the girl drew a heart. As far as giving me material to work with, the heart didn’t give me much. The second show the kid drew a picture of me and this gave me a lot to work with! Today when doing the trick I’m going to ask the kid to draw a picture of me and I’ll make jokes about it.

With a drawing of ME it’s easier for me to make fun of the drawing without it feeling like I’m crapping on the kid, because I’ll be making fun of me. This is a huge distinction in how the audience could possibly form impressions of me.