It was bound to happen on this tour, yesterday I got my first K-12 school. These are really challenging because you essentially have two audiences, and the way they seat them, you really have two different sections you’re playing to. If they were mixed up, the energy from one group can carry over to the other, but now when the kindergarten to 6th grade is on the left and the 7th to 12th grade is on the right.
This is a situation where my thinking that no matter what, the trick has to be good is important. If you do a trick where the routine is a lot of fun, but the actual trick is just “meh”, the routine will ultimately fall flat. If the magic effect is strong, the routine will ultimately play better.
One thing that I do when I have shows like this where they are giving me groups that are over the age that the show was written for is that I give a little talk to the older kids. What I do is that I say, “This show was written for kindergarten to 6th grade. Stick with me, there will be some stuff you’ll like.” This addresses the elephant in the room. I also include the older kids in the tricks, which gets them invested early.
Hopefully, I won’t have many more groups like this.
-Louie
Tag: magic trick
Magic Shops in Minnesota
When I was a teenager, I lived outside of Minneapolis, MN. There were two main magic shops in the area: Eagle Magic in downtown and Twin Cities Magic and Costume in Saint Paul. There was also a Magic Max, which was a chain of pitch shops and a store called The Fun Shop, which was a novelty store that had a magic counter.
When I was a teenager, I primarily went to Eagle Magic, which is run by Larry Kahlow. Larry’s shop was very old school; people smoked in the shop, and there was a ton of props everywhere. The main reason was that the shop was easy to get to by bus! Sadly, this trip, I didn’t get to visit Larry at Eagle Magic.
I had completely forgotten about Twin Cities Magic and Costume. I was running some errands with my mom who lives in Saint Paul and drove by it!
This was a different location than it was at when I was a kid, but I swung by on my way out of town.
I really didn’t know Jim and Fred when I was a kid, but it was great chatting with Jim! He’s super knowledgeable and they have a great selection of magic there! I picked up a few older magic tricks for my collection!
I’m glad I stopped by and if you’re in the Twin Cities be sure to visit Twin Cities Magic and Costume and drive down to Eagle Magic as well!
-Louie
First Show of the School Assembly Tour
Yesterday was my first show of the school assembly tour. Most of the stuff I thought would play well did. One of the things, which is an egg bag, I felt fell flat. When watching back the video, it was just OK, not great, just OK. I’ve got to make the hard choice between cutting it and rewriting it.
The show ran a smidge long, and I skipped a routine today, so I’m not worried about time if I cut the routine. I do have an idea to fix it and give the ending a bit of a emphasis. I’ll try that at tomorrows shows.
That’s the great thing about tours like these, you do a lot of shows in a short amount of time. This gives you many chances to change things!
-Louie
Creating With Rules
I’m out on the road for all of April doing a new school assembly show. This show is called Amazing Americans and is about Americans who have done cool things.
When I create, I like to have rules. Without rules, I find it hard to create. When you can do anything, I can’t create anything. Starting with basic rules helps, like since it’s a school assembly, that means:
1: Geared toward kids ages 5-12
2: Be presented in a gym
3: Big enough for 200-500 kids to see
These are really logistical things, but things that will limit what can be done. I can’t do a card trick where the cards lie flat on the table, or even card tricks with standard-size cards, if the card needs to be correctly identified from the back of the room.
Next, I’ll look at the show’s theme: Amazing Americans
Here are my rules for that:
1: No flags: I want to highlight the people, not the country.
2: Must have female and minority representation: I don’t point out these, but they are represented.
Finally, some other rules:
1: No brands: That means I can’t do a trick about Coke.
2: No counting that involves the numbers 6 and 7: This really limits a lot of things, like cards across.
3: No action happens on the table top, everything is handheld
4: Show follows the format of alternating routines that are me solo onstage, followed by a volunteer, solo, volunteer…
With those rules in place, it’s much easier to select material (subject and trick). I instantly know whether a trick will fit into the show. Sure, I can break the rules; it’s a very conscious decision to do that if I do.
-Louie
Out of Town Shipping Notice
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
I will be out of town for all of April 2026. That means no orders will ship until I return on May 4th, 2026.
I recently shipped a bunch of my magic products to TrickSupply.com in Las Vegas. You can order my magic from them at:
https://tricksupply.com/product-category/louie-foxx/
Any orders placed directly with me in April won’t ship or work to build won’t start until I return on May 4th.
**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**
Abbott’s Surrounded Livestock Vanish by Arturo
Thanks to the power of social media, I figured out what the magic prop that I found at a junk shop yesterday is!
It’s an Abbott’s Surrounded Livestock Vanish by Arturo!
After reading the description, I’m amazed that I pretty much nailed the handling of the box with my guess!
-Louie
Opening Night at the Moisture Festival!
Last week was the opening of this year’s Moisture Festival! I was part of the cast of the opening night show, then I’m back on March 28th and 29th. The Moisture Festival is a fast paced variety show. Each act does about 5 minutes.
Everyone in the opening night show was super cool, and were also amazing acts!
Doing variety shows that have other magicians in the cast is where my style of doing non-standard magic in non-standard ways really helps me. I don’t really have to change what I do because there’s another magician in the show. Last week at the festival, I did my marshmallow act. For the 28th and 29th, I think I’m MC for two of the shows, and the last one, I’ll probably do my bullwhip act.
Hosting the shows at the Moisture Festival is a lot of work, but the host is really the glue that holds the whole thing together onstage! You need to be able to fill time for the stage crew to set/strike props, which can sometimes be fairly involved!
One of the things that the Moisture Festival does really well is create a family backstage! Everyone is super friendly, and it’s just fun to be there!
-Louie
Monopoly Magic !
I like the idea of the mentalism premise where you have a 5 objects that are all the same and one different one. People from the audience all hold one of the objects, and you find who is holding the odd one.
That premise is fun, and I have a few themes for it. The other day I thought of one using Monopoly game pieces.
The hotels and houses lend themselves to a presentation about finding your way home.
This set of houses and hotels was 3D printed and is gimmicked to work with Promystic’s Flux. One of the challenges of using an electronic gimmick is what do you do if it doesn’t work? What’s the out? For some things, I’ve decided the best way to do it is to have a second gimmick. Luckily, Flix isn’t too expensive, and running two gimmicks at the same time isn’t very complicated.
I look forward to trying this out!
-Louie
Portland Magic Jam – Day 2
The second day of the Portland Magic Jam (last weekend) was a lot of fun. The day started with Daniel Garcia‘s lecture, which was great! I’ve used his One Card index since I worked with him in November. It’s great, if you need a folded card index, it’s worth looking into!
The highlight of the convention for me was watching David Kay perform for a room of 75ish kids plus adults.
For someone that’s a “kids magician” his knowledge of comedy techniques goes way beyond 97% of children’s magicians that I’ve seen. There’s soo much that any performer can learn from watching his show!
Also, working with Paul Draper the night before was great, and Paul and I are working together this week in Seattle at the Moisture Festival.
The convention venue (Portland Airport Holiday Inn) was garbage. My room had blood on the blankets, which is great if you’re a vampire! They new a convention was coming in, but didn’t appropriately staff their restaurant for use. The first night the turn around time for food was crazy long. For the second night, I drove to Costco which was a couple miles down the street and bought a bunch of pizzas for all the hungry magicians!
Then the evening show was John Shyrock, Daniel Garcia, and Rhy Thomas. The show was great!
This is a solid day of magic and learning!
-Louie
The Joseph Silk Gun!
When I was setting up my dealer table at the Portland Magic Jam, someone saw my Joseph Silk Gun and asked about it. I did a little demo for the other magic dealers in the room, here’s what it looked like:
I think that it’s crazy how good this trick looks! It’s hyper visual, and it was way ahead of its time, but using a gun in a show now isn’t something many performers could get away with.
-Louie