Tag: magician

Make the Best of the Situation…

Last night I performed a show at an outdoor Halloween event.  It was a beautiful day out until I started to drive to the show, when it started dumping rain.  Luckily they managed to get a large tent over the stage by the time I got there.  Unluckily the stage was put where water pooled, … Continue reading “Make the Best of the Situation…”

Last night I performed a show at an outdoor Halloween event.  It was a beautiful day out until I started to drive to the show, when it started dumping rain.  Luckily they managed to get a large tent over the stage by the time I got there.  Unluckily the stage was put where water pooled, so the ground had about an inch of standing water.  Oh and as a bonus the tent was leaky, and somehow the leak always managed to follow where I put my case, so all of my gear got wet…and the show hadn’t even started!

 

I know many acts that when their gear got wet would have called it a day and pack up. Here’s my thinking, it’s already wet, so let’s do the show.  We managed to fill up the tent, I don’t know if people wanted to see my show or they just wanted to be a bit dryer?

 

magic show

 

When doing gigs like this, one of the first things you need to do is address the “elephant in the room” which was we’re all soaked and standing in a pond.  So I made a joke about people sitting in front…Oh, I forgot to mention that there were no chairs, so the audience was standing (not ideal for a show).

 

By addressing these things I won the audience over and we had a blast.  However I think if I went up and did my show normally, it wouldn’t have played as well.  When something happens and you just ignore it, the audience senses you aren’t confident with what’s going on.  When you call it out, it makes you more relatable and gets them on your side quicker.

 

Louie

Your Tricks Gotta Be Seen!

I’m frequently asked about why the Evaporation’s standard version is orange liquid. The reason for this is simple, it’s easy to be seen. Rarely will you have an orange background that you are performing in front of, so the color won’t disappear into whatever is behind you.   Using things like cola, which is a … Continue reading “Your Tricks Gotta Be Seen!”

I’m frequently asked about why the Evaporation’s standard version is orange liquid. The reason for this is simple, it’s easy to be seen. Rarely will you have an orange background that you are performing in front of, so the color won’t disappear into whatever is behind you.

 

Using things like cola, which is a dark brown be hard to see with a dark background, or using milk in an elementary school gym against a white wall make seeing the trick difficult. That’s why I settled on Orange.

 

You need to think about this stuff with all of your magic.  For example I love the idea of cups and balls, more specifically cup and ball(s).  So a chop cup would fall in this category.  My marketed trick Cee-Lo (Available from www.hocus-pocus.com) which uses 3 dice and a cup has some clever work on the final loads.

 

Here’s a video of Cee-Lo:
The problem is that the action happens on the table top, and if you are are a raised stage the audience is looking up at the bottom of the table and can’t see what’s happening.

 

There are a couple of solutions to this:

  1. Build your table at an angle, so the front edge is lower than the back.
  2. Use video projection onto a screen.
  3. Create a routine where none of the action happens on a table top.

The first two are pretty simple solutions, however how practical they are will depend on the venues you perform in.  The third one is the one that interests me.  You are now walking into fairly uncharted waters.  Aside from Ball and Cone, the only other cup and ball type trick that happens in the hands is Axel Hecklau’s Just a Cup.

 

Axel’s routine is great, but I want to come up with my own take on an in the hands cup and ball routine.  So my starting point was a baseball cap, which hand a brim that I can hold on to and a large ball, that’s an inch and a half in diameter.  All of the action now happens at chest level and it plays much larger due to the bigger props.

 

This routine is still in its early phases, hopefully it’ll work out.  Once it’s closer to being finished, I’ll start sharing some video of it.

 

The point of this post is simple:  Look at the tricks you do and think you about what the audience can actually see!

 

Louie

The Curse of the Opening Act…

Recently I did a gig where I MC’d a bar comedy show.  Normally I’m the feature or headline act.  It was fun, however as the first act, it’s really had to “crush it”.  There are a few reasons for this.   First, as host, it’s not your show.  It’s your show, but it’s not your … Continue reading “The Curse of the Opening Act…”

Recently I did a gig where I MC’d a bar comedy show.  Normally I’m the feature or headline act.  It was fun, however as the first act, it’s really had to “crush it”.  There are a few reasons for this.

 

First, as host, it’s not your show.  It’s your show, but it’s not your show.  Second, the audience is COLD and you need to really get them to switch from hang out mode to show mode.  This is made harder by the fact that the room doesn’t change into show mode (i.e. lights don’t dim, etc).  The final thing is that everyone is still eating, so it’s harder to get them to laugh with food in their mouths.

 

Add the normal first act in a bar show challenges to the place having a PA set up horribly and the stage in the darkest spot of the room.  All of this made it a challenging room.

 

I opened with a verbal bit that’s goal it to unite the room, it did it OK, then moved on. This is one of those gigs where as the first act you really have to just keep moving forward until they finish their dinner.  That’s what I did.  And about minute 11 of 15 I finally got them warmed up and they were a great audience for the next two acts.

I guess the lesson here is don’t bail on your audience, always give it 100%.  Eventually they’ll come around…

 

Louie