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The Omni Chair AKA Take a Seat!

Let’s start by me saying I think most omni magic tricks are the result of lazy creativity. I’ve written at least one blog post about that in the past. What most omni magic tricks lack is something more than just the object becoming clear.

Ok, that all being said, I came across a set of small plastic folding chairs and one of the color options was clear.

There were four colors of chairs: Black, pink, blue and clear. I bought one of each. These stand about 5 inches tall. My first idea was some sort of chair test with them. My current idea is this:

Three tiny chairs are shown:

One of the three chairs is freely selected and put into a handkerchief that’s folded into a bag. You snap your fingers and pull out a ribbon/silk that is the color of the chair you put into the handkerchief. Then you remove the chair, and it’s now clear, and the handkerchief is shown empty.

There’s not much to it, but a bit more meat than just “hold this…now it’s clear” like in so many omni magic tricks. This routine is more like Dr. Boris Zola’s Silver Extraction routine. I do like the selection of a color as it adds a layer to it.

-Louie

Can’t a TV Just Be a TV?

On the school assembly tour, I used a screen provided by the school. This could be a smart board, TV or projector, anything I could plug an HDMI into. I did have a backup if they didn’t have a screen.

At my last show of the tour, a few minutes before show time, the TV they gave me decided it was a good time to update.

I had been plugged into this TV, and it was turned on for probably 20 minutes when the update started. What I didn’t like was where it said the TV might restart after the update. That could have been during my show!

Luckily, the update completed right before start time, and the TV didn’t need to restart. That’s just something to be aware of when you use other people’s tech. When it fails, and it’s not your fault, but the audience doesn’t know that!

-Louie

School Assembly Audience Layouts

On this school assembly tour most of my audiences are seated in bleachers, with me standing in a basketball court.

On the West Coast, most school assemblies have the kids seated on the floor with my back to a wall. The kids on the bleachers are a better setup. It gives them tiered seating, like in a theater. This makes it easier for everyone to see everything.

The big challenge for me is getting them to pack kids into one section. Here’s an example, let’s say these are the bleachers in the gym and it’s a small school with about a 150 kids.

They will come in and some classes the top row, some the bottom and the rest in random spots in the middle. That’s spread out over all the bleachers. That doesn’t give you a crowd, it gives you 7 groups. It’s hard to get any energy going. When I try to pack them into on section of the bleachers, they always fight me on it. Telling me they won’t fit (they always do), or that they keep the grades separate because the older kids get bored. I bet the do, because they’re not part of the crowd! It’s easy for them to disengage from what’s happening if they’re off in their own corner. It takes a lot of work to convince these schools to move the kids into a crowd, but it’s worth it.

-Louie
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

The Not Fun Part of Being on the Road

Traveling around the country doing a magic show is a ton of fun! However, it’s not all fun. Two days ago, I got a flat tire. My rental car didn’t have a spare; many new cars come with an inflator and a can of tire sealant. Which is way inferior to a spare tire! This is only good for a small leak; if you get a big blowout, you’re stuck.

Two days ago, I hit something in the road, and my tire got a small hole in it. No big deal, I was able to take care of it with the tire sealant and make it to my next gig on time. After that show, I went to a tire shop in a small town. I told them what happened and that I used tire sealant to get back on the road.

They examined the tire and told me that they had sprayed it and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I was shocked at this! I saw where the hole in the tire was making bubbles from the tire sealant on the side of the road. It was really a strange interaction. I know you’re not supposed to drive with just the sealant plugging the hole in a tire for very long. When I got to the next city, I went to a Big O Tires, which is a national chain, not a small shop as I had been to previously. They found the hole and plugged it.

While chatting with the guys at the Big O Tires, they were amazed that the people at the other tire shop didn’t clean out the sealant before looking for the hole. I agreed! Now I’m back on the road and feel way safer about my car!

The moral of this story is that I need my car to get me to the gigs. If I had listened to the first small town tire shop, which I knew was wrong, I probably would have had another flat tire! Keep your car in working order.

-Louie

Changing a Routine

The ending of my opening magic routine in the school assembly show wasn’t hitting as hard as I thought it should. Originally it was:
Educational content
Educational content
Show ice cream and put into cup
Spoon manipulation
Ice Cream in a cup turns into streamers

I think it wasn’t hitting as hard because there was too much time between putting the ice cream in the cup and it changing to streamers. I realized I could logically do the spoon manipulation, then put the ice cream into the cup. I gave it a try at a show yesterday, and it made the ice cream changing to streamers play much better. The new order is:

Educational content
Spoon Manipulation
Educational content
Ice cream goes into a cup, then changes to streamers

It’s way better, and I also like having two shorter educational chunks than one longer one. This morning, I rearranged the video that goes with my show to reflect this in hopefully a more seamless way than yesterday.

-Louie
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

Ice Cream Cup Magic Trick

A while ago I created an ice cream cup that holds a throw coil packet. It’s really nothing crazy, just a cup with a little hole and tab to hold a streamer securely. It turns out it was something that a lot of people needed and many magicians are using it!

Here’s a video that was sent to me by Rich Stein:

I’m always honored when any magician uses props I’ve created in their shows!!

-Louie
PS: you can get the ice cream cup here: https://www.magicshow.tips/ice-cream-cup/

A Sample of the School Assembly Show

The other night I cut up some video to make a highlight reel of what the show I’m doing looks like. Here’s a peek at the show:

You’ll notice that on my prop box I have a TV screen. I use this when they don’t have a TV/projector that I can use. Nothing shown on it is 100% necessary for the show, but it does enhance it. It’s really there for me to get more comfortable using the production software and the ankle switch remote control.

I’m having a blast doing this show!!!

-Louie
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

Finally Got a High School Group

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
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!

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
Click here for more information about how you can learn this School Assembly Show check out the School Assembly Set!