School assembly magic show

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!

School Assembly Set!

I’ve had a few magicians ask me if I’m going to make parts of the school assembly I’m out performing available to magicians. The answer is YES, I’m making the whole Amazing Americans school assembly available!

This show runs approx. 40 minutes and is about some people who have made the USA and the world a cooler place! This show is great for a school assembly or library shows. It was originally written for the USA’s 250th birthday, however there’s no mention of that. This is a technically “history” based show, not a patriotic show, so it can be booked this year and beyond!!

In this download you’ll get two videos, and two pdf’s in this set.

Video of the show at a school assembly
Video walkthrough of the shows props and tech
PDF of the script
PDF shopping list of all the commercially available props in the show.

Right now I have this as a pre-order for $60 until 4/30, after that the price goes up to $75.

Click here for more information or to order the School Assembly Set!

-Louie

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!

BEKOS Smiley Face FTW!!

Right now, the only trick left in the school assembly that I didn’t really create is Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (Smiley Face Version). It’s the closing trick for the show, and it hasn’t been hitting all week, and I was going to cut it.

I rewrote the routine and took it from a different direction from the previous script, and it worked really well yesterday! The routine before was stuck with the theme and a loose “goodbye,” and I rewrote it as a heartfelt message. It isn’t a BS message that’s written to get a reaction; it’s something I truly believe in.

In one of the first shows that I did, the kids were seated in bleachers, and at the end of the trick, about 25 kids spontaneously stood up and cheered! It got an unprompted standing ovation from elementary school-aged kids!

I’m a fan of BEKOS (smiley face version)!

-Louie

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

Cutting Routines From the School Assembly

Yesterday was the second day of doing my school assembly show. I’ve done some reworking of the show. The bit I was doing with the egg bag wasn’t really hitting how I wanted it to, so I cut it out of my last show yesterday. The show felt like it had a better flow without it.

The last show of the day also ran long, even with one less routine in it. I think this was because I had a sign language interpreter at this show. Whenever I have one, I try to slow down a lot so their job is easier.

After two days of shows, I’ve streamlined a lot of what I’m doing. Prop management and packing are something you can practice at home, but you really figure it out doing shows. You realized why a particular spot isn’t the best for a particular prop, or that if you turn a prop 90 degrees, it makes picking it up much easier.

I’ve recorded most of my shows over the last two days, but haven’t really had a chance to review any video. That’ll be something that I do this weekend, and I’ll probably make some changes based on what I see!

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

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!

New School Assembly Show

Well, tomorrow is the first show of my new school assembly show and the first show day of this month long tour! The show is designed to set up and strike really quickly, in less than 15 minutes. The show will run 40-45 minutes in length and will have to play for 150-500 people per show.

Here’s the front of the case:

I have a screen on the front of the case for visuals if the school doesn’t read my requirements list and doesn’t provide me with a projector or TV. The visuals aren’t necessary, but they help make the show feel bigger.

Here’s the view of the back of the case:

The props in the case are laid out for the show. The only thing missing from the picture is my snake box, because it’s not in the case during the show. The snake box sits on a table (provided by the school) during the show.

I’m very excited to see how this plays. This show is 95% new to me. The 5% that’s old are a couple of jokes/gags that I’m recycling. Hopefully, I won’t have to change much. When I was writing the show, I was worried that it wouldn’t be long enough. Now that I’ve been practicing it, I’m worried it will be too long! Having too much material is a way better problem to have than not enough.

-Louie

The Speed Bump That is 6/7

I’m still working on the show I’m doing for a school assembly tour in April. One of the tricks that I had planned is a cards across type effect using postcards. I had a method worked out, then I realized the trick involves counting to ten.

Counting to ten means I’ll have to deal with kids and the 6/7 trend that’s still happening. It’s not as crazy as it was a year ago, but it’s still a thing.

In the past, I’ve used the Piano Card Trick‘s method of pairs to do an object across types of trick. That version has no counting, just moving pairs of cards. That eliminates using the numbers six and seven in sequence.

The downside of using the pair method is that only one thing moves instead of two or three cards. I guess the big plus is that since I’ve used this in shows before, I have a lot of the “bits” built in, so I don’t need to do a lot of figuring out gags. That’s also a bad trap; I shouldn’t be lazy and should be writing new gags.

-Louie
PS If you’re interested in using the piano card trick onstage, look into Jim Steinmeyer’s Apples and Oranges trick.

Unforeseen Challenge!

Right now I’m writing a show that I’ll be doing for a elementary school assembly tour in April. One of the challenges is that I’m trying to avoid the whole 6 7 thing.

That makes counting tricks a challenge and there’s a card across type trick that I’ve written into the show. I don’t want to lose control halfway counting a packet of cards, and that needs to be done four times!

Right now is that my plan it to talk about the objects as I’m counting them. That would break up the 6 to 7 with dialogue between them. I’m not sure if that will work, but it’s an idea. Another idea is to use 9 items instead of the traditional 10. Then if three items move from one packet to the other, that will reduce the counting that will have the numbers 6 and 7 from four times to three times.

Another option would be to not have the trick about counting, but about specific items moving from pile to pile. So three red backed cards end up in a blue backed packet.

I’m not sure how this will play out…

-Louie