stage magic – Page 13 – MagicShow.Tips

The (W)hole Thing for Kids

The routine I’m working on for The (W)hole Thing by Emerson and West is intended for for family/adult audiences. The other day I threw it in my case when I went out to do some summer camp shows:

I thought the concept of the whole/hole wouldn’t hit with kids. Much to my surprise the kids liked the trick and got the idea of the verbal concept behind the routine. For the trick to work, the kids need to be able to read, so I probably wouldn’t do it for kids much younger than second grade.

Now I’m just waiting for my custom cards to arrive from the printer, so that I have a fancier set that what I made for myself.

-Louie

Six Tips for Surviving Outdoor Summer Gigs

This year I’m performing about one hundred days outside at fairgrounds across the USA. That’s a lot of shows outside! Over the years I’ve learned a few things to make performing outdoors a little easier on your body. This is what works for me, your mileage may vary.

Hydrate: If you’re going to be performing outdoors, you need to hydrate. That doesn’t mean just drinking water during your show, it means drinking water the day before your outdoor gig. You need to start the day hydrated. For me that means drinking at least a gallon of water a day the day before my first day of outdoor gigs and at least a gallon every day I’m in the sun.

A good indicator of hydration is the color of your pee. More info on this is at https://www.healthline.com/health/hydration-chart

Sunblock: Use it correctly. Apply it 15-30 before you’re in the sun. I use one that’s for waterproof or for “sport” due to sweating during the show.

Summer Costume: You need something to wear that’s consistent with your character that is also lighter weight and breathable. One thing that I do is have a version of what I wear onstage for indoor gigs, but had a tailor convert the pants into shorts and cut the sleeves short. It makes a huge difference!

Keeping Fresh: Use a 50/50 mix of water and cheap vodka and put it into a spray bottle. I use this to deodorize my clothes between shows or at the end of the day. More info at: https://thewardrobeguide.com/vodka-spray-for-costumes/

Stay Dry: I keep a hand towel in my case to dry myself off during shows when I get sweaty. A magician dripping with sweat isn’t the best look.

Take Breaks: In between shows I get out of the sun. There’s no shame in sitting for a bit in your car with the AC on to cool off.

-Louie

Have Some Insurance!!

In my library show this summer (which is actually my school assembly show) I do a bit with handcuffs. The handcuffs are jump cuffs with and additional gimmick that I added.

If you don’t know, jump cuffs you can show that they work, but you can instantly get out of them. They’re 99.9% effective, but there’s still a .01% that something funky could happen. Because of this very small percentage of risk, I keep a set of handcuff keys in my case.

In my routine, the cuffs aren’t part of the escape, they’re a surprise, but I need to get in and out of them quickly. No one knows they’re there until you see them, so the keys never need to be part of the routine like they would if I was escaping from the handcuff and they were the focal point of the routine.

The chances of me not being able to unlock them is insanely low, but keeping the set of keys is insurance. also the keys take up virtually no space in my case, so it’s not a big deal to haul them around.

This is a good example of what can go wrong in a trick and what would you do.

-Louie

Leaving Your Magic Gear

When travelling on the road with my show, one of the biggest pains in the butt is when I’m at a hotel for one night just to sleep and having to completely unload my car. The full unpack was to make sure I don’t lose my show if my car get broken into.

This year I started locking my gear to my car and leaving it in the car.

The theory is the person going through the parking lot of the hotel is looking for a quick smash and grab, not something involved. The longer they’re there, the more likely they’ll get caught breaking into cars.

All of my shows cases are locked shut and then the cases are all locked to my car. I then cover all of this with a black cloth, so it’s hard to see at night if you’re looking in the window of my car. Sure someone with bolt cutters could get this stuff, but I’m going to make them work for it, it’s not going to be easy!

I’ve been doing this since January and while I’m unaware of anyone trying to break into my car, I personally feel confident in this system!

-Louie

Vanishing Bird Cage Costume Tip…

I’ve been doing the vanishing birdcage for years, and have never buttoned up my coat when I did the vanish.

@louiefoxx Taking my bird out for a walk between shows at the San Mateo County Fair! #sanmateocountyfair #countyfair #sanmateo @SanMateoCountyFair #magic #magician #birdtrick #louiefoxx #magictrick #parakeet ♬ Stolen Dance (Instrumental) – Milky Chance

Traditional advice is that you button up the coat as it takes away the idea that the cage goes into your coat. Last week when at a few library shows I buttoned up my coat before the vanish and at all three shows a kid said out loud that the cage went into my coat. It was handy that I could open the front of my coat to show nothing is there and that got me out of that.

I’m trying to decide if the kids thought that the cage went into my coat because I buttoned it up before the trick, or if something else is at play. However doing it at three shows and getting the same unwanted response tells me that I don’t need to button up my coat for the vanishing birdcage.

-Louie

Vanishing Bird Cage Comparision

There really aren’t many vanishing bird cages that are currently being made. It’s really the vanishing bird cage from India or the Baby Lindy and Walter Blaney cage from Dan Summers. Those two makers couldn’t be further apart in pricing! The cage from India is about $50, and the Summers cages are $1,500-$2,000!

I recently has someone ask me about the two, and there’s really no comparing them. For starters they are completely different style of cages, so it’s not an apples to apples comparison.

What the magic market is lacking is a good, entry level cage, something in the $200-$400 range, however that doesn’t currently exist right now. I’m going to do a quick comparison of the India cage and the Milson Worth Silver Meteor which is the cage style that the Indian cage copied.

For me there are two main differences. The first is weight!

The Milson Worth cage is 115 grams and the Indian cage is 149. You really feel that extra 34 grams in weight when the cage lands in your sleeve!

The other difference is texture. The Milson Worth vanishing birdcage has all the soldered spots smoothed out, where the India cage is rough and that will create a lot of potential snags when the cage is going up your sleeve.

I know that the Milson Worth magic company isn’t around anymore, so you can’t buy the cage new, but there are a lot of them out there for sale on sites like eBay, etc. This cage is a decent beginners cage and one to use if you want to try out the cage before investing thousands of dollars in a cage!

Just a quick note, if you end up searching for a Milson Worth Silver Meteor cage, don’t pay more than $150-$200 for it. There’s a seller or two on ebay asking for way too much for the cage!

-Louie

Help Others Be Amazing!

Earlier this year Dan Block as thinking about setting a Guinness World Record, but he had some worries about doing it correctly. I suggested that he set the world record at an industry event. I did this for several reasons, first Guinness likes records to be press worthy, so the event was something that the news could promote. Second at the event there were experts in the field who could be witnesses and finally the room would have many people who had broken Guinness World Records and could help out with making sure the rules were followed.

Dan just sent me this:

I’m super excited for him!

Many magicians think that helping other magicians achieve things is making their competition stronger and they’ll lose gigs to the person they helped. I don’t think this way. When everyone is amazing, it’s better for all of us.

I constantly go out of my way to help people level up, and you know what…those people go out of their way to help me be better. If we look at other performers as a team and not a competition, you’ll go a lot further and you’ll be much happier.

-Louie

Genii Magazine!

In David Kaye’s column in Genii Magazine this month he did an article about performing at fairs. He interviewed Jef Eaton, Alex Zander, Terry Godfrey and myself for the article.

It’s a great article with some solid nuts and bots information about performing at fairs and how to get into performing in that industry. If performing on the “fair circuit” is something you’ve though about doing, you should pick up the July 2023 issue of Genii!

-Louie

The (W)hole Thing For Me!

I had a day off last week and finally made a prototype of my custom props for The (W)hole Thing which is Daryl’s version of an Emerson and West packet trick.

The main differences is that the circle around they hole is a donut, the spots are arranged like an X and the cards are black. The main reason that the cards are black is that I might have a line about a black hole. With the cards in black I’m sacrificing some visual clarity of what’s a hole and what isn’t. I think if I end up not using the black hole line, I’ll switch the colors back to red as it visually pops!

-Louie

Round Top Vanishing Birdcage

A while ago I was chatting with Marc DeSouza about vanishing cages and he mentioned the round top cages were really cool. I had wanted one before Marc had mentioned it, that he made me want one more. Whenever a John Martin Round Top Vanishing Birdcage pops up for sale at an auction, they usually sell for just over the maximum that I can spend on it.

A couple weeks ago a round top vanishing cage was on the Potter and Potter summer magic auction and it went for a price that I could actually afford!

It’s super cool how stays rigid and then collapses! Also it fits perfectly on my vintage vanishing alarm clock stand that was missing the alarm clock!

I’m excited to have added this to my vanishing birdcage collection!!

-Louie