stage magic – Page 14 – MagicShow.Tips

Travelling Magician

I’m writing this post from the DFW airport in Texas. Last night I left Portland at 11:59 pm and arrived here at 5:17 am. With the time change, that was only 3 hours of quality sleep on the plane. Now I’ve got a five hour layover at DFW before my next flight to Mexico for a gig.

I’m not writing to complain; I signed up for this when I took the gig. This is the non-glamorous side of being a travelling entertainer, but it’s part of the job. I’m going to spend today running on fumes, get a solid night of sleep, and then get on a cruise ship tomorrow and rock two shows that evening!

Many years ago I was at Bob Fitch‘s first retreat for performers. Bob was old then (he still is!), and someone asked him how he kept up his energy with all of us during the long days, and he said, “acting”! He’s right, you can act like you got a full night of sleep and aren’t exhausted. Sure, you do eventually need rest, but you can push through a show or two. I’m glad I get a chance to get some sleep before the “work” day.

-Louie

My Impromptu Card Routine

One of the card routines I do for impromptu situations is a revelation of a selected card three times. There’s really not much to it, and I’ll give sources for what they are below, but first, here’s what it looks like:

Let’s start by me saying that in the video above, I messed up the second card revelation, but that’s OK because it still worked. The three revelations are:
1: The (Piet Forton) Pop Out Move
2: Daryl’s Hot Shot Cut
3: The old trick where you sidejog the top card and drop the deck.

It’s not a crazy sequence, but it has a feel of build with the diminishing hands for each revelation.

Have fun with this!

-Louie

Magicians From Last Week!

One of the things that I love about being a performer is the camaraderie that exists. I was just at a booking event and while all the magicians there were competing for the same gigs, we all would help each other out in any way possible!

Many magicians look at other magicians as competition. Here’s how I look at booking gigs: If someone gets a gig that I was also up for, they did something that I was unable or unwilling to do.

I don’t believe that anyone owns a gig. Just because you’ve worked there before doesn’t make it your gig, and no one else can solicit it. Yes, there are inappropriate times to solicit it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done when it’s appropriate.

Go out there an make some friends with the magicians in your market!

-Louie

Test Travelling With a Show

I’m heading out to travel internationally to do some shows in a few days. The show I’m travelling with is packed differently than I normally travel. Normally I check my show and not carry it on. However, for this trip I will need to travel with some of it carried on.

My past travel experience has told me I’d have no issues flying with what’s in the carry on. To be safe, I was doing a domestic trip recently and I packed the show like the international one to see if I had any issues with TSA.

The show breezed through TSA, and there were no issues! It was nice to take a little bit of stress out of the upcoming trip!

-Louie

Applause Please – Back in Stock!

I’ve got a batch of Applause Please 2‘s back in stock and ready to ship!

I only have five of them ready right now. If you want one, get your order in soon. I head out for two weeks on December 9th, so your order needs to be in by the end of the day on December 8th, 2025 if you want it to ship before Christmas.

You can get them at:
https://www.magicshow.tips/applause-please-2-the-encore/

-Louie

Entertainment Trade Show

Most of my work is booked through trade shows for the industries in which I perform. Many magicians have never been to one of these things where you’re selling YOU, so here’s quick walk through of the trade show before it opened:

You can see there are a lot of vendors and many styles. There are some standard things, like a pop-up banner or a custom backdrop. Also, while most promo now is digital, you need a physical brochure or flyer of some sort to put into the potential booker’s hand. Those are kinda the bare minimum, then people have interesting props on display or screens that play their sizzle reel.

These trade shows aren’t for everyone, as you’ve got to work at them. If you just sit in your booth on your phone, you won’t make any connections.

-Louie

Magic as an Art

Magicians love to complain about how no one takes magic seriously as an art. Usually, those are the people who aren’t out there creating art, they’re doing cover band magic. Those are the people who buy a routine and do it word for word.

There’s nothing wrong with buying a routine and performing it. Just like there’s nothing wrong with doing a paint by number painting. If that’s what brings you joy, by all means, do it. It’s just not (in my opinion) creating art.

How do you become an artist? That’s a hard thing to say, and honestly I barely consider myself one and really hate it when I refer to myself as an artist. One place to start is figuring out who you are and how to convey that to your audience.

Do you like movies? Talk about that in your show.
Do you have kids? Talk about them in your show.

Another way is to have a point of view.
Are you Anti Tax? Talk about that in your show.

The more of you and your worldview you put into the show, the closer it starts moving into art.

Also, I should mention, art isn’t just presentation, it can be the sleight of hand.

-Louie

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is my annual posting of my Thanksgiving magic trick:

I think this trick is a good example of theming an existing trick to a holiday.

-Louie

WonderGround in Las Vegas!

Last week I was passed through Las Vegas on my way home from a booking conference and performed at WonderGround! This is a magic / variety show that was originally started by Jeff McBride, but is currently run by Will Bradshaw.

I think this was my fourth or fifth time doing WonderGround and it’s always a ton of fun. I ran into a bunch of old friends, made new friends and met people that I only knew from social media.

One of the highlights of the show was running into Richard. He saw my show at his elementary school about 15 years ago and that was his introduction to magic. Now he’s a working magician in Las Vegas!

Wonderground is really three shows: An early stage show, close up show and a late stage show. I performed in the late stage and close up shows.

One of the cool things about this show is that it’s a great audience! If you’re ever in Las Vegas when the WonderGround show is going on, you absolutely should go so it! For a $20 admission it’s a steal!

-Louie

Upgrading a Gimmick

For years, a gimmick I used in my show was the first version that I ever made out of some old plastic packaging and duct tape that I had laying around.

If you want more info on this, it’s for a trick in my 2025 Lecture Notes.

It wasn’t pretty, but it worked and held up for years. There’s still nothing wrong with it, however I decided I was going to up grade it by 3d printing it.

It came out looking great and more importantly working great!

I’m glad I designed it, now if I need another one it’s a simple and quick print!

-Louie