When I travel I hand carry my audio/electronic stuff box. I’m paranoid about losing this, so I put an Apple AirTag in it. I set this AirTag to alert me if I leave it somewhere. So if I walk away from the audio case, my phone will let me know!
While I’m mentioning travel tips, I don’t use luggage tags on my bags. Instead I write my name and phone number on my luggage with a marker!
Now there’s no luggage tag to get ripped off, my info is on my luggage permanently!
-Louie
When you perform and there’s a stage, use it! It took me a while to learn this, and I’m glad I figured it out a long time ago. Before I go further, there are times and reasons to be in front of the stage, or in the audience, so this isn’t a hard rule.
Here’s an example, I was watching a performer do the cups and balls and they’re performing on the floor in front of the stage. Here’s what I could see sitting in the back:
The lady standing was moving to the back to where she could stand to see. Don’t worry about her, she’s not what this is about. It’s about the cups and balls on the table and about waist height to the performer.
What does this picture tell you?
It tells me that if I’m on the same level as the audience (the floor), anything held below my shoulders can’t be seen six rows back.
So how do you do the cups and balls onstage?
That’s the challenge because if your tabletop is flat, then the people in the front rows can’t see as the bottom of the table is blocking their view.
You could move the table further upstage and that will help a bit. What I did when I used to do cups and balls was put a “rake” to my table, so the front end was lower than the back end. My table also had a small lip that would stop the balls from rolling off. It was a workable solution and an option.
One thing that’s helpful is to watch magic shows from different seats in the audience and pay attention to when you can’t see things. Not just when they’re performing, but if a magician walks into the audience, how much of them can you see? You can use this information to help you decide to go into the audience and if you do, how to do it so that things can be seen.
-Louie
I was looking at my magic tables and they’re getting beat up. Two of them it’s just the the top fabric was getting worn out, but the third one was straight up beat to crap!
This is my stage table, and things sit on the top of it, so you don’t see the surface of it. As long as I was recovering my two tables that I work on, I might as well do this one.
Here’s all three tables with their new surfaces. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner, it only took about 30 is mins to do all three of them and it’s not hard. I have a self adhesive surface I use.
Sometimes it’s hard to know when your props are getting worn out as it happens slowly and gradually. Every now and then you really need to give your stuff a good once over !
– Louie
A couple of weeks ago I performed at the All American Magic Theater in Portland, OR. One of the nice things is that the backstage TV that shows what’s happening onstage has a show run order.
This is nice with a show with multiple performers. You don’t have to remember who you are following, you just look up! It also shows how long the show is running and how much time is left during intermission!
-Louie
The current book that I’m reading is Professional Secrets by Geoffrey Durham. This book has been mentioned a lot in online magic forums, and I’m glad to have finally gotten a copy of it at a reasonable price!
I’m about 50 pages into the book and one of the things that I like about it is that it’s more than just the tricks. It’s his thinking on performing. One of the tricks he explains is his opener that is really just a handflash device. However he goes on for several pages about his thoughts on opening tricks and opening your show before he gets into the handflash device.
I like that!
Here’s one of my favorite quotes in the book so far:
I 100% agree with this! Those three adjectives; interesting, attractive and unique are very important. I always tell people that it takes work to be interesting onstage. It also takes work to be unique in a relatable way!
So far I’m liking this book and if you can track down this book you’ll probably like it as well!
-Louie
A few months ago I picked up Henry Harrius’s Refilled vanishing bottle (Corona version). It’s sat on my desk for a while and recently I read Wayne Dobson‘s vanishing bottle routine and kinda liked the idea. So I sat down and wrote out a routine for it.
The effect is: You have a bag and two bottle caps. One is selected and you remove the matching bottle from the bag! You tell the audience you’ll show them how you did the trick, you have two bottles. You take out the second bottle, then put it back into the bag and you crumple up the bag.
Here’s what I wrote:
Two bottle caps, a red coke one and a blue corona one. You’re going to pick one like this is a low budget remake of the matrix
The red cap, everything is revealed, the blue cap and I and you’ll learn nothing, just like high school.
Hold them in your hands and shake them like you’re playing craps, or the baby won’t stop crying. …clearly you don’t have a baby
Now blow on them for luck like you’re in vegas or a kid in the 1980’s who just wants to play super mario brothers
Toss me one.
Red, the coke bottle cap. Inside the bag I have a Coke BOTTLE!
Since you picked the red cap, that means you get to see inside the illusion. you can never go back, your life will be forever changed like going thru puberty or committing murder.
That turned dark
inside the bag I have a second bottle, so it doesn’t matter which you picked, just like voting.
However if you picked the other cap and we needed to keep the illusion, then we would have done it with only one bottle!
It’s not the best script ever, but it’s something to get it onstage and in front of an audience.
One thing I noticed is that I think the trick will play better if the vanishing bottle is the Coke bottle. It makes more sense to have that one disappear in the context of explaining the routine. So I just ordered one of those.
I think this routine could be a good lead into my Signed Coin in Bottle. This was published in Vanish Magazine a few years ago.
-Louie
I’m working on adding more production elements to my show. I’ve been using video in a very basic way that’s just a camera that’s either on or off, but that’s it. I just added some visual element for projection, and did my first show with them. The first show was pretty basic, it was simply the either a logo, live close up video or pictures.
The first show went well. I’m using Show Cues System and my Media Star remote and running it off of a laptop. Show Cues System is production software (not to be confused with Show Cues music app for your phone) that can run all of the show elements from music to lights. It’s the PC version of Qlabs.
The thing that I don’t like about it is the lack of a screen that I can easily see what the current thing it’s playing it. That helps when you skip a routine, or accidentally push a button and need to move around in your set list. I think I just need to use it more to get used to it!
I tried it out at a gig at a senior community. That’s one of the great things about doing shows for seniors, they are low pressure shows, not huge events where you’re getting paid thousands of dollars. If there’s a tech hiccup, it’s not as huge of a deal!
-Louie
PS if you want to learn more about performing for senior communities, check out my book How To Perform For Seniors!
Last month I popped by an open mic to try a new idea. That idea was for the second phase of my card to pocket to have smoke come out of my pocket before the card is pulled out. I’ve only done it at open mics, and decided to try it at a show and IT WENT GREAT!
The smoke coming out of the pocket adds a nice magical and funny moment to the show. I think I may add something else for the third/final phase, like smoke AND a laser to try to take it over the top in stupidness!
This reminds me of a Mel Brooks quote, “…go past crowd pleasing and into real comedy!” It’s great advice for performing. Go past crowd pleasing and into real magic. How do you take your magic to the next level? Sponge balls are crowd pleasing, but how to you take it to the next level?
-Louie
Years ago I read in one of John Novak’s Art of Escapes books about altering the gimmick for a mail bag escape to be a handcuff sort of thing. It was the bar from the mailbag escape and it hand either chains or handcuffs attached to the ends where the locks would be. The premise is the bar was a “spreader bar” to keep your hands separate so that you couldn’t reach the other side.
For some reason I liked this as a prop and have picked up a couple of the bars, but never made them into a the prop with the restraints on the ends. They’re just sitting around collecting dust.
This morning while I was doing my morning writing, I had an idea! What if they bar held a small bag. The bag was on the bar and there were still restraints on the ends of the bars.
This idea is that you would try to get whatever you put into the bag out while chained up.
Then it hit me, that maybe the bag could be mesh with a canvas or leather top:
That would work, but I think the presentation/routine would decide if a solid or mesh bag would be used.
If it was a mesh bag, it could be a laundry bag, and a selected item could be removed? There could be a few items or items of different colors and the item called out by the audience is what is removed. If it’s a laundry bag, they you wouldn’t necessarily need to be chained to the bar.
I like this idea of using the bar from the Mailbag Escape for something it’s not really intended for!
-Louie
In December everyone is a corporate entertainer. There’s more work out there than there are performers. It’s not hard to be working evenings Thursday thru Sunday, but the off peak time gigs are what separate the pros from the warm bodies!
I did a holiday party at 7:30am!
Being able to be ready and “on” that early and getting an audience to laugh is a probably one of the hardest things for a performer. Most of these people are having their first cup of coffee while you’re trying to tell jokes.
One of the challenges for shows this early is to not try to push the audience too hard. You really can’t hype them up like you can a show that would take place at 7pm. The 7am energy is much more laid back, no matter what you do! You gotta embrace it!
-Louie
