stage magic – Page 25 – MagicShow.Tips

Another Vanishing Birdcage!

I recently aquired a new vanishing birdcage!

There’s a couple of interesting things about this vanishing bird cage. The big thing is that the corners are upside down, the wires are on the inside of the cage and not on the outside.

The corners also feel longer than they need to be, and it turns out that’s a characteristics of YIMKA vanishing birdcages. All of the pictures of them that I’ve now seen have longer corners than most cages.

After a chat with Doug Edwards who is the Vanishing Birdcage guy, it appears that YIMKA made cages with the corners upside down and the standard way. YIMKA also stamped his cages, but not all of them. The cage I have is unstamped, but based on what I’ve learned, I’d say my new cage is probably a YIMKA!

One of the fun things for me is the detective work and figuring out what I’ve just bought!

-Louie

Visiting the Oddities and Curiosities Expo!

When the travelling Oddities and Curiosities Expo was in town I popped by to check it out. I’ve performed at the expo in the past, and swung by to say hi to some friends.

It was great to see the Three Legged Dog Sideshow do their thing!

Magicians can learn a lot by watching sideshow acts. It’s a very similar build through routines. A magician has to show the box is empty before you can make something appear, and a sword swallower has to show the sword is real before they swallow it.

You really should check out the Oddities and Curiosities Expo when it’s passing through your town, you can learn a lot!

-Louie

Rope Thru Coat Hanger

For five or six years I’ve been working on a Silk Thru Coat Hanger routine. I’ve figured out the sequence, however one of the weak links to the routine is the reel. I like it and it allows for some very visual things to happen, however I think that sometimes the string is too easy to see.

Here’s an old video to give you a idea of some of the stuff I was doing:

The cool part of the routine was the silk going from the triangle to the hook of the coat hanger.

I put this routine on the back burner for a bit, but recently started playing with it again. I’m looking more into ring off rope techniques and found this one:

The routine above has a similar flow to what I was doing with the reel, so that makes for an easier transition to a rope and hanger routine. I did figure out a way to make the rope go from the triangle to the hook of the coat hanger using the method in the above trick.

One of the challenges is the ergonomics of holding a ring work better than an coat hanger for this routine. It could simply be a practice thing to learn to do the move on a flat surface. We’ll see…

-Louie

Showcases to book your show

Last week I went to a booking conference to work on filling up my summer schedule. One of the things that that happens besides a trade show where different acts have booths are showcases. The showcase is one of the best ways to schedule work as you can actually show potential bookers what you actually do!

This one had some awesome acts!

Depending on the rules where you’re showcasing, your showcase set can be between 10-20 minutes, with most being about 15 minutes.

My showcase at this conference was with my crank organ.

Honestly, I was super nervous. The organ is newer to me and I don’t know it inside and out like I do my show. With my magic show almost everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong. That means I know how to deal with problems if they occur in my magic show. With the organ I’m positive that there’s a lot that can go wrong that I haven’t encountered. And of course problems tend to appear when there’s a lot riding on that show. Luckily nothing went wrong and I had a good showcase set!

I personally think that going to showcases is one of the best ways to book work. You can book a lot of work in a short amount of time. Most industries have some sort of showcase.

-Louie

Magic Club – SAM #59

A couple of weeks ago I popped by the Portland SAM magic club. It was their close up contest night! There were three contestants that all did card tricks, and all with very different styles!

Then after the contest we saw some magic by Gaeton from France and a demonstration of the Vampire Block Escape!

The Vampire Block Escape is a trick I’ve seen on shelves of magic shops, but had never seen any actually do the trick. This particular one was homemade and probably 60 years old!!! The trick looked great and while the style of prop isn’t modern, the trick is still great!

I’m a huge fan of magic clubs and if you aren’t popping into your local magic club, you should. Contribute to your local magic community.

-Louie

Vanishing Birdcage Repair!

A while ago I bought a couple of vanishing birdcages and one of them turned out to be a vintage Owen vanishing birdcage. Unfortunately this cage had a bad corner joint.

I sent it up to my birdcage guy in Canada and he fixed the corner and gave it a quick polish and it looks fantastic and works great!

I’m glad I took a gamble on this cage, it’s a great addition to my collection and a good example of an older Owen vanishing birdcage!

-Louie

Halloween Shows

Happy Halloween, and be safe out there to everyone performing tonight! I won’t be doing any shows tonight and that’s by choice. Years ago I decided I didn’t enjoy Halloween shows, so I don’t really do them. Sure, there are reasons that I would still do them, like an insane paycheck, but for the most part I say no.

I decided I don’t like them because people act strange when they’re in costume. Whether it’s kids or adults. And people aren’t necessarily comfortable when they’re in costume watching a show. The amount of people that will watch a show wearing a giant mask with limited vision is very high. However they won’t take the mask off.

Speaking of masks, that’s a challenge, as an audience you want to see people’s faces. As a performer you want the audience to see the face of anyone onstage and how they react. The amount of times in the past, where I would ask a kid to come onstage specifically because they weren’t wearing a mask, only to have them stand up, put a mask on and walk onstage it staggering! Or people who act the character of how they’re dressed. I don’t want to do a trick for Darth Vader, I want to do it for a human.

I think that having an audience in costume makes my show not be as could as it could be because of elements out of my control. My solution is to turn them down.

I wasn’t having fun, and there’s plenty of other things to do.

-Louie

It’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!

A couple of days ago I posted about a new vanishing birdcage. It was sold to me as a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. It turns out it’s a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage!

vanishing bird cage info by doug edwards

Thanks to the super knowledgeable Doug Edwards!
He also informed me that the “T” stamped on mine meant it was sold through Tannen’s Magic in New York.

It’s always great to learn new things!!!

-Louie

New Cage for the Collection!

Another Vanishing Bird Cage has been added to my collection. This is (probably) a Sherms Vanishing Bird Cage. This is the original design that Milson Worth used for their Silver Meteor Vanishing Bird Cage, but the Milson Worth Cage was smaller.

This has an “S&” stamped on one side near the clip and a “T” on the other side.

The reason I’m not positive that this is a Sherms is that there’s one on eBay listed as a Warren Simms Vanishing Bird Cage and it has the same “S&” stamp on it, and it has brass bars.

No matter who made it, it’s a cool cage!

If you have positive info on the maker, let me know!

-Louie

Justin Willman – The Illusionati Tour

Ove the weekend my wife and I went out to check out Justin Willman’s Illusionati show in Portland. I’ll start with saying that I think his live show is great! He probably has one of the best opening tricks that I’ve seen. It wins over the audience and sets up his personality perfectly!

The other thing that Justin does really well is his use of the “close up camera”. All of the stuff that he does with it are enhanced by the camera, and not reliant on the camera. It’s all sorta interactive, it’s not just a close up on his hands while he does tricks. It’s all part of larger things. If you’re thinking of using a camera in your show, you really should go see Justin’s show.

The other thing that he does really well is letting spontaneous things happen. He’s the star of the show, but he doesn’t mind sharing that spotlight. That’s a huge contrast from a lot of “comedy magicians” where the second someone from the audience does something funny or interesting, they shut them down. It’s these spontaneous things that make a live show fun!

If Justin Willman in your town, be sure to check him out!

-Louie