In using projection at my shows over the summer I learned that some projectors or TV’s will “time out” and turn off if they don’t think they’re getting a signal. The camera I use has a black out option that I used to use, until I learned that the black out can be interpreted as no signal and the TV or projector will go into sleep mode.
To solve this problem, I 3d printed a simple camera cover for my iphone and glued it on.
This is a very simple, low tech way to solve the problem. The camera is still sending a picture to the screen, so it won’t got into sleep mode.
For these shows I didn’t want to run the camera through my laptop and use my Media Star to control it. That’s way too much set up and gear for a library show.
I love that there are people who know what I’m into and when they run into thing that they think I’d like, they text me! For example, I collect vanishing bird cages and last month at magic live my buddy Clive Hayward sent me some pictures of a vanishing bird cage that was for sale there.
This cage is unusual, you’ll notice the side bars are attached by string!
I have a vanishing bird cage in my collection that’s similar, however it has metal parts that connect the sidebars to the cage. I’m curious if maybe this vanishing birdcage was a “budget” model of one with metal connectors, or if this was a home repair.
One of the styles of acts/shows that you don’t really see at a fair (aside from grandstand shows) are comedians. I think there are several reasons for this, but the main one is that comedy doesn’t really work before about 6pm and it needs a lot more attention than a juggler or magician.
Last week there was a comedian at the fair that I was at!
The comedian was Dan McGowan, and I was usable to catch his shows his first day, but ran into him at the grocery store that night!
I recognized him because he was wearing the same shirt he’s wearing in the video on his website! We chatted for a bit and he’s super friendly! I came in early to the fair the next day to catch a little bit of his show.
Dan is a solid comic and blended material with going off script and doing crowd work with the audience. Performing a show at 12:30pm is not for beginners, I think this is also another reason that you don’t see a lot of stand up comedians at fair is that the experience level you need to be at, there aren’t a lot of people that can do it.
A huge challenge for Dan was the gap between the stage and the audience. There was gap was huge, so it’s extremely hard to make a connection over that “moat”.
Dan had a lot of obstacles and he overcame them!
Many fairs that I perform at have a gap between the stage and the audience and it’s a HUGE challenge to overcome. Usually what I will do when I encounter this is do in my in the grass in front of where the audience is sitting. Sure, I’m in the sun, but the way I see it, I’m being paid to be there, so I can stand in the sun.
If you’re thinking of performing at fairs, you need to figure out the best way to handle a gap between you and the audience for your show or style of performing
Last summer I started working on a trick where a silk appears in a selected balloon. It worked alright and got decent Reponses from the audience, but it was lacking a lot. Like the point in the routine where the silk disappeared never really figured itself out.
The bigger challenge was that sometimes you could see the silk through the balloon. I tried doubling up the balloon, and that cut down the instances of people being able to see the silk through the balloon by about half, but it was still too frequent. Then I had other things to work on and I really haven’t messed with the routine until almost a year later.
The solution for hiding the silk in the balloon was very simple, I used a black balloon inside a colored one, instead of using two of the same color. Then next challenge was how to suspend the silk inside of the balloon as I didn’t want the silk to fall to the floor. This was very simple, I just used a bit of fishline tied to the end of the silk. This fishline was tied into the knot at the top of the balloon.
Now with most of the technical problems solved, I can get back to work with the routine. -Louie
A couple of weeks ago we went to a “drag brunch” and I’ve always said you can learn a lot from watching any type of performance, not just magic.
One of the things at this venue was the audio. They had two speakers running and the preshow music and host mics were fine, but they act’s music was only coming off of one speaker. That lead to soo much less energy being put into the crowd with the music when you can hear forks clink on the plates.
With my basic knowledge of sound, I can tell you whatever program (or cord) they were using for the music for the acts was sending the signal to the speakers with one side of the stereo output. When I was waiting for the bathroom, I was chatting with one of the acts and mentioned that whoever was running the sound needed to bump their music as it was only coming out of one speaker. The act asked me if I could fix it, I told them that “While I work in live events, it’s not my gig or my place to tell they sound person how to do their job….But if you tell them what I just told you, it would make it better.“
This is why you need a basic knowledge of things like sound, if the sound is bad, or not enough, you need to be able to communicate to whoever is running sound what you need. Frequently a lot of sound companies send out people whose job isn’t as a sound engineer, but more someone whose job is to load in/out the equipment and make sure that no one steals it.
The second half of the show was soo much better as the music filled the room much better. The “sound guy” had to work a lot harder than the first half because they had to turn the volume up for music and turn it down for the mics In reality, it’s barely any work, but a lot more than the nothing they were doing before.
For some reason I’ve been dinking with the egg bag off and on for the last 10 months. This summer I have the egg bag in my library show, it’s a non-traditional routine, that is really more like a miser’s dream with with balls.
When I was reading Charlie Frye‘s book, he had his egg bag routine. It’s got the standard “sucker” phase, but then his ends with a production of four eggs from the bag, with them all between your fingers like a multiplying billiard ball routine. I like the ending, and I got all the stuff to do the routine. I also got a new egg bag as I’m not sure that I like the standard black egg bag that I had been using. I wanted a color that’s more visible.
I’m trying to work out a routine when I have time that has Charlie’s ending. I’m not positive how I’m going to do the first parts. I just need to play with it more.
Last week I had a travel day where I got into the city a day before a week long gig. I booked a show at a retirement community that day as I wasn’t doing anything but loading into the fairgrounds.
My current senior show equipment is essentially a briefcase show. Here’s what I bring in with me (not including my audio equipment)
One element that I’ve added to the show is using projection in the show. I have two bits that use a TV screen.
Most senior facilities will have access to a screen in the performing area. Before I rely on it, I always ask to confirm that they do. I also have alternate things, so that if there’s an issue with the TV or whatever I still can do my time.
Here’s my theory on using projection, I don’t use it as a “look at this cool thing I can do“, everything I do on it is very interactive. The two tricks I do are my That Way More card trick, and my Russian Shell Game. The card trick uses someone in the audience (who stays in their seat) and the shell game uses the entire audience.
-Louie if you want to learn more about performing for seniors in retirement communities, check out my book How to Perform for Seniors!
Last month I was at an AirBnB. I was sharing the house with a bunch of the other performers at the Ohio State Fair. Behind the painting on the walls we found strange “Alien Postcards” from October of 2016
The first one was behind the paint of an apple, then we started searching the AirBnb and found the second one inside of a picture of Groucho!
OK, so that’s what happened in real life, now how do I turn it into a bit for my show?
I started by telling the story.
I’m staying at an AirBnB with some amazing performing, acrobats, jugglers…and a mime. He’s not even performing here. But that guy never shuts up.
One night I was looking behind the paintings and found some “alien postcards”. When I mentioned it to my wife on the phone she said, “why were you looking behind the paintings”, not “what’s an alien postcard.
I was looking for my keys.
Here are the postcards. On the front they say, “Materials deployed for reflective and connective purposes”. On the back this one says, “Thank you for signaling that you are anticipating my transmission”.
The other says, “Thank you for sending the signal that you are invested in receiving this signal…You’re going to die…JK, LOL LOL…but seriously, we’re watching…no parties!”
So now I’m searching the AirBnB for cameras, and you know what I found? My KEYS!
That’s the story. I’ve embellished it a little bit added some punchlines. The nice thing about being in a house with other performers is that we could workshop the story a little bit.
The next step is going to be figuring out what to do with this. Is it a little stand alone bit, or is it a segue to something else. Like a trick with a key and/or postcards?
One idea is to have borrow a key, cover it up with a handkerchief and have that held by someone in the audience. Then 5 postcards are shown, each has a place where I’ve found my keys. These could be funny places, like in pie, or whatever. One is selected, and the key disappears and ends up inside of the postcard.
Last month I got to work with Billy Kidd for a week.
Billy does a great show, and has a strong stage presence and persona. Off stage she is super cool as well!
If you get a chance to check out Billy’s show, I highly recommend it! You can learn a lot about performing from it. Like how she talks to the audience, not at the audience, which is a skill a lot of people need to be aware of!
Sometimes the “professional sound company” was professional in the early 1980’s! This was the mixer that the sound company had for an event I was performing at recently.
You’ll notice that this mixer has no XLR inputs. Those are the standard inputs for microphones, so this was unusable by me. Of course the sound company didn’t have any adapters to get an XLR to 1/4. I think that this mixer is more for a guitar, than vocals.
So what did I do? I used their corded mic with a Microphone Holder and did the show with no music. Always having one of the Microphone Holders with my gear is frequently a life saver!
