street magic show – MagicShow.Tips

Assigned Street Performing Spots are Lame

A few weeks ago I was performing at a fair. I was doing street style shows and they gave me an assigned spot and assigned times. On paper this sounds like a good idea, however in practice it’s usually a horrible idea. 99% of the time the entertainment coordinator doesn’t walk the grounds at different times of the day to see where the shade is.

Here’s one of my assigned spots a few minutes before my assigned start time:

I should mention it was over 90 degrees out and you’ll notice there’s no shade. If you look to the right, you’ll see my case is in the shade, but most of the case is in the sun. There’s zero usable shade at this spot and very few people will stand in the sun for more than a few minutes. I personally will stand in the sun as I’m getting paid, but I don’t expect an audience to do that.

However a little bit up the pathway there’s this spot:

There’s plenty of shade and I decided to “go rogue” and do my magic show there with shade for the audience. I was able to get people to stop here and watch the show.

Personally I’m a “ask for permission” person and not a just do it and “ask for forgiveness” person. However this was a situation where it made sense and if anyone asked about it, I could simply show them the pictures and I think they’d agree with me. Also I’d probably walk that person into the full sun spot and then show them the pictures and talk for a long time and watch them get uncomfortable in the sun to emphasize my point.

-Louie

Low to the Ground

During one of my street style sets at the fair yesterday I had a group of younger kids show up and I knocked my table down so that they could see the table top.

I was surprised that this instantly built a larger crowd. I’m not sure why more people wanted to watch. It does make the table top more visible to the front edge of the crowd and maybe it makes people huddle in and look like they’re watching something interesting. I’m not sure why it worked, and maybe that was a one off sorta thing, but I’m going to try it again today and see what happens.

-Louie

Frisco Fred

Yesterday I made it to Pier 39 in San Francisco and caught the tail end of Fred Anderson’s show.

He ended with card to mouth and what really stood out to me was how slowly he worked. It made me remember that I really need to slow down when I’m performing street style shows.

There’s always a ton you can learn by watching other performers, and I’m glad I got to see a little bit of Fred’s show (and hang out for a bit after).

-Louie

Working Out New Material!

Over the weekend I performed at a four day fair in California and I learned a lot! I’m working on my half circle show and it’s gotten better but still has a long way to go. I’ll write more about this in the next few days.

Here’s a highlight reel of some of the magic that I did:

@louiefoxx Magic at the Glenn County Fair! #countyfair #orland #glenncountyfair #magicshow #louiefoxx #escape #fairmagicshow #orlandca #magician #comedymagic #closeupmagic #haunteddeck #cardmagic ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

When I perform at a fair I always put an odd prop or two into my pocket and do it throughout the day. These are usually things that I never intend to do in my standard act, but it breaks up the monotony of doing the same set all day.

The “new” tricks I took were Bob Ostin’s Auto Suggestion and Matchbox Mambo by Paul Richards. I used to sell the heck out of Matchbox Mambo in the early 2000’s when I was at Market Magic Shop in Seattle. Here’s the problem with Matchbox Mambo, it doesn’t work for kids. No matter the conditions you put on it, they can’t see why pushing one matchbox drawer in shouldn’t make the other come out. Handing it to them after doing it the first time and explaining why it doesn’t work the way they think it does is a waste to time. You end up spending more time explaining WHY it’s a magic trick than performing the magic. It was fun to play with last week, but Matchbox Mambo isn’t going to graduate into my main roving magic set.

I’ll write more about Bob Ostin’s Auto Suggestion later.

-Louie

Packing The Street Show

Here’s all of my street show props packed into the wagon that they’ll travel in.

This is everything, including the sound system. It’s important that the show is very mobile and sets up quickly! This show will be starting this week, so we’ll see how much the set up and packing changes by the end of the week!

-Louie

Video Introduction

I just wrapped up showcasing at a booking conference. Usually at these the MC isn’t the best, so a couple years ago my agent started having her acts use video intros which play right after the MC intros the act.

Here’s mine:

It really does a lot more to set the tone and energy for the showcase. I’m really glad I started using a video introduction!

-Louie

Socially Distant Street shows…

Last weekend I was in Raleigh, NC and went for a walk. One of the things that I came across was a little street festival. It was a little bit of a return to getting back to normal. There was a street performer, and she was signer ad had a pretty decent sized crowd (also her PA was crazy loud!).

One of the interesting thing was how the crowd with now instructions, socially distanced themselves by group. This is a good sign for my summer performing at fairs. One of the things that I was worried about was how I was going to handle the crowds, and keep them socially distant. I was curious how much of that would be on me to do. It’s looking good that the audience will do it themselves. However, I think a lot of this will have to do with the local culture.

Whatever your personal beliefs on masks or social distancing, the reality is that if you want to work, you are going to have to follow whatever procedures the venue imposes. That may be nothing, or that may me a lot. Sure, as a magician whose job it is to entertain a crowd, you can’t force anyone to follow and rules or regulations. Just thinking about how you would manage a crowd now, will help you in the future if you ever need to.