vintage organ – MagicShow.Tips

Performing on National TV!

Doing a national news spot can be very challenging when doing magic. A while ago, I wrote a post about doing them with some behind the scenes video. One of the biggest challenges is how fluid they can be. With magic, it’s fairly easy to be prepared with a couple of tricks that run different lengths of time.

Recently I did a national news spot at a gig where I was doing my street organ. This is a bit more challenging for a news spot. I was told we’d have 30 seconds, so the reporter, producer and I planned the bit and here’s how it came out:

Unforeseen Challenges of Performing on Live Television!

Those 30 seconds ended up being over a minute! I was rushing because I thought we didn’t have much time. I was also getting a weird vibe from the reporter and wasn’t sure what to make of it. In my past experience, the weird vibe means we have to wrap up. After we finished, he mentioned he lost the audio in his earpiece, so he didn’t know how we were doing on time. We both were kinda flying blind!

Given the situation it turned out well.

-Louie

Should You Wear Sunglasses Onstage?

I wrapped up twelve days of performing my Vintage Organ at a state fair. This is very different than performing magic. The booker didn’t want a show, but something more ambient, like a stilt walker. You have interactions with people, but you’re there to create a vibe, not do a show.

When I started doing the Vintage Organ, my costume (outdoors) had me wearing sunglasses. That was intentional; it was so that I could look around and not look bored or distracted.

The sunglasses do their job of making it harder to tell how mentally engaged you are. However, the drawback is that people don’t want to engage you as eagerly as if they could see your eyes. You lose how you initially connect with people. If I took my sunglasses off and just wore my normal glasses, the percentage of people who would approach me versus me calling out to them was higher.

Whenever I see stage magicians or jugglers wear sunglasses, I always wonder why they’re wearing them. They are cutting off how humans initially connect with each other…eye contact!

-Louie

Doing a National News Spot!

A few days ago, I was doing a news spot to promote the state fair that I’m performing at. In this contract, I’m only doing my Vintage Organ, so no magic. One of the things that I did was go over what I planned to do with the person I’d be talking to on the show. He asked if he could play the organ and I said “yes”, then asked him if he wanted to just play a song or if he wanted to get a laugh. He said, “laugh”, so that’s what we went with. I’ll post a video of the media spot when I get it.

When you do TV, there’s a lot of waiting around. My call time was 8am, and we didn’t do the actual spot until 9:45am! One of the things that I did was start to play Name That Tune with songs on my organ. I did this about 10 mins before we were supposed to start. I didn’t want to force it in; I noticed everyone was standing around doing nothing. I asked how much time we had and was told about 10 mins, so I started the game.

Here’s the “behind the scenes” video that Fox and Friends posted:

Not only did this kill some time, but since I had been waiting for close to two hours, I wanted to do something to put some energy back into me! It worked well, and it was a fun news spot!

Last year I made a behind the scenes video of a news spot that you can watch here!

These news spots can be intimidating, especially national ones like this, but a little bit of planning and a little bit of goofing around make a huge difference!

-Louie

Packing a 90 Minute Stage Show

I’m always interested in what magicians shows look like when packed up. Here’s what my 90 minute stage show looks like (when travelling by car).

For this gig I packed everything I needed. If I was flying to the gig I wouldn’t bring many things like mic stands that I use for bases for props. I have the venue provide those. Then there are things like the crank organ that I wouldn’t take if I was flying.

That’s a peek into the trunk of my car!

-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

Busker Organ

About 10 years ago I worked at an event where there was a Street Organ / Busker Organ. These are hand crank organs that are cranked by an “organ grinder”. I was fascinated by it, and it’s something I’ve thought about doing. I even bought a set of John Smith‘s plans for make my own, but never did.

Then few months ago I was in Mexico City and these street organs were everywhere!

@vintageorgan Street Organ in Mexico City! #streetorgan #mexicocity #busker #buskerorgan #oldetyme #streetperformer #mexico ♬ original sound – vintageorgan

That got me very interested in doing it again and I went out and found a guy who could make me one! Here’s the organ that was made for me:

@vintageorgan Busker Organ! #streetorgan #organgrinder #organ #buskerorgan #vintageinstrument #holland ♬ original sound – vintageorgan

It was custom made in Europe and I should have it in a few days. I have some ideas for what to do with it, and we’ll see what happens when it arrives!

I went ahead and got all the socials for it:

https://www.tiktok.com/@vintageorgan
https://www.instagram.com/vintageorgan
https://www.facebook.com/vintageorgan

Go and give them a follow!

And the website www.vintageorgan.com

-Louie