Moderators: nickj, Lady of Mystery, Mandrake, bananafish, support
S. Lea wrote:When people talk about failure in front of an audience they seem to forget that the audience is - unless everything goes wrong - on your side the entire time. Nobody in their right mind pays to see a show, whether it's a mentalism show, a play or a film and wants it to be bad. As you step on stage, you can actually feel the tention in the crowd. Everyone is worried that you, and the show, is going to be sh*t.
Mentalists often say, have a quick snappy opener that proves your creditials to the audience. Why are you doing this? Not for your benefit (directly) but for the benefit of the audience. You're saying to them "don't worry, I know what I'm doing and this show is going to be worth more than the entrance fee." Once you've established this and the audience is at ease, you can now get on with the show.
What's this got to do with failure? Well, the audience don't want you to fail as much as you don't want to fail. And, by-and-large, they'll do everything they can to see every effect as a triumph, even the one's that don't work. Spectators, on stage, are always more concerned with 'not messing up the trick' than catching you out. If you mess up effects, you will be responsible for ruining the evening and if they mess up the effect, then they are responsible for ruining the evening.
A great show and a good evening is only something that can be achieved if the performer and audience cooperate. Even the best effects fall flat and that's when they work. If you have a good rapport with your audience then they'll carry the energy over to the next effect. If you perform 5 effect and one fails, it simply won't matter to your audience.
If you worried about a 20% failure rate then get out of mentalism now. Considering that some of you audience will be good at maths, experienced in psychology, and familar with old effects rehashed about 20% of your audience will have been sussed some of your effects by the end of the show.
And, for good measure, unless you are a top magician, you should consider 75% total success-rate pretty good going.
Obviously, performing professionally, for people one has never met, is much more demanding in many ways: please take that as read, because I need to concentrate on the opposite side of things for a moment to make my point.
You simply cannot get away with much of the stuff you could get away with in a crowd of strangers when the specs are three of your mates.
Some of it you couldn't even begin to do - either because the premise simply wouldn't fly with people who know you well, or because it requires, say, the specs not immediately and comprehensively discussing what has happened with each other the second you've finished
and the hobbyists vastly outnumber the professionals, I'd suggest: the low/mid-end magic market is a market that relies absolutely on people who will never perform the tricks that are being sold to a paying audience
learning how to think like both, a genuine psychic and a cunning charlatan; a salesman wishing to promote something unique. In this case, an experience that defies explanation even within the mind of your average magic hobbiyst.
copyright wrote:I find it much easier to perform for strangers in a club setting, for reasons S. Lea mentions above. They've paid to see a performer, they want him to be good and they're ready to believe that he will be good.
copyright wrote:I have actually been on stage where the opposite is true, comedians thrown to the crowd to be heckled and abused. I remember once waiting backstage and literally feeling the vibrations from the baying crowd. One of the waiting performers was actually crying. It was horrible but that's another story.
copyright wrote: Over complicated magician-foolers are simply not necessary.
copyright wrote:It often seems peculiar to me that the overwhelming bulk of magic is sold to people who only want to perform it in informal settings and yet the magic on sale is so poorly suited for these settings.
But, bringing this back to Failure, on whom do you test new effects? Strangers or friends?
Return to Reviews - Electronic media format
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests