talkmagic.co.uk

Hey folks, a Mr Cat musing for a mellow sunday.

After recent success at the mini festival I attended and did some magic (I used mainly just EB2, just casual walkabout) and got some totally stunned and amazed reactions and exclamations of "Oh my...! How the!!....What!?" as one would hope, I was in my local pub a few nights back and tried the routine again on a few locals at the bar just before leaving.

There were a couple of folk I know in conversation, I crept in and hit them up unsuspectingly with my "Hey I've printed my own money...look" and then proceeded to turn it into real currency before their eyes. Their reaction was more "Mmmm, yes I had a friend that did magic and......." they really did seem pretty un-phased and unimpressed swiftly moving on with their own conversation on magic.

I guess everyone gets that? I've certainly had it before with folk round here, maybe I was just spoiled at the festival.

It's funny how some people can be so completely wowed and some just totally uninterested in an apparent miracle just performed ... people are strange

you've just experienced the comedy club syndrome, were by the place you are performing dictate's the reaction, its the very same reason most street magicians record there promos on the streets of America.
if you had said "I would have bought you a drink but darn it I only have the money my daughter made me..... but I am a magician so if you watch........

Ahhhhhhh nice Ok I'm learning.

I thought I had my own unique patter down but obviously it needs 'modding' to suit. Or.... do some people just always have a better story? That's the impression I got.

But I hear you, and I'm glad for some sympathy I was quite niffed!

Last Sunday I had a rather superb experience with more positive reactions! My brain cell is still not fully recovered but it was after the FISM2015 Convention in Rimini, Italy and I'll post a fuller review as soon as I sober up...

FISM events were finished by late Saturday/early Sunday morning so on Sunday afternoon I, my son Peter and our mate Gunnar from Iceland wandered over to the beach area in search of a bar or two and somewhere to eat. We eventually found a bar restaurant which opened at 7pm and, as it was just five minutes past, we sat down and scanned the menu, ordered food and enjoyed every mouthful. Gunnar produced a deck of cards and showed us a few neat routines. Then a waiter came over and asked him to do more and before long other diners were gathering around. My son joined in with some coin stuff, magically changing 20 cent coins into 1 Euro coins in people’s closed hands and I bent and broke some of the restaurant’s spoons – with the full approval of the waiter of course!

Despite the language differences, we had no problem in explaining what we were doing and we soon had a crowd on 6 or 7 people plus 4 waiters applauding and asking for more. We didn’t get a discount or any free food but bottles of Limoncello and some other stuff which tasted like alcoholic cough mixture appeared (and were consumed!) regularly like magic but didn’t show up on the bill. We were amongst the last to leave at 11pm and it was a truly wonderful evening but the big laugh was that Gunnar’s routines cost him nothing as the cards were freebies from Cardshark at the convention, I was destroying the restaurant’s spoons which cost me nothing at all but each time Peter did his bit it cost him 80 cents!

its not your fault at all its the venue, in the pub setting there mostly there to relax and drink not to get excited.
the patter suggestion is just there to get them to interact with you and prompt them that you expect a reaction.

understanding what to expect from a situation is the part magicians can only learn on the job, for example if you were presenting your a game to the emperor of japan in feudal times and you new you were absolutely killing it, the best you could expect would be for the emperor to take his feet out of his syrups...... if you got pay'ed and left with your head that would just be a bonus.

patter is great but always leave yourself some flexibility depending on the situation, sometimes you literally have to tell them to laugh /react at the point of the magic "and this is the point here when you gasp and they laugh", I did a luncheon, luncheon should tell you there going to be a stayed bunch straight away, at a Botox party..... can you see were this is going.
so the most I got all night was little claps and jolly goods..... but I did manage to crow bar in the immortal lines "are you happy"....... " can you let your face know"

magicdiscoman wrote:its not your fault at all its the venue, in the pub setting there mostly there to relax and drink not to get excited.
the patter suggestion is just there to get them to interact with you and prompt them that you expect a reaction.

understanding what to expect from a situation is the part magicians can only learn on the job, for example if you were presenting your a game to the emperor of japan in feudal times and you new you were absolutely killing it, the best you could expect would be for the emperor to take his feet out of his syrups...... if you got pay'ed and left with your head that would just be a bonus.

patter is great but always leave yourself some flexibility depending on the situation, sometimes you literally have to tell them to laugh /react at the point of the magic "and this is the point here when you gasp and they laugh", I did a luncheon, luncheon should tell you there going to be a stayed bunch straight away, at a Botox party..... can you see were this is going.
so the most I got all night was little claps and jolly goods..... but I did manage to crow bar in the immortal lines "are you happy"....... " can you let your face know"

Actually, it is your fault. However there is nothing wrong with that. Magic like almost everything else has a learning curve. Not every trick works in every venue, however most do, and it is your presentation for that venue that has to change. Usually not by much. And it can really only be learned by going out and performing. Reading the books, watching the video's chatting on here, non of that will actually help when it comes down to just getting out there and performing. Making those 'mistakes' and enjoying the successes. The beauty is the more you perform the more you will find the success than the failures.

I understand what disco man is trying to say when he say's it is not your fault, you really didn't do anything wrong. You are learning to perform. Stuff happens. But the reality is in order to learn from our mistakes we have to own the mistakes, own the mishaps or whatever you want to call them. (I'm having trouble calling them mistakes because really they are not). If we don't own up to our issues we cannot move forward. It is too easy to say it is the venue. It is the audience. It is never the venue or the audience. Part of being a performer is also knowing when not to perform, or what to perform. And that only comes with experience. It is always the performer.

One can argue, 'well if the spectator doesn't like magic that is not the fault of the magician' true, but if somebody doesn't like magic then the magician should not be peforming for that person. And of course there is no way to please everyone all the time.

The main thing is you are going out and performing. Everything else will fall into place.

yes what bmat said.

It is not the venue.

What you have failed to do is to tell them how you want them to react. They have no idea how to react to some guy showing them something.
say something like...

"if I could tell you it was a red or black card you would smile and say well done.
but if I could tell you the suit your would be really impressed and clap your hands
and then If I could actually name your card then you would jump up and down, punch the air and go wild."

"lets see, I think your card is .... red...let me see... yes she's smiling... not only red, its a diamond ? <you clap. hopefully they might join in> and finally, yes its the .. 7 of diamonds <turn the card over, punch the air, encourage everyone to go wild>"

Even if they don't react in the way you have said, you have set an expectation for all the miracles that you are about to hit them with in the next few minutes.

It sounds as if you went to them rather than them coming to you. That puts you in a far weaker position. I don't know what the circumstances of the first place were. Perhaps you were performing as part of a formal paid gig. That is a different situation than going up to people in a pub. And of course perhaps the locals in the pub already knew you and that can make a difference. Familiarity breeds contempts. Perhaps at the festival they came to you rather than you to them. Perhaps the performance came up in casual conversation. I really don't know.

The key to your question is the circumstances. Only you know that. We don't. Perhaps if you tell us in more detail the circumstances of both venues and how you came to perform the answer will be clearer.