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It's Magic Club night for me and it is a members tricks night. We had one two months ago and it was oversubscribed and I didn't get my turn. So tonight is the night and this will be my first public performance for a group of other magicians.

I am a bit of a one trick type pony at the moment, I am mostly a card man. So to break it up a bit (and to let me swap a used stack for another stack) I am going to do the Hollywood effect with my stealth wallet. I am working on Sankeys Holy Smoly but I am not confident enough yet to risk it.

I have an ace production from RRTCM and three tricks from Simon Lovells Million Dollar Card Magic. With the bit of mentalism that will be long enough for me to be on my feet!

Nerves are now begining to jangle a bit!

It's the main reason I've never joined a magic club as such. I STILL get a bit nervous performing around joe public, never MIND a bunch of magi who can probly do any trick I could show them!

That said, I'm sure you'll be fine. Kudos for joining a club, I know it must be having a great impact on your skills in general.

Good luck with the show! Let us know how it goes =o)

Jon

I hate performing for other magicians, I find I could generally make joe public look the other way long enough for me to shove a pschedelic elephant into my back pocket if I wanted to, but I always feel a bit insecure when showing something to another magi, like they've probably seen this a hundred times and know what to look for.

The point is this isn't really the case, they may never have seen the tricks you're doing before and are just as susceptible to misdirection as the rest of the world. Also your magic club is probably made up of many different types of magicians, and some of these may not even use cards at all (not every magi is Cardini)...

Just try and relax and just let your personality shine through, this is a friendly audience who want you to succeed and my best advice is to remember that and enjoy the opportunity to perform.. You never know you may just surprise yourself...

Thanks both for the encouragement.

Is the psychedelic elephant trick availble form any on line store.......??

Performing for other magicians is sure a huge challenge and gets me unconfortable. If the purpose of it is helping each others out by sharing knowledge and try to improve the routine, it's ok, but if I must to a routine to impress them as if they where a "normal" crowd, I wouldn't be ok with it. There is a chance that Joe Average thinks :"Damn! Maybe telepathy exists after all" but most magician won't even think about that, all they'll see is someone trying to deceive them... (at my very humble opinion !)

Johnny Wizz wrote:Is the psychedelic elephant trick availble form any on line store.......??

Only the ones in Amsterdam!!

the psychedelic elephant trick

I'm sure this works on the same priciple as f*ld*ng coins and the replacement bands cost an absolute fortune.

...i would hate to think where you have to place the bands on an elephant..

...the masked magician reveals - street elephants....where he bites out a section of an elephant then magically restores it...

abraxus wrote: bites out a section of an elephant then magically restores it...

Don't knock it till you've tried it!

Imagine them all in their underwear.

No... That might not work... It'll probably just distract you more than you want...

Just pretend that you're just practicing. No pressure. Relax and don't worry about them. You're just practicing your routines or whatever and noone is watching. Hopefully their glares won't freak you out and make you lose concentration like that.

bitsnpieces wrote:Imagine them all in their underwear.

Elephants in their underwear? Surely you mean trunks!

Hey Johnny let us know how it's gone when you get back won't you....

Flash wrote:
Elephants in their underwear? Surely you mean trunks!

Man, you'll regret saying that in the morning. :)

Anyway, Johnny, speaking as someone who's never done it and whose input is therefore utterly worthless, I'd say, 'Focus on the performance'. Normally, our sweaty fear is that the spec will figure out/know the trick. Here, you can more or less assume that absolutely everyone watching will know the tricks. So, let that take the worry away. You can focus on performing with panache or humour or style or easy going likeability without getting all tight about the secrets. 'Really watchable - you just need to work on the moves,' will easily trump, 'Meh. Techincally perfect, but rather dry.'

Johnny,

When I started demming magic for Practical Magic I was really worried about performing in front of magicians but I decided I just had to do it and got stuck in.

Sometimes what you show a magician he hasn't seen before and will be amased, other times he will know what you are doing. I found, in the main, that those that did know usualy respected your efforts and kept quiet through the performance only telling you at the end that they knew how it was done.

Most of the time I was complimented on how I had done things which was quite confidence boosting.

Don't be frightened of club interviews. Everyone watching you has already been there. They don't expect you to have the polish of PD. They just want to know you have a genuine interest in magic, that's all.

Well, I did it!!

A Simon Lovell transposition, an ace / king swap from the same genious, a Karl Fulves double stop and the Hollywood routine that comes with the Stealth Wallet. Then I demmed Twisted Sister.

It was great. Once the nerves settled I got in to my patter and felt a real buzz. It is a very friendly club but I am sure I would have been told if I had dropped any real bricks. I came close with Twisted sister - I had set up one of the transposed cards upside down but I even carried that off.

Thank you to everyone who posted words of encouragement. I will have no hesitation putting my name in the hat for any future tricks nights.

Well done!!