talkmagic.co.uk

I work professionally both as a suave, sophisticated and good looking magi entertaining folk in bars and restaurants, and as a goofy idiot called Mr. Mystery who does magic shows at kid's parties.

The kid's parties are a real hard slog, particularly when the "guests" are aged around 8 years old. It is a popular misconception that children like magic. They don't. They think it is all one big con, and they take it upon themselves to prove the magician is a fake in any manner they can - including physical violence.

Kid's entertainers really earn their money. It pays well, but you could end up an emotional wreck if you let the little so-and-so's get the better of you!

On the other hand, adults are a joy to entertain. If you've done a magic show for 20 screaming 8 years old high on sugar and fizzy pop, you can perform magic for anyone!

I'd love to hear anyone else's experience of performing magic for the little darlings!

I retired from doing children's parties. But others on here love it.

Kids DO like magic! In fact they LOVE it!

You have to have the knack though. And it helps if you like the kids. If you like them they will sense it and like you in return. If they like you they will tend not to harass you.

Methinks you haven't quite got the knack yet. Work on it until you do or alternatively decide that the kid shows are simply not your medium and give them up. No point making you and the kids both miserable.

I recently saw Dave Allen AKA Magic Dave (UK childrens entertainer of the year 2004) do a lecture and I thought he was amazing. He did a mini show and it was packed full of fun yet powerfull magic. Especially he drawing board. I don't think there was one adult in the lecture who did not laugh and enjoy getting involved. His show has a sort of double take to it. Kids love it but adults also love it. His jokes have two ways of reading in to them, the kids way and the adults way.

I have seen many kids shows and although the content was good the children got bored. Dave spoke to us about the importance of crowd control and the naughty child.

This is the link to his site. Its not huge but it might give another point of view for any one interested.

mark lewis wrote:Kids DO like magic! In fact they LOVE it!

You have to have the knack though. And it helps if you like the kids. If you like them they will sense it and like you in return. If they like you they will tend not to harass you.

Methinks you haven't quite got the knack yet. Work on it until you do or alternatively decide that the kid shows are simply not your medium and give them up. No point making you and the kids both miserable.

Yeah, I have seriously thought about dropping the kid's shows from my activities. The trouble is they pay too well and the money is always welcome!

I think I may have overplayed my original post somewhat - it was actually meant as a light-hearted chat about kid's parties. For every angry 8 year old who tries to beat up Pinky (that's my puppet rabbit from a top hat) there are two wide-eyed 5 year olds who are absolutely enchanted. And the bookings do keep coming in from word-of-mouth so I must be doing something right!

Personally speaking I prefer table-hopping in an adult environment. It's what I really do well (even if I do say so myself), and I can see a time in the not too distant future when Pinky will be put to bed for the last time. It makes me feel sad now I think about it...! Perhaps I can incorporate Pinky into my table-hopping routine?! I don't think there'd be room for BoBo the magical bear though (be afraid, be very afraid).

Lilly Savage used to say that when she was Lilly Poppins, Children's Entertainer, she used to turn up armed with a cake laced with Night Nurse!

by jove light hearted banter what what.
okey dokey well first off i tend to tell them I'm going to cheat which takes a lot of the sting out of the odd heckler you get.
second "I" control the situation from the start usualy by saying iv'e already been payed so if you intereupt me i packup and go home quids in.

most importantly if you get some kid who is being a brat you signal to the loco parentis, thats responsible adult, to come and deal with him / her its important to point out to the party booker that you are not allowed by law to be responsable for the diciplining of children thats the party rganisers responsibility.

i have and will continue to stop my act, walk of stage, walk out or wait until control has been restablished by someone else before carrying on.

has it reduced my bookings far from it people book me because i will not put up with any nonsense it instills respect for my craft from the booker and gives me the confidense that I'm the one who ultimately and as i do combi discos literaly pulls the plug if I'm not happy.

kids pick up on that and do as i wish or they loose out and belive me no kid wan't to feel thay lost out because of something they did.

if you start with the premise that you intend to cheat when they see something realy magical there overjoyed because theve been fooled, not lied to, decived or taken for a mug, kids arn't stupid.

to quote robin williams " kids are little people play to them not down to them."

The approach of telling the kids that they better behave or you will go home makes me shudder.

I believe that you are hired as an entertainer not a sergeant major.

For some reason I don't seem to get the awful responses outlined here. I do not have kids tearing me to pieces or heckling me with anything more than a bit of playful banter. Certainly no viciousness. And I would venture to suggest anyone that does have this problem isn't doing their job properly.

As David Devant used to say "It's all done by kindness"

its all done in a light hearted banter type of way and i supose if youv'e never entertained in a war zone like landport or rowner then you'd not have come across the preferbial scroute.
most of my shows used to go down well with no problems it tends to be the people who plead poverty to reduce your price that let there kids run riot without any kind of parental responsibility i know many entertainers who will not work in thease areas, i will under my rules and they work for me.

i lay the ground rules out when i take the booking and its agreed by all parties its part of c.y.a.
my booking rate would sugest that it is what they wan't from me in thoughs areas someone to tell them how to be parents.

at least i can balance it out with nice kidie functions and charity dos to maintain my sanity...note to self too late.

My 6 year-old neice LOVES when I do a magic trick for her, but I really have to think hard on what the kids want to see. Usually I opt for REALLY basic, visual stuff. None of the remembering cards, or think of a card, or anything at all. Kids would rather see you make a quarter appear from behind their ear or put a glass though the table then most tricks adults would enjoy. (speaking of glass through the table.... an absolutely hilarious moment was when my 2-and-a-half-year-old nephew saw me put the glass through the table, took a plastic cup, covered it with a paper napkin, moved it all over the place on the table accidentally including where IT'S ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO GO, DIDN'T realize what had happened to the glass, hit the napkin - and VOILA! He performed the trick to his own utter astonishment and absolute pride and enjoyment! The look on his face was priceless! He's even placed a coin in between (and behind) two of his fingers and shown me his "empty" hands saying "magic!".

magicdiscoman wrote:its all done in a light hearted banter type of way and i supose if youv'e never entertained in a war zone like landport or rowner then you'd not have come across the preferbial scroute.
most of my shows used to go down well with no problems it tends to be the people who plead poverty to reduce your price that let there kids run riot without any kind of parental responsibility i know many entertainers who will not work in thease areas, i will under my rules and they work for me.

I find quite the contrary! I've done plenty of shows for very wealthy families and also for council estate resident's associations where you really feel like you're entering a war-zone. I have consistantly found that the kids from well-off families are harder to please than the kids from the really deprived areas. Without sounding too patronising, the poorer kids seem to be so happy that you're there to entertain them. They always have a great time. You do have to check that all your tyres are on your car when you pack up though!

Indeed, I find the same with the adult table-hopping. The best reaction I ever got was from a bunch of hell's angels before a Def Lepperd concert! Before I approached them I thought "Gulp. Well, here goes nothing!" But they loved it!

I agree with the magic wand. I have found that poorer families are the better audiences. The richer they are the more spoiled they are sometimes. It is also the wealthier parents that tend to try and get the price down rather than the less well off. After all that is how they became rich in the first place!

Incidentally I have performed in some of the roughest areas of Dublin and on one memorable occasion had a stone thrown at me by a kid up a tree before I entered the house. And that was before he saw the show!
However I won him over in the end.

I did do a special show once on St Annes pier in Lancashire. It was for kids whose parents were in jail. I will confess that they were extremely rowdy and at the beginning of the show I thought that they should have been in jail along with their parents. However I have various tricks of the trade to quieten rowdy kids and have never found it necessary to lay down the law which sends a very jarring note and ruins the suspension of disbelief.

I once saw the late Brian Flora on a videotape saying to the kids "I don't put up with rudeness from my own kids and I won't put up with rudeness from you either" And this was before the kids had even said one word out of place!

I have always said that magic is people and you have to learn to manipulate them. Kids are merely tiny people and very predictable indeed. So you have to learn to manipulate them.

"Easy once you know the secret" to quote Marshall Brodien of TV Magic Cards fame.

Kids Shows!

YES

For kids..its not about using your best magic trick to baffle and impress them.

You must entertain over all. Your number 1 priority is to entertain.

You need
Character,
Fun magic tricks that relate to them (its useless trying a complicated card trick on them...)
and anything else that will make them laugh.

Making a modelling balloon hit you in the face will make them crack up!

Yes, kids love to catch you out. So use a sucker trick. Such as Die Box or Peanut butter and jelly where they think they have worked it out and then smack bang, you do something thats semmingly impossible!

You need to have a kid inside you to be a kids entertainer.

If the kids dont like you, (they shall make you know) and yes they shall give you hell! (I did when i was little!)

I always meet and greet kids as they walk in. Shake thier hands and talk to them.


If you dont like performing for kids...dont do it.
If you prefer adults...perform for adults! Make your mark here.
Dont go and wreck your magic career by being a naf kids entertainer.



As for kids giving you hell,
I know that some kids do it without meaning too.
I once had a kid, who was a pain throughout the show. I was finding it hard to cope.
At the end, he was the first to come and say "Thank you, you were really good! Can i take one of your leaflets?"

What not to do

Give them sweets - i once made the mistake of giving naughty kids sweets to shut them up. OH DEAR - I learnt very quickly from that. I tend to avoid using any sweets now (after an article i read)

Humiliate that child - I have watched kids entertainers use kids as volunteers just to get a laugh from the adults. It really doesnt work. Kids will take a dis liking to you instanly! Kids must like you from the very start of that party!

MagicTom wrote:Yes, kids love to catch you out. So use a sucker trick. Such as Die Box or Peanut butter and jelly where they think they have worked it out and then smack bang, you do something thats semmingly impossible!

I would have to disagree. Granted I've only ever done one kids party (and wouldn't want to do another) but I am speaking from a different kind of experience here. When I was a young child I saw a magician and he did a sucker trick. Of course, being the young child that I was I fell right in to his trap and whispered "how it was done" to my mother. Of course he picked up on that and heard me and made me feel like a right fool much to everyone else's entertainment.

So of course it varies from person to person, child to child - audience to audience, but for me, it was not a particularly nice to be on the receiving end - to be the 'sucker' who spoke out.

What not to do

Give them sweets - i once made the mistake of giving naughty kids sweets to shut them up. OH DEAR - I learnt very quickly from that. I tend to avoid using any sweets now (after an article i read)

Humiliate that child - I have watched kids entertainers use kids as volunteers just to get a laugh from the adults. It really doesnt work. Kids will take a dis liking to you instanly! Kids must like you from the very start of that party!

i totaly agree whatch words for us all.

tricks such as sucker die box have a surprise ending and are designed to fool the kids into thinking one way when you go another they are not designed as in the case of the sink plunger hat made to embaras the kid which is a despicable practise.

in the past 50 shows i have only had to leave once to a badly organised party whith security present who did nothing to stop some kids kicking in my speakers and stealing my magic gear.
and have stopped the show on four occassions 3 rich kid parties and 1 poor family who dumped 300 kids off istead of the 30 expected but after some stage managment with the overwelmed staff we got back on track.

since i do disco / magic combos i can't have kids gargling the bubble fluid or electrocuting themselves so i have set saftey rules that need to be complied with or my public liability doubles, mages only don't need such costly pieces of paper lucky you, so my views will be different because I'm coming from a diferent angle than most.

bottom line know who is suposed to be responsible for order in the party and let them know if your not happy with the situation, and by the way poor people down south are just as bad as the novoriche.