talkmagic.co.uk

In the city I live in Canada, we have a British Army training base nearby....

Anytime I have had the pleasure of performing for any of them, they seem to love the magic.....now my question is:

With all the UK content/users on this site, and the obvious love of magic shown by my specs from the UK, what is it with Magic and the UK? Is there a large following for magic in the area? What is it that makes my UK specs more enthused automatically and my North American specs need to be see a "PERFORMANCE" of grand nature to show the same enthusiasm????

Just curious

I would hazard a guess that its not the UK bit, but the army bit.
It takes a certain type of person to join the armed forces, they are trained to do not think, and the release of seeing something outside the box probably makes it a great venue for magic.
Mix that with the fact that I guess they are men living together with lots of other men abroad and probably away from their familes, entertainment of this nature is probably more than welcomed, closely followed by a strip show .

I think you oversimplified it Wukfit. You would fit right in with Senator Kerry if you think that soldiers dont think. Some of the brightest people I know are/were in the service.

I think that soldiers like to see magic because it breaks the monotiny and calms their nerves. I'm sure that if you were in a highly stressful job, you wouldnt mind some neice entertainment to take your mind off of it.

I think I can answer this question. I used to live in Edmonton and when I go back and perform there spectators just tend to be more cynical. I find that it's hard for them to let go and enjoy the performance. I usually talk to people first before performing to see how inclined they are to see some magic but I've learned not to sell it as 'magic' in Canada but as 'something'. I find people in North America generally tend to feel like they're being cheated instead of entertained. In contrast, people in the UK seem to be up for some magic almost anytime anyone catches wind that someone can do magic. I feel that people respect magic as a 'real' form of entertainment here. Reactions tend to be like a 'Did you see that? That was great!' versus in North America with 'Did you see that? That's when it happened'.

In my opinion, the best spectators are from Japan. I was there during the magic boom and almost everyone I meet loves to be entertained by magic.

Of course, I'm making generalizations here with regards to my experience. I'm not a professional and I don't do as may performances. I also don't accept money. People tend to buy me beer but that's about it. The coolest thing that was ever given to me was a deck of gaff cards from guy who's family owned a magic store. I had no idea he was magician, too.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

I have had equally receptive audiences in the US and the UK, and equally hostile reactions in both contexts. There are people who enjoy magic for magic's sake and those who simply do not want to suspend disbelief and they tend to feel threatened by a magic performance.

I had a residency at a club locally here and I found that the male customers were threatened by tha fact that the women were being entertained. I actually got confronted and was told to leave after doing car warp to woman in the bar!

I remember another gig at the London Arena and I was doing some stand-up magic for a group of women and after one effect, I noticed the men quicky gravitating back to join their partners. Lots of primordial herd mentality

The pub culture here is a great friend of close-up magic. I have done both walk around and stand up performance in function rooms, and both formats are great for the kind of stuff I like doing.

Now, I like the after dinner format. People are fed and lubricated (not too much mind you) and ready to be entertained. I am doing a charity event in December where people are choosing to come see the performance, which is wonderful.

As for Japan, I had a nice experience in Fukuoka earlier this year. I was in a wonderful San Francisco-style bar (with evry kind of single mat whiskey imaginable) and started doing impromptu stuff with jiggers and napkins, some coins, and billets, all done with a fair bit of a language barrier, and the reaction was wonderful. I had been teaching the bartender some English slang, and after a did a mind reading bit, he said 'Phwoar!', which I have to say he learned rather quickly.

I think it is really hard to generalise about national reactions to magic. I have performed in Brazil, Kenya, Mongolia, and across the European continent for various audiences (the Dutch are very keen). I teach students from over 100 countries at my University, and I have not noticed different reactions by nationality.

Usually, things are fine, but you will normally find different levels of 'heat' from different people. Fay Presto gave a nice lecture for our magical society and was getting heat from one punter for most of her show, but she then did a card effect and he finally rolled over. She actually spent most of her set trying to win him over and then he cracked.

There are many views on this:

(1) Ignore the heckler/sceptic
(2) Engage with them and try to win them over
(3) Challenge them and embarass them in some way.

I have seen different magicians take different approaches. My approach is normally to engage them. Ask them to help out with something. Let them shuffle some cards or write something down on a billet. Get them involved and give them ownership. If they still do not want to cooperate, I ignore them as the audience is not interested in them either. The group dynamic usually takes over and self censorship sets in.

jericbilo wrote:......I used to live in Edmonton...........

How long did you live in Edmonton? I am in Alberta and frequent the city often......

I do have to say that as a GENERALIZATION........I agree with you in that I find many from the UK accept it as a form of entertainment, where as in North America you need to win them over - they tend to first feel as though you are cheeting them in some way!

johntheblob wrote:I think you oversimplified it Wukfit. You would fit right in with Senator Kerry if you think that soldiers dont think. Some of the brightest people I know are/were in the service.

I think that soldiers like to see magic because it breaks the monotiny and calms their nerves. I'm sure that if you were in a highly stressful job, you wouldnt mind some neice entertainment to take your mind off of it.

Lol... I knew I would get pulled on that, and you are dead right in your comments, just to clarify...
I was trying to put in brackets after that comment some thing along the line of ... (not trying to sound derogratory or insulting) but it was 4am when I posted and I still can't spell it...

My father was a 25 years of service naval officer so I have an idea of what service personel are like, and have performed for many of them, always finding them a great audience, due to the fact I assumed they are trained to think logically and to quickly weigh up any situation which of course when presented with a magical dilema throws them.

Hooray for our very brave service men and women who do an outstanding job in these troubled times and also make great audiences

I definitely think that the best way to deal with hecklers is to sniff them out before you start performing. I guess I do have this luxury when not working for anybody. This is my personal rule before I perform. I've walked up to people in Japan before and, after 20 minutes of chatting with them, walk away not performing a single trick. It's really hard to learn that, mind you.

moodini wrote:
How long did you live in Edmonton? I am in Alberta and frequent the city often......

I lived there from '89 to '91.

I have worked to Canadian and UK audiences for years and years. Sometimes I would work to the Brits one week and the next week fly to Canada and do a show to Canadians a few days later.

Canadian audiences were far more receptive. It was like chalk and cheese. The difference was quite marked.

I would say that the most obnoxious, rude and inebriated audiences were in Britain. No doubt about it in my mind. Even Canadian drunks are polite.

Yes. I have done shows in Edmonton too. I couldn't see any difference in the reaction to Toronto audiences.

No. The Brits are bloody awful and I can well do without them.

Isn't it odd how firm we all are in our apparent opposite opinions and feelings about various cultures and magic? I suppose it is like anything, you tend to remember things from performances and them base your opinions on those things that stood out in your mind the most (neg or pos)...because I would say that my opinion is almost identical to yours, with the obvious reverse Brits with Canadians, and Canadians with Brits.

The UK is steeped in a history of witches and Wizards.The US is younger, but it has a strong history of witches too, so perhaps tradition is partly why.

Tomo, the US has a very strong history of witches, an unfortunately negative one. Some of my neighbors think I am a witch, and tell me exactly that to my face!

John I think that as we are largely a nation of unbelievers, people here may think someone is a witch but don't care. But in the States, more superstitious/believing, they'd probably view it more seriously I guess.