talkmagic.co.uk

What is this? Has greedo lost his mind and sublime taste in music and has started singing songs by Daniel Powter?

Thankfully no.

What I hope this thread to become is some kind of cathartic outpouring for those who have just come home after a nightmare gig or just some magic gone wrong episode.
Not only should this be a vitriolic outpouring but also a place of soothing help and assistance in where one may have gone wrong.

"Why have you brought this up?"

Well guess who had an absolute pig of an evening? Yep.....me

Let me put this in bullet points

1)35 min set.
2)cramped booth of a restauant with 20 people (half the audience against the wall with no access to get to them)
3)The food was served 10 mins in. Sticky ribs and BBQ chicken.
4) They were all 15-16 years old.

Firstly I was booked specifically for this event yet as I arrived at the table and introduced myself there was a mixture of disinterest along with some genuine excitement.
As the set rolled on I realised that maybe close up magic done to 20 teenagers around a table I could only gain access to at 2 points of the table was really not a great idea.
I couldn't physically reach at least 13 of them due to the booth type set up (including the party girl) and therefore was stuck trying to include everyone but at a distance.
It then quickly came to pass that 3 of the revellers didn't really like magic and then saw it as their "job" to instantly come up with explanations (wrong ones) to every effect.
Now to add insult to injury, one of the waiters who (it turned out)was actually rtaher enjoying the magic got annoyed at this point and decided to defend what I was doing. This of course underminded me.
Anyway to cut a lond storty short (too late) I ended up with a very divided audience with some not paying attention, others chatting and giggling and, luckily, some actually enjoying it.
Weirdly at the end though I got a massive cheer and a clap and a few apologees from some of the more cocky members.

It was a dreadful 30 mins of performance time for me but many lessons learnt.

My soul hath been layed bare for the TM masses

in thease situation might I recomend sponge snack, close visual and comical and sets you up for some sponge work or a coin routine.

Sorry to hear that, but at least you appear to have learnt (learned?) something from it.

Alas, I feel that anyone who is brave enough to get up in front of a group of people (teenagers or otherwise) and perform magic, will get the sort of reactions you mentioned. Hostility, indifference and genuine interest. I'm no working magician but that is my guess, anyway.

Snap; had similar day in ways yesterday too. Kids party (8 year old girl) - before starting off, asked "Who's like to help with some tricks?" which usually garners a stampede. Ooohh, not me - I don't like magic followed by a chorus of "Me neither" - first half got some interest but second half consisted of kids drifting off in pairs to tuck into party table and test out bouncy castle

Thames Iron wrote: Kids party (8 year old)

I still suffer with the night terrors.

One example should suffice. 8 year old "magical assistant" running off with the keys to my handcuffs, leaving me stranded on the floor of the community hall. The 20 other children at the party took this as their cue to raid my magical bag, and hurl my props and assorted magical items around the room. Meanwhile a dozen or so indifferent parents decided it wasn't their job to supervise their children and continued to merely watch the "show" (which had taken on an unexpectedly humourous new twist). I was eventually released (a 60 year old lady had to rugby tackle the little scroat who'd nicked the keys) and got most of my stuff back, although my TT was never quite the same again.

After finishing my act the mother of the birthday boy eventually got her purse out to pay me (had to hang around for 10 minutes though while she pretended to be serving juice while in reality she was hoping I'd bu**er off without being paid), and said to me "They weren't too rowdy were they? Only I noticed you seemed to be struggling a little bit with them?" I don't normally hit women.

I've seved my apprentiship god damn. Give me the spirits of the dearly departed any day.

I know now what pro's have said and written when they refer to performers having to have a thick skin. I have had problems before with audiences but always during walkaround performance so you can always cut the routine short and move on.
This was actually my first booking where I was hired for a set audience in a private dining area, you have a set performance time and no-where to go if it all goes mammary's up.

I think overly my biggest lesson is to avoid kids and teenagers, especially large groups of them out with no parental units looking on. Other than that my mistake was that my second effect went very wrong and gave them licence to lynch me.

As the paid performer however the success or failure of the evening does rest on me and certainly a more seasoned pro would have certainly not have had the issues I did.

Anyway, back on the horse and chalk it down to experience.

themagicwand wrote:Give me the spirits of the dearly departed any day.

Indeed, if they heckle or cause trouble you really only have yourself to blame !

There must have been something in the air on Saturday night as I had more things go wrong in one show than ever before:

Tossed out deck - I asked the guy who shuffled my pack if he had any elastic bands on him (they always say no and I reach in my pocket to get my own to do 'the business') and he pulled out a whole packet !! Then 1 of the people who the deck was thrown to didn't sit down on naming the cards and when I finally asked her what card she saw she named a card that wasn't in the deck ! Luckily she chose the ace of clubs which I 'happened' to have in my pocket.

I was so phased by this that 2 tricks later turned over a pack of cards when I shouldn't have which ruined 1 of a series of predictions read out.

I think the magicians in the audience would have known what went wrong but most of the audience hopefully felt it was all part of the act !

Paul wrote:

One example should suffice. 8 year old "magical assistant" running off with the keys to my handcuffs, leaving me stranded on the floor of the community hall. The

I for one would be questioning why you use handcuffs in a kids show, and secondly why entrust an 8 year old with the keys.

Going back to the original post about 30 mins of terror with teenagers.
I have a couple of questions; Did you know who the audience were and what the performance circumstances were? If the answer is NO then you have no one to blame but yourself. sorry if that sounds harsh but how can you cost a fee for a gig without knowing all of the relevant information.

If you did know and took the booking it can only be because you need the money, you didn't imagine this would be a problem, or a bit of both.

I am in the process of completing an ebook (shameless plug) entitled Close-up to Cabaret / Magic to Mentalism. The focus on the book being on the business side of show-business. One of the essays is dedicated to just this problem. Knowledge is power. Knowing of a potential problem in advance allows you to accept the gig at a higher fee, if that is what you want. Change the conditions to suit your needs, or alternatively turn the gig down.

Here are the rules I stand by. At the booking stage, I ask for all of the info I need, numbers, venue, reason for gig etc.etc. I also make clear any conditions that I fell may interfere with me giving them the best show I can. If they agree and I arrive to find the conditions are not as agreed and I don't think I can deliver the goods. I will decline the fee and leave. Please keep in mind the only person who knows that your act has been compromised is the booker. Not the the audience! They just think the organiser booked a duff act (polite comment )

By leaving all you have lost is the fee. Your reputation and self belief remain intact.

Max Gordon wrote:
I for one would be questioning why you use handcuffs in a kids show, and secondly why entrust an 8 year old with the keys.

That's just the kind of guy I am. I've probably always been more suited to the darker edge of the spectrum.

In my defence they were gimmicked handcuffs and me thrashing around on the floor always gets a laugh. Nudge nudge wink wink.

It happens to us all. Any performer who hasn't had sh*t nights doesn't work very much in my opinion.

Hi Paul;

It happens to us all. Any performer who hasn't had sh*t nights doesn't work very much in my opinion

I could not agree more, and based on the fact that from experience,
given hindsight I probably could have avoided many of these sh*t nights.
I have now decided (admittedly it took me 25 years) to be more circumspect. Yes we can all have nights that are less than perfect, the trick is to recognise what made them sh*t and make sure that we either turn down the gig or have an alternative act that can cope with the problems. Both of our comments are generalisations but I do think it is down to us as performers to stand our ground if things are not as we have been promised or agreed to.

Completely agree Max. Sometimes though you turn up at a gig and for whatever reason you find yourself in hell. It would be lovely to just turn around and walk away, but sometimes performers (myself for instance) may be relying on that pay cheque to pay the bills. What's a guy to do? Hopefully with experience you get enough hair on your chest to help you cope with bad nights and turn them into, if not good nights then at least "okay" nights. But that comes with experience and the knowledge gained from going through the bad nights.

I can remember one particular bad night several years ago. Driving home I felt like crying and/or jacking the whole magic thing in. But then I decided that I loved it too much to go back to working the average 9 - 5, so I resolved there and then that I would never, ever have an awful night again. Now when things start to go wrong I have a steely eyed determination that things WILL go my way. I beat the specs into submission with my charm until they simply have no choice but to have a good time.

Which is all very well with adults. With kids you're doomed from the start. Talk about a lose-lose scenario! For some reason I seem to have no problems with teenagers though. 18th birthday parties have been the scenes of my greatest triumphs. Nudge nudge...

I think these happen to everyone, I've had some really horrible performances but you have to take the positives away from those performances. They're the ones where you're always going to learn so much more than if things go all your way. If something like that happens to me, I'll always jsut sit down and think things over and work out why things turned out as they did. Quite often it could all have been avoided if I'd done something differently.

I had a really bad one a few weeks ago, it was with a fairly new mental ring routine with what I thought was a really strong finish. The finish just didn't get any reaction and I left feeling really down. Looking back, I can see exactly where I went wrong, I lost the specs attention during the mental bits and never got it back again. I changed the routine, added a nice snappy opener and cut the mental middle bit down and suddenly the reactions are great.

The only thing i could offer you is the suggestion of asking how everyone is - and watch out for the bigmouth. Then zoom in on him (it's going to be a him) and make him the star of your effect. Tame the biggest beast and the rest will fall into place.

Either that, a nice sharp stiletto to the ribs.

Match their loudless in replies when talking, then from that loudness bring the levels down as you get into the next effect - drawing them into it as you progress.

I think what has been said above by Max is absolutely correct concerning not taking on an audience you don't think you can connect with. Unfortunately for me all my audiences upto a few days ago have been mid-twenties upwards with maybe the odd young 'un.
Maybe in my in-expeience as a pro-performer and the fact that the establishment who booked me was a potentially important one I was a tad hasty to take the job on. On the other hand I can gain several lessons from the experience such as:

1) try to avoid the act running into food arriving if you cannot move on to another table. This is a problem from the inital booking

2) An audience of twenty 15-16 year olds is closer to dealing with children than you may realise

3) If you are 32 (like me) you are more out of touch with their world than you realise. To them Nirvana are just as old as Led Zeppelin were when you were 16 (that thought made several pubes go grey straight away).

4) If, like me, you have a twisted or very innuendo lead sense of humour then applying that to teenagers is very uncomfortable.

5) Any performance that goes wrong is invariably the performers fault. You took on the job/ you approached the group then all on your head be it.


I haven't heard back from the client who booked me for the event yet so it may not have gone as badly as i first imagined. I did got a huge round of applause at the end.....although I did say "What?! no round of applause or screams that bring the restaurant to a halt?"