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Ok, here we go…

I arrived at the restaurant at 7.20, even though we had agreed that I arrive at 7.30. I thought seeing as I’d never seen the place before it would be best that I get a look at it before anybody else arrived to eat. I’d also brought a friend along because the owner had offered a guest and me a free meal in between performing. After I made my introductions I ordered a drink for my friend and a Coke for me. I’d decided not to drink until after the performance. I’d also noticed that the guy who had hired me hadn’t turned up yet so I asked somebody if there was a back room somewhere what I could set up in.

I didn’t really have anything to set up but I was performing Jeopardy (triple prediction effect) as an opener and once I’d finished my first half an hour I was planning to disappear for a few minutes and reset the 3 decks I’d previously set up (I’ll explain in a minute). I then had a quick look around the tables to get my bearings and try and come up with some sort of rotation plan.

Once all that was done I returned to the bar to wait for the guy who hired me (seeing as nobody else had any idea that I was going to be there. Great!) and chat to my mate. The bar was situated directly in front of the front door so we could see everybody as they came in and they could see us, which also created a problem. We had arrived early with the idea that I would start performing 8.00 so by that time we had already been sat there for about 40 minutes and most of the guests had already arrived. The guy who had hired me still hadn’t arrived. I asked a barman if he knew when he would be here, he said 10 minutes. So we waited. 10 minutes passed, I asked who was in charge at the moment and I was directed to another guy. As I introduced myself he turned to me and said “yes, hi, what’s the matter? Have you not got a table?” expecting that I was a guest. Another person who had no idea I was meant to be there. I introduced myself as the magician and he responded with “oh I’m sorry, he’ll be here in 15 minutes; he’s just gone home to get changed.” So another 10 minutes went by, by this time it’s 8.35 and most people have been served their starters. This put me on edge even more so because I had said I wouldn’t perform for people who are eating, and that’s why we had arranged I’d perform before and after the meal, not during it. Finally, my man turns up and I say hello. He tells me to wait a few more minutes (why? I have no idea). So I waited 5 more minutes and started.

That first table is the worst and it was in fact the worse table I performed at for the whole night. I had two routines set up and ready to go. One was mentally type routine which used a set up deck to open with. I had three of these so I wouldn’t have to reset between tables. The setup decks were in my right jacket pocket and once I’d finished with them they went into my left pocket. The other routine had a sleight of hand feel to it and I’d use one of the “dumped” decks from my left hand pocket. The plan was to alternate between the two and try to get around 6 tables in half an hour.

Anyway, back to that first table. I wandered around for a little bit and chose a couple that had nothing on their table. I made my introductions and began the first effect. I thought it was a good thing that I had space to spread the cards out so I did a ribbon spread on the table to show that the deck was completely “normal”. As soon as I’d put the cards onto the table, a waiter arrived and placed rice, curry and side dishes in between me and the cards. I tried to gather the cards up without dipping my tie into their Saag Aloo and continue the trick. If you don’t know it, Jeopardy involves the spectators shuffling the cards in a reasonable specific way. This was my first lesson of the night (although I didn’t learn until the trick had gone wrong twice in a row) because as soon I said “can you shuffle the cards please” the lady began mixing up the cards in some random way. I should have been far more direct and shown her exactly how I wanted her to shuffle the cards. Simply it was a mix of nerves and inexperience. Inevitably, the trick went very wrong and I had to abandon it half way and move onto something else. The next one in this particular routine was a demonstration of “reading body language” in actual fact it was an exercise in using the classic force. Unfortunately I didn’t force the card but used it as a key card as she replaced it into the deck. Or at least I thought I had. Again this trick was ruined by my failure to perform it correctly. So I moved on again to the closer of this mentally type routine which was an effect a friend supplied me with. I have to admit that this and my ambitious card routine where the two things that got the biggest response for the whole night. It’s a great effect. This time the effect went off without a hitch and I nailed the couple and even though I had mucked up the two effects prior to that I got big smiles and laughs from this effect so I left on a high note. However, I think this table was the worst one for me during the whole night due to a combination of bad timing, poor performance and inexperience.

I moved onto another table and again chose a table that had no food. This table was an elderly couple whom I had seen arrive almost immediately after I had. I began my sleight of hand routine for them which opened with my ambitious card routine which they loved but unfortunately they thought that was it and wanted to ask me all sorts of questions. How old was I? What am I doing at the moment? How long have I been doing magic? For me this was great because it put me at ease just to chat to this lovely couple. I must have been there for 10 minutes and only got through two effects. It also turned out that they were vegetarians and had been waiting for their meal for a particularly long time so I had kind of hit gold by performing for them. I made my exit and said I would pop back later. Unfortunately I was busy at the other end of the restaurant when they left so I didn’t manage to say goodbye, but they were lovely.

After that I really got into it, and started performing for anybody and everybody. Jeopardy went wrong once more, so I decided to ditch it. By the end of the night my routine was a bit of a pick and mix between the original two routines which was good in a way because it meant I could vary it for adjacent tables, but I also think that some of the people I had performed for early and nailed quite enjoyed seeing the same trick twice, over somebody else’s shoulder. On a couple of tables as soon as I introduced myself as a magician they said something like “Oh, we thought you were just a miserable sod who hadn’t been served his food yet” because me and my friend had been sat at the bar for so long. It also turned out that we didn’t get a free meal in the end because the timing had gone to pot which annoyed me slightly because I had brought my friend along and he had to sit there for an hour or so before I said that he should go home. In the end I performed for about an hour and forty five minutes, well over the hour I had agreed with the owner and with no structure whatsoever. The last table I performed for was the owner and his wife. The last trick I performed was The Thought of Hot-dog trick that my friend had shown me. They loved it and I arranged to collect my fee on Thursday. There’s probably so much that I’ve forgotten to say but I think I’ve written enough as it is already! All in all it was an amazing learning experience and I think I learnt something from every aspect of the evening, from when to arrive to how to deal with mistakes. I’m so glad I did it and it was a massive step for me. Thanks for trawling through this essay!

Wow...

Congratulations on handling it!

Sorry to hear about the mishaps but at least you know what to do in the future .

Sounds like it went OK to me

Gratz again!

Kati

Congratulations on your gig. There is an intersting article on visions to do with contracts..maybe of some help for the future??

http://www.online-visions.com/pro-files/0205.html

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You definatly shouldnt apologise for the length of that post because it was a really good read!

Im really new to magic and would love to perform to strangers in a resteraunt or bar one day so that was a really helpful account of what the first time is like. Its perfect to make mistakes as long as you learn from them which is what you have taken on board already. I think that from reading that post you handled yourself really well.

Well done!

Najis

Will, dont ever go home without being paid.
There is always the chance that the boss has " just popped out" when you go to get your money.

Good honest account of your evening.

I'd agree with Dale and in fact suggest collecting your payment pre- performing. Otherwise the guy with the money may have disappeared off on some "emergency" before you finish.

I ALWAYS get paid before I start. Also, now you should think of what you perform. I never do anything that may fail.

PM me if you want to talk about what to perform.

Tenko wrote:I never do anything that may fail.

Just out of interest, what do you perform then? I'm just intrigued by the notion of performing tricks which never fail. In an ideal world, none of my tricks will fail but at the time, I was nervous and inexperienced so things went wrong.

I think he means, he never does anything with a significant risk factor - i.e. Classic Force is out but a self-worker is OK...

Kati

Goldfish said:

I'm just intrigued by the notion of performing tricks which never fail. In an ideal world, none of my tricks will fail but at the time, I was nervous and inexperienced so things went wrong.

If you look at the tips I gave you on MB Goldfish,

5. Make sure your opener is quick, visual and surefire. You need to be certain your opener won't go wrong.

So lets think about the surefire aspect. Of course there is no trick that CAN NOT go wrong, but by surefire I mean it's very unlikely to go wrong and by definition has to be in your control. So in other words, no asking specs to shuffle if it needs to be a certain type of shuffle. It needs to be direct and simple and would work with your eyes shut.
This is very important in the real world as the one thing you have discovered you don't want is to screw up your opener.

Now I also added two other points in tip number 5, neither of which applied to your opener. It should be quick and it should be visual. Both of these criteria will greatly help if used in any opener you do.

Tenko wrote:I never do anything that may fail.

Well, this is just my personal opinion, but being a little adventurous may sometimes help.

I do agree that the opener and the closer should be fail-proof (i.e., no classic force and stuff - well, I cannot do the classic force, anyway, but you get the idea ...)

It is also useful to have some "emergency exits" available. Like an Invisible/Brainwave Deck and/or a card index if you need to recover from a screwed up card control. Spectators can be quite inventive in the ways they screw you up. For example, it is not uncommon for some specs to shuffle a stacked deck after I specifically asked them to cut it.

Just for interest's sake, here are my two routines that I was planning to use:

Routine 1: Mental-y-type stuff

Opener: Jeopardy (triple prediction effect)
Filler: Spread Reading (faux body language reading)
Closer: The Thought of Hotdog

Routine 2: Sleight of Hand Stuff

Opener: Ambitious Card
Filler: Faster Than A Speeding Ace (Dr Daley's Last Trick) or Just plain Twisted (Ace Twisting)
Closer: Hot Shot Estimation (blatantly a rip off of a David Blaine idea)

By the end of the evening though I was pick and mixing between the above stuff. Out of that list I was mainly performing these effects:

Ambitious Card (mainly opening with this)
Thought of Hot Dog (mainly closing with this)
Faster than a Speeding Ace
Hot Shot Estimation

Pick it to peices

To open, well done and it's always a good feeling to have yor first gig under your belt. You'll no doubt have learned from the mistakes that you made and this experience will be put to good use for the next time.

We've probably all made mistakes whilst performing some of what are considered the simpler tricks (I know that I have), purley out of nervousness so don't be troubled too much by this.

I'd also recommend making an arrangement at the time that you take the booking to be paid at least 50%, if not all of your fee when you arrive at the gig and before you start performing. I always get paid up front and find that people will tell everyone else who's attending that they have a magician, disco etc. so you can use this as a lever - no money then no performance. They will usually pay up as they don't want to let their guests down.

Out of interest, what was the name of the restaurant?

dat8962 wrote:Out of interest, what was the name of the restaurant?

Blue Begoon.

Out of interest, why?