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SirRawlins wrote: ... I think its quite largely about being cool ...

Oh yeah. Especially when you take your smartphone and blind spectators with that blinging title sequence you just made on your computer for the trick demo for your mates on the internet forum.



Not exactly Derren Brown, is it!

Zack wrote:Oh yeah. Especially when you take your smartphone and blind spectators with that blinging title sequence you just made on your computer for the trick demo for your mates on the internet forum.

Living proof that sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit!?.

Only just read this thread. Well done Will, I knew you would get there

If I can offer a couple of tips.

First I agree you have improved your opening statement. You now say

"Hello, my name's Will and I'm the magician tonight. Would you mind if I join you for a few moments? Have you seen much magic before..."

Still it can be improved further. When you ask whether they mind if you join them for a few minutes, you are making it too easy to say no, even though you probably don't pause much after asking that question to give much time to respond. Better though not to even ask it, just assume it unless they give you reason to believe otherwise.

Secondly rather than saying have you seen much magic, a slight adaptation by saying have you seen magic close up before, is likely to get a "no" and leads you perfectly in to showing them some.

So your opener could be this,

Hi, is everything ok here? ( pause and smile and they will probably assume at this point that you are management, sometimes I have a few minutes chat here ) great! well my name is Will I'm the resident magician here at *****, have you ever seen magic close up before? ( they say No or if yes you can ask them about it ) Ok well I tell you what I'll show you a couple of quick things while your waiting for your food, actually I'm going to show you something rather strange......

Remember this whole opener is about getting into rapport with the customers, if you do this properly they are much more likely to be good spectators.


Secondly all your effects are card magic, some of the best table magic is not card stuff and in actual fact if people have a negative belief about magic it will most likely be due to some uncle showing them c*** (not the best) card tricks. Therefore it's best to open with a non card trick and in my opinion not do more than 50% of your effects using cards.

But hey, you got in there and I'm sure you will develop your own style. You've done the hard part Will just go out there and enjoy:)

Oh and in answer to Zags original question, we have 3 gigs tommorrow, one of them is with the author Terry Pratchet, entertaining people waiting to have their books signed by him, one of them is a meeting for the last time of a group of employees that have been made redundant and finally a restaurant.

Thanks for the tips Ethan, I'll bear them in mind.

Actually, my full opening line is (inculding the changed first bit):

"Hi my name's Will and I'm the magician tonight. Would you mind if I join you for a few minutes? (pause for resonse) Have you seen much magic before? (pause for answe and appropriate response). I'll let you in on a secret, magic is all about one thing. Do you know what that is? Cheating. No not really, it's misdirection. Let me show you what I mean...."

This is my opener and for me it is pretty close to perfect. You say that they shouldn't have the oppertunity to say no. I have to disaggree. If you don't give them the chance and they really don't want to be disturbed you're doing yourself no favours by making them endure five minutes of something they're not interested in. More importantly, you're not doing the restaurant any favours because ultimately it will reflect badly on them, which has a knock on effect on you.

Similarly, I want to know if they've seen much magic before. I don't want to force them into saying no as quickly as possible just so I can get on with my bit. I've found I create a greater rapport with people when I actually take an interest in what they're saying to me. I want to be their "friend" not a machine that rattles off magic tricks.

As for card magic, I must admit, from personal experience I find it hard to see why most magicians think that all spectators find card magic dull. In all of my formal performances I've used cards in a table hopping environment, and they have gone down really well. I do bear it in mind that card tricks can be dull and so I try to get away from that in the tricks that I perform and people seem to like it.

Thanks for your tips though, I really appreciate tips from full time pros who are out there doing it all the time .

Will wrote:

I find it hard to see why most magicians think that all spectators find card magic dull.

Although I don't see myself as a cardie I do perform card tricks when table hopping.

I suspect that most magicians who think that the specs find their card tricks dull are not being honest with themselves about their performance. In reality, I suspect that it's the magician that the audience find dull and you'll know as well as I do that different magicians can present the same trick and either make the specs gasp or sigh.

Those who get the repeat bookings are the ones that are making it happen for their audience.

I have also never found an audience who finds card tricks dull and would suggest that dat is right in saying it may be down to the performance of the magicians in question. That said, I am nowt but a hobbyist, maybe if I had more audiences I would find more people who disliked cards but as it is, most people who have seen me perform and request magic from me at a later date always ask to see card tricks no-matter what I showed them before.

I don't know whether it's so much a case of finding the performer's performance dull - because most people know a card trick or two, most people have seen the same one done over and over again and very badly at that. Therefore when you bring out a pack of cards sometimes people groan, expecting to see something similar. That's why with these audiences I do something quick, visual, exciting and unusual to get their attention and show that I'm not just doing 'the same old trick they've seen before'. After that they're interested and know that whenever you bring out a pack of cards it's going to be good.

One of the things that I find about cards is that most people seem to like cards because they play and often handle cards on a regular basis.

I was recently performing at a table and started off with a few tricks that used nothing more than basic sleights such as DL's, Elmsley counts etc. This amazed the ladies (in their 50's and 60's) and this prompted them to tell me that they played whist (not sure if it's whist or wist ) every week and that they wish that they could handle cards like they were seeing. It seemed something quite special to these ladies because they too were very familiar with handling cards.

Had I introduced anything else that was non card based at this table then I have little doubt their attention would have been lost. I picked up on this and just showed them tricks with a normal deck for 15 minutes and it went down tremendously well because of it. At the next table I reverted back to my usual table hopping routine.

I think that whilst people like magic in general, they have a great liking for magic that involves things that are everyday items to them, things that they are familiar with. I've performed tricks for people who work in banks and building societies and they seem to be that little more drawn towards magic that involves money, most probably because of their familiarity with it.

It's always worth watching what lights that spark in the eyes of your audience and then play on it. I think that Craig Browning wrote in another post that you should perform magic that your audience likes and not magic that you like. This is the treasure that you should be looking for.

This is my opener and for me it is pretty close to perfect. You say that they shouldn't have the oppertunity to say no. I have to disaggree. If you don't give them the chance and they really don't want to be disturbed you're doing yourself no favours by making them endure five minutes of something they're not interested in. More importantly, you're not doing the restaurant any favours because ultimately it will reflect badly on them, which has a knock on effect on you.

Will, there is a big difference between allowing them space to say no and actually inviting them to say no. I've had many many tables that have told me afterwards that they hadn't really wanted to see any magic as they thought it was cra* but now they had a completely different view and I had made their day. Not sure if I'd have got that far if I'd actually invited them to say no.

Similarly, I want to know if they've seen much magic before. I don't want to force them into saying no as quickly as possible just so I can get on with my bit. I've found I create a greater rapport with people when I actually take an interest in what they're saying to me. I want to be their "friend" not a machine that rattles off magic tricks.

Yes I also want to know, but I narrow it slightly to close up magic, I find it more useful to discover if they have seen it close up, also if they haven't when they say no, they realise they are about to see something they have never seen before. By asking if they have seen much magic, they will in most cases have seen magic on TV and therefore psychologically think you are not going to be showing them anything they haven't seen before.
I'm really not sure why you think that my question implies I'm wanting to dive into tricks, actually I probably spend more time chatting with my tables than any other magician I know. On the occasion where there are very few tables it's not unusual for me to spend 45 minutes and longer at a table and have them begging me not to leave. A lot of that time is spent talking. In fact earlier this week I had to perform for around 30-40 people over 5 hours. I think without good rapport conversational skills I would really have been in trouble so trust me, I'm not suggesting you use lines designed to get you through their defences in order to perform trick after trick.

As for card magic, I must admit, from personal experience I find it hard to see why most magicians think that all spectators find card magic dull. In all of my formal performances I've used cards in a table hopping environment, and they have gone down really well. I do bear it in mind that card tricks can be dull and so I try to get away from that in the tricks that I perform and people seem to like it.

I don't think any magicians think that ALL spectators find card magic dull. In particular it usually goes down well with the bar crowd. However it is a fact that card magic is the most likely to bring about a negative reaction, due often to previous bad experience and also possibly more knowledge of this area of magic. In any case it's difficult to judge until you have tried both strong card tricks and strong non card tricks to a large number of people. Further more in general it's best to get balance in any group of effects that you do and this requires a range of different effects not all one type such as all card tricks.

Anyhow you can take or leave my advice as you see fit, hopefully you will see some value in it, but if not then carry on with the way you are doing it.

Regards

Ethan

I think we're just approaching the same problems from different angles, Ethan . I have to say that I don't aggree with everything you're saying, but I see where you're coming from and I respect that because this is your job. I also didn't mean any of my comments to be directly aimed at you.

I don't think any magicians think that ALL spectators find card magic dull.

Unfortunately, I have had magicians tell me this to my face in complete seriousness (they were actually critising me at the time for only performing card magic at tables) and I have seen it posted on a few occassions on discussion boards such as this.

You also talked about variety in a routine, and I aggree, but I'm of the opinion that card magic can easily provide variety. Also, I know that in some ways its a cop out, but I also find it easier to create a flowing routine with cards rather than having a bit of sponge magic here, a card trick there, a mental piece here and a coin effect over to the left, if you know what I mean.

I know this thread's a bit stale now but I just wanted to add this onto the bottom. This is a direct quote from a "working" magician and member of the magic circle at my local circle meeting tonight:

Once you've seen one card trick you've seen them all.

Unfortunately, at least one magician (and I'm pretty sure he's not alone) is of the opinion that card tricks are boring.

I think mate that this is exactly my point. There are people out there that have a poor view of card magic and at the very least most people in my opinion would rather see a mix of magic than all one type.
However you have clearly given the issue some thought, maybe in time your view will develop or maybe you will end up just being a master card magician and never doing another thing. It's all a matter of choice and finding your own way.

Guys

i hope this has not become a debate thread , can you please re-read the main topic idea, its to share experience and talk about further coming shows

can we sort of get back on track if thats cool please lol

Jags