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Some months ago I stayed with a magical friend and he invited me to his local club for their Close-up competition. It was very well supported with about 50 attending and appeared to be about half lay folk. A local military bigwig and his lady were the lay judges along with a magical ‘expert’. There were 12 entries ranging from the very talented youngsters (where do they get such skill from?) to a couple of senior citizens. It was a splendid occasion with a lot of superb magic. Well . . . I think most of it was superb because, sitting seven rows back, I could see nothing of the table top at all.

There was a mixture of performers who sat at the table and those that stood. A couple of those that stood presented, in my opinion, more of a ‘parlour’ or ‘stand-up’ act as opposed to the accepted view of what is ‘Close-up’. Even those who performed standing had material that was impossible to see when the props were laid on the table. I know from the mutterings from some lay folk around me that others couldn’t see either. For the judges and other bigwigs at the front it was fine. No doubt for the first three or four rows it was passable but after that . . . ?

Now I realise this is a well-known problem that affects not only local clubs but the big conventions as well. Not easy to find a perfect answer, but it concerned me that the lay people who attended as welcome guests had a somewhat raw deal. What they said in private afterwards might have been an eye opener. Is this good PR for magic as a whole?

I’ve discussed this with several working Close-up magicians and all agree that much of the truly excellent material seen in magic clubs is just not practical in the real world. The ‘real world’ engagements these days can involve ‘mix & mingle where the punters are standing with a glass in one hand a plate of nibbles in the other and most likely a ‘ciggi’ in the other hand (!) all crammed shoulder to shoulder with not a table in sight to use. The magician is also competing with the staff that constantly fill any empty hand or glass spotted.

Then we have the banquet situation where the tables can be for just a few diners to long tables with perhaps 20 and these tables are full to over flowing with the food with certainly no space for the magician to put down more than a matchstick. This matchstick cannot be seen of course by the folk at the far end of the long table. Here the entertainer is competing with background music and the considerable noise from the diners themselves.

Let me pose these points. Should Close-up magic competitions be under real life conditions, where the guests are at tables as in a restaurant or banquet with the performers moving from table to table at agreed intervals with a judge at each table? Yes the performers would have to compete with the noise around but that’s life. I don’t think we would impose upon the performers the harsh realities of a table full of plates, spilt drinks and a large vase of flowers in the middle. I do understand that some clubs have tried this so perhaps someone might like to report on the success of this.

Should there be a club category for ‘Parlour’ magic as an in-between Close-up and Cabaret magic styles? Once again with at least one judge well away from the front row to see things as the paying audience do?

Please believe me, I do love and enjoy all magic especially all the talented technical stuff that I will never aspire to, but I do ask “Are we burying our heads in the sand and performing such wonderful Close-up magic routines behind closed doors forgetting that our magic should be for the public at large to see and enjoy under the conditions met today in commercial conditions?”

Should Close-up magic competitions be presented, as in some musical competitions, where the entrants have to perform a set piece of great technical difficulty but the entertainment value to the general public be quite low or should the act be suitable for, and be properly seen by, a general audience?

I feel sure there will be quite a discussion on these points.

it's all about entertainment to me...

i've played and taught guitar for nearly 20 years...i'd much rather listen and watch someone play with passion and experimentation than someone who can play something technically well, but have no drive or soul...

same with magic...its very rare to get both...lennart green is one, performance and passion is everything for me...

have some character, be interesting and unusual and above all entertaining and wonderous...

Good answer to start off with, but what about the main points posed of guests at a club Close-up magic competition who cant see a thing? Mark

oooh it's like you're conducting a survey in the street!

do i have to give bank details?

ah, i reckon its more a case of a small table 2 or 3 rows of seats would be ideal...

but an in-the-field type 'test' might be quite interesting...

Well I was hoping for a lot of serious discussion on the points raised in my original posting. Seems I am wrong and that all most are interested in is actual tricks themselves. Well prove me wrong.

Just to progress matters, I was booked with three other magicians at a function. One of the four arrived with a nice rolled close-up mat under his arm and a case for props (well we all had a case). Our first task was about 45 minutes of the mix & mingle in a tightly packed crowd. It was apparent at once that our colleague was totally out of his depth. He just could not work at all. We advised him to walk about - look busy whilst shuffling his pack of cards. (Bicycles of course).

Our next task was into the banquet itself where he did manage to fare a little better but naturally there was no way he could lay down his wonderful close-up mat. Need I go on? He was a very talented magician totally lost in this commercial event. He was frequently seen going outside for a nerve settling cigarette.
I don't think the agent booked him again.
Mark

Mark Wynn wrote:Well I was hoping for a lot of serious discussion on the points raised in my original posting. Seems I am wrong and that all most are interested in is actual tricks themselves. Well prove me wrong.

Give us a chance. TM isn't like other fora where people just jump in with an opinion, people here like to think a bit before answering!

An interesting Discussion (but as Nick said – please try and be a little more patient waiting for a response.

A lot of it boils down to what is a Magic Close-Up competition for. There seems to be several schools of thought.

a) It is to find the most popular close-up magic for lay people
b) It is to find the most skilled close-up magician from a magic point of view.

There is a strong argument for type B, for several reasons. If it was merely to find the best close-up magician for lay people, then it could be argued that it is merely a talent competition. Depending on the charisma of the performer, then an act with very little magic with a lot of jokes could easily be voted by lay people as being the most entertaining.

And why not I hear you say. Magic is ALL about entertainment after all. Well, that’s another question in itself, but I would argue that magic isn’t all about entertainment, it is also about baffling people, and although the entertainment point is important, so is the baffling point. It is important to get the balance right.

As I said though that is almost another question. The way I see it, a Magic Close-Up competition isn’t about finding the guy who would get the most work in the real world, it is about finding the best (for which I personally see as most skilled) close-up magician. It is a competition and as such does NOT need to reflect the real world. It is not just a competition, it is a competition for magicians held by magicians and as I see it, it is the one place where the skill of a magician can be judged. There is no other outlet where we can be judged by our peers like this.

I agree that other competitions (Children’s, stage magic etc) are much more about entertainment and are in fact more akin to the talent show, but a close-up magic competition I personally feel should be a forum where a magician can work on something new. Where a magician can be rewarded for practising all those difficult moves.

If it was purely down to entertainment value for the lay-person, then surely one guy/gal could go out their with a bunch of self working tricks and do a set that would kill the lay audience. So surely this person shouldn’t win a MAGIC competition?

I accept that this person doing the self working magic may indeed be more entertaining than let us say for example Lennert Green, but come on. Where else can the Lennert Greens of the world be rewarded or even recognised?

I am not saying that entertainment value shouldn’t be included in the marking process, nor am I saying that there should be lay judges involved, but I am saying that there are a lot of other categories that should be included, such as presentation (as in attire as well as patter), and more importantly magic skill.

Having said all that, the best argument I have heard against a more magic biased competition is who do you get to judge? After all how can you judge skill when the most skilled magician will be doing moves that a judge may not even be aware of?

This is of course a good point, although I feel that anyone involved in magic for a while can tell where skill is being used as opposed to gimmicks such as sticky cards etc.

This is a debate that probably takes place in most magic societies around the world, but the way I see it is that in this one competition. His is somewhere where magic skill in itself can be rewarded.

You made some other points about being able to see what was going on and that if the magician stands then is it not more parlour based. When my local society holds it’s competition we have three tables where there is a relatively small (20-25) number of people around each table. The magician will mostly stand behind a table, but will have the choice of being seated. There are two magic judges and one lay judge. The lay judge being able to only vote on a few of the categories that the magic judge gets.

I’ve discussed this with several working Close-up magicians and all agree that much of the truly excellent material seen in magic clubs is just not practical in the real world. The ‘real world’ engagements these days can involve ‘mix & mingle where the punters are standing with a glass in one hand a plate of nibbles in the other and most likely a ‘ciggi’ in the other hand (!) all crammed shoulder to shoulder with not a table in sight to use

I agree that most of what is in a skilled based magic competition may not be practical in the real world, and I also think so what. There are other competitions and talent shows where real world magic can be rewarded, but nowhere else that skill can be rewarded.

I also agree that someone winning a magic competition may not be the most popular entertainer in the real world, although to be honest they usually are pretty good at entertaining as well. Remember I am not saying that entertainment value is excluded, just that it isn’t as important.

Let me pose these points. Should Close-up magic competitions be under real life conditions, where the guests are at tables as in a restaurant or banquet with the performers moving from table to table at agreed intervals with a judge at each table?

No.

Should there be a club category for ‘Parlour’ magic as an in-between Close-up and Cabaret magic styles? Once again with at least one judge well away from the front row to see things as the paying audience do?

We have three competitions Stage, Close-up and Childrens. All completely different in format and how they are judged. The stage competition we hold is really a mixture of parlour and stage and is more of a magic orientated talent show than anything else.

“Are we burying our heads in the sand and performing such wonderful Close-up magic routines behind closed doors forgetting that our magic should be for the public at large to see and enjoy under the conditions met today in commercial conditions?”

I don’t think any magician that has worked is under any illusion that it is about how entertaining the magician is in the real world. Just because we have a competition for skill doesn’t mean that that magicians will get the most work. Anyone that has been paid for magic knows this or at least should know it.

Should Close-up magic competitions be presented, as in some musical competitions, where the entrants have to perform a set piece of great technical difficulty but the entertainment value to the general public be quite low or should the act be suitable for, and be properly seen by, a general audience?

Actually I quite like that idea, but it wouldn’t make a very interesting competition, but certainly if you wanted to see who was best at, for example cups and balls you would have to limit the competition to just that. I don’t see it ever happening though.

Thank you bananafish for your long and well thought out response. My apologies for expecting instant replies, I just thought so many would be down my neck almost at once after I had posted

It still raises the problem originally mentioned and the answer has been sought for many years. How do you cater for an audience 50/50 lay folk at the Magic Club who have come to support all the artistes and then find they can't see a blessed thing?

Would YOU have the competition so that the performers would go from table to table, each with only a suitable number of viewers or have the performers at one table, the spectators in rows many unable to see a thing?

You can see that I have my opinion on this as I was a sufferer. Perhaps I raised too many points in my original posting. The above question is for me the important one.
Mark

One solution I've seen to this problem was that the performer has all his stuff set up and there's a camera on him which is piped to a big-screen TV so anyone beyond the first 2 rows can just watch the screen and see the performance. Before that, people used to hang large mirrors above their performing surface to allow more people to see what was happening.

I'm not so sure a "table hopping" style presentation would be the best solution. Yes, it allows everyone to get a close up view of all of the magic, but that kind of venue might actually prevent certain people from entering. Someone who isn't used to that style of performing might get a bit anxious about it and pass on the competition. This wouldn't be the norm, of course - but it could happen.

As far as your other points - I agree with Bananafish on the close-up competition conditions. There are many effects out there that fall into the close up category, but have certain performance restrictions, and these restrictions are not the same from one effect to another - so creating restrictions at the foundation of the competition will only prohibit certain people from entering in the first place.

As far as burying our heads in the sand - I don't think I agree here. Yes, we use our magic to bring entertainment to the public - but that's not the ONLY reason. Look at Dai Vernon!

To me, magic is far more about personal passion than entertainment. The entertainment factor comes as an extension of our own passion. We love magic so much that we want others to experience that feeling of excitement and amazement. However, this pulls away from the original point of your post. So I'll just end here...

What a 'deep' question and a joy to read if I may add.

I second Nickj in asking you to give us a chance and also add that many of the members on TM may not have yet had their first, or indeed enough experience of performing in the 'real world' to give an answer. This isn't a sleight on them - just noting a potential reason.

Anyway..... I won't answer in any particular order.

As I see it, part of the issue is not explaining to the lay audience before hand what they should expect to see, or perhaps not see. For a close up copmpetition I don't think that you can adequately cater for a large audience of spectators and that's not the point. I would agree that perhaps it is not explained well enough but most magic clubs don't issue open invites and the supporters are friends of those who are performing. Maybe it's up to them to explain the setup?

I also think that many of the tricks ARE indeed performable in the 'real world' if they are in the hands of an experience dmagician or one who can adapt.

A table magic competition is all about performing at tables - for small groups, such as in a restaurant. I entered the annual competition at the Wessex earlier this year and a jolly enjoyable time I had as well. The table was set as it would be in a restaurant with four judges seated around. Part of the skill is indeed finding the space to perform but to be fair, the format was announced to the participants well in advance so we could PLAN!. It's obvious that you can't walk up to a table in a restaurant and start moving the place settings, wine etc.

As for the judging.... There were two lay people to judge on entertainment value, a senior member to judge technical ability and a layperson who I recall was a member of equity with a wealth of acting experience. He judged delivery, showmanship etc. I thought this to be a great balance.

What we all new as entrants was that it was ONLY the judges seated around the table that we were working for. The audience stood around and found their own best vantage point and it seemed to work very well indeed.

We performed at two tables in succession with the same set up and the judges used a score card and so on....... Afterwards there was a stage/parlour magic competition in which everyone was seated and although the same judges did the scoring, the performance could be seen by one and all. I don't believe that ANYONE performed a routine that they hadn't previously performed in front of a real audience.

Finally, all performances were against the clock with disqualification for being under or over. So.... these were the conditions and they seemed to work well. I think that to perform a close-up table magic routine you can ONLY perform to a table and NOT the bystanders.

In competitions, the format is sometimes down to the experience of those who are organising it. It's also not about seeing who is the best at cups and balls or linking rings. Part of the assessment is on how each of the magicians has put together their own scripting of tricks so that there is a flow from one to another instead of there being no coreogrpahy (or however it is spelt (and don't say IT).

The point about the magician who struggled to perform walkaround I find is quite common. I think that may people fall into the trap of thinking that because you can do one, you can automatically do the other. People standing with their hands full as pointed out, require a different performance that's miles away from the 'pick a card' routine. What do you pick a card with?

Taking a breather now

Good points re.walkabout magician.

I have already interepreted that (a) stage magic and (b) table magic do not work for most jobs magicians are hired for. If you can't perform a trick standing upright without a table, it's not much use for corporate events or weddings where everyone has a drink in their hand.