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Ok, well Iv'e been asked by a person If I could do a show for her boy who is turning 9 in quite a few months, now, I've only just started actually doing shows but have been actively learning magic for a few years now and am , even if I must say it myself, not overly bad. the main problem is, as some would of guessed already, the age. I have never done a show for any children over 7 and although this group will be much smaller than the crowds of my recent shows I have no idea how to cater for this particular age group. So... Should I do it? (I think at this stage I should mention that the organizer wants to pay me almost double my usual rate. and for a 16 yr old with no job well, yeah) if yes, what should a prepare for, what kind of tricks, should I even do magic etc. I'm mainly just worried about not being able to cater for the organizers needs
BTW I will have plenty of time to 'test run' the routine in front of other groups before said show.
sorry about long post.

This would probably be better served in the childrens magic section so that it will get the full focus of people who know what they are talking about.
I would think that if you hear from them that they have no problems doing similar material with that age group as the other one you aim at, you should be golden. Either way those guys will be the best branch of the tree to sit on here.

Arkesus wrote:This would probably be better served in the childrens magic section so that it will get the full focus of people who know what they are talking about.

We don't be gotting a darn Children's section over here boy.

Not that you know about
hehehehe.


If you are able to edit the title of the thread, you may want to highlight that to encourage those in the know to dive in.

Did it, I better get help now

Don't be patronising. Don't talk down to them, don't use silly words, you ever see Barney the dinosaur? Do the exact opposite of that.

If you can, play the fool. I don't mean clown like foolishness but what kids love the most is when they outwit the adults. My speciality is being the arrogant condescending adult who then fucks up. (I get three jacks and brag about it, the child then gets four aces.)

I've said before that fire magic is always a winner and it is, but it must be absolutely safe (I use flash paper no bigger than my thumbnail) and you must check with the adults first.

Keep the magic straightforward and visual.

Don't be fake. This applies to performing to all humans but people seem to forget kids.

If you get an opportunity to meet the kids or just one of them beforehand take it. Some kids are more sensitive than others, use your judgement.

Give the birthday kid something special either he does something magic or gets a gift.

If it works for adults and falls under these parameters use it.

9 year old boys can be an awful audience! They will claim to know exactly how each of your tricks work and if you have any show-offs in the audience they will try to steal your limelight - probably by making farting noises and other such hilarious activities.

9 year olds aren't kids. Any childish routines such as Run Rabbit Run will be met with derision. Look upon your audience as small teenagers.

Your age is on your side. They may see you as a peer. It's good advice to chat with them as friends before the show starts, that way you have the opportunity to break down any barriers.

Good luck!

PS Did I ever mention that I hate doing kids' shows?!

I was recently asked to do a show for a 10 year old. There were children there from about 9 -10 years old and Ten in total. I thought I was over Childrens parties but sometimes in life you have to work with the devil and I have been asked to do another party because of it.

The Birthday boy loved card tricks and in fact was very good at them knowing a lot of the moves so although I am not a card person I did a couple of tricks. I also did IT with the floating rose routine and I gave the rose to the mother. As it was outside the flash paper was perfect. I also did a Version of Teds, The Third Man which I have adapted into a fancy dress theme.

I ended up performing Fate by Rick Maue. I was uncertain about this at the time because of the age group but they were all well brought up children and it is true they are more like Teenagers these days. It really did kill them. Not literally but maybe that's for another day.....

thanks guys! I have a few ideas now.
I still am at a slight loss over what kind of tricks to do. Any ideas?

Well what are your ideas?

Balloon modelling and juggling

I've got a kids show in a school at 9am tomorrow and it's what I'll be resorting to.
That or an ILC deck

Like Paul says above beware the spoiled brat showoff who will delight in ruining your show. Most kids are great - a small number are totally obnoxious. Suprisingly the last time I performed to some kids (ages 5 - 10) the best reactions were for a book test!

(and of course you can't go wrong with balloons)

ok magicdiscoman in the hizz ouse, you can tell I'm out of touch can't you.

that said make sure most of your tricka are self workers or have the dirty work done at the begining of the trick, make the props big and visual.
cut and restored rope and professors nightmare / optical ropes and a change bag that has no bottom, ie an unziped version will go down well with kids and adults.

if your going to do a sucker trick like a sliding die box / pitza factory then do it on an adult and have a kid use a magic wand and a farting noise to mess up the adult, also a colouring book with the kids pulling colours off there clothes or even better the adults will go down a hoot.

a prediction effect with a change bag invilving a few adults and the birthday boy getting all the prizes, especial if before hand youve primed the adults is a real winner

and finaly plenty of side gags, bouncing hanky, wand through ear and spike through fake toungue.

I recently did a party for 9 nyear old girls. I misjudged the age group a bit, I could have put a few card tricks in but thought they may be too young.

Even sedate 9 year old girls want to be smart and tell you how you did it so beware.

Things that went very well were the fall apart wand followed by multiplying wands (with the birthday girl) as a warm up.

Needle through a balloon had them all giving explanations as to how I did it util I popped the balloon as a finish, that they couldn't explain.

Some TT work seems to go down well with adults and children and I ran a thread through the show of appearing silks which went in to a change bag and came out all connected.

My finale was a Dove Pan production with plenty of flash with a teddy bear being produced which was given to the birthday girl.

Disaster of the day was my Teddy Bear puppet. I bought this at Blackpool this year and it does a neat little trick of identifying which of 5 tokens has been selected and put in to a bag.

I was well prepared, well rehearsed, had the batteries checked and the workings. BUT....... it was a hot day so the parents asked me to perform on the lawn in bright sunshine. My puppet has a visual prompt as to which token has been chosen and the light was too strong for me to see it. Puppet had to improvise and was quickly returned to his bag.

One last important point. Don't let the blighters anywhere near any equipment. They will be in there dismantling things and blowing all your secrets if you so much as turn your back on them.

I have very mixed feelings about childrens parties On the one hand they require a lot of managing and can be a total nightmare but on the other hand everything is in the presentation, fairly basic magic will get you by if you perform well enough. And you get paid whether its kids or adults!!

Make sure you have a trick set up on you (like a TT) the whole time as well, in case you get a request from a kiddie afterwards.