Las Vegas

Returned today from my bi-annual trip to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is, of course, the magic capitol of the world these days, so it’s the place to be if you want to meet other magicians and see what’s new in the industry.

I got to see Jeff McBride’s show, Magic at the Edge, at the Palace Station. Jeff is a seasoned performer and I never fail to learn something new from watching how he manages his audience. I have come to believe that there is no BIG secret to explain how a performer establishes rapport with his or her audience and builds trust and connection. Instead a connection is made (or unmade) through a thousand little details: how you enter, the timber of your voice, the placement of your feet, how you gaze out at the audience, the gestures of you hands. If you do a thousand little things well the audience begins to feel that they can trust you to entertain them. If you do even a handful of things poorly, you will lose their confidence and lose your audience. Jeff attends to the details.

Afterward I went to Jeff’s magic nightclub the Wonderground and got some great ideas on how to perform in those difficult venues where the music is loud and the lighting is low. With the new low-voltage LEDs, it has become even easier to bring your own light source to close-up performance. If you perform visual magic, poor lighting will rob your magic of its impact. Your audience needs to see clearly in order for the magic to register. Like the stage actor, the close-up magician needs to be sensitive to the available light. I also saw some nice stage manipulation routines (performed silently) adapted for close-up that would be invaluable for those times when the band (or DJ) is so loud, you can’t talk to your audience.

I was pleased to meet a very inventive magician from Washington D.C. named David London (like the bridge). David is one of the few people I know who is thinking about what it means to be magical — rather than just thinking about how to do magic. He creates theatrical worlds in which his magic can take flight, and where his whimsical characters can come to life. If magic has any future, I trust that David will be in the avant-garde.

Magician & Performance Artist, David London

In addition I found time to meet and/or reconnect with some online brethren like Marco Fide (Italy), Nakul Shenoy (India), John Crippen (Mexico), and Alan Franzenberg (Modesto, CA).

Together we learned and shared enough thoughts and ideas to last me another six months (at which time I’ll have to plan another working vacation to Las Vegas).