Entries Tagged 'Business' ↓

Here’s a short post to kick off the new year.

Short because musician, Danny Barnes has done all the heavy lifting.

Danny Barnes plays a ferociously twangy banjo with nasal lyrics that draw heavily from folk music traditions, but he also ventures forth to fuse traditional roots with the progressive sound of rock, jazz, and electronic music.

To learn how to make a living performing magic, read his post: How to Make a Living Playing Music. (Just substitute the word “magician” for “musician” and you’ll realize his ideas still apply.) My thanks to Mr. Barnes for sharing his wisdom.

To Mr. Barnes’s 29 theses I would add this observation (this time from magician Billy McComb) that consistency is more important than brilliance. That is, no one wants to hire a performer who is brilliant one night but mediocre the next — because they can never be sure which performer is going to show up when they hire them, and furthermore erratic performances make it impossible to determine what fee would be fair compensation. Billy contends, and I concur, that you’ll have more success if you are consistent and you consistently deliver good value for the money.

And one more thought.

Before I launched into this business, I asked performers of all stripes if it was possible to make a living pursuing this decidedly off-beat profession. In exchange for my query, I receive a lot of quizzical looks and indeterminate answers.

I realize now that the question (as asked) was not one that could be answered, because I hadn’t thought through enough of the details.

To ask if it’s possible to make a living performing magic is akin to asking, “Do you think I could make a living selling some “thing” to some people?”

Of course there’s no way to answer to that question, except to ask a lot of other questions. What “thing” do you intend to sell? To whom will you sell it? How much does it cost to produce this “thing?” Of what value is this “thing” to your prospective clients? Do they have the money necessary to afford this “thing?” How many people are in the market for this “thing?” How will people find out about this “thing” you are offering?

Oh, and if you reply, “What I’m selling is a magic show,” then you need to dig much deeper. Remember the person who goes to the hardware store to buy a drill doesn’t want a drill — what they want are the holes.

For what it’s worth, here’s a view of the U.S. economy through my narrow and limited lens as a magician and supplier for the meeting and events industry.

Tis the season for the company holiday party. In general, December is the busiest month of the year for those magicians who perform grown-up magic in the corporate market. I usually see an exhilarating spike in business in the first half of December.

December of 2008, however, was spike-less. A combination of uncertainty (with regards to the economy) and an unjustified stigma against even the appearance of fun within a corporate entity conspired to make it an underwhelming close to 2008.

So what of 2009?

Well, I received more inquiries this year than last, but buyers seemed to be extremely price conscious. I am aware of some gigs lost to lower priced alternatives. And instead of booking their December events 3-6 months in advance, many planners waited until the last minute (unsure, perhaps, of how much money would be available).

I also had more requests than ever before for shorter performances to help accommodate smaller budgets. And more holiday parties were held on week nights rather than weekends (to qualify for non-peak pricing on venues, one assumes).

From where I sit, the economy has not yet begun to recover, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how businesses will make their numbers in 2010. On the positive side, however, it is no longer optically anathema for a company to have fun and show some love and appreciation to their hard-working employees.

So for my industry, I’m calling the glass half-full for the end of 2009.

Back in November, I went to see magician Jeff McBride and his Wonderground night club/show at the Palace Station in Las Vegas, where I picked up a few ideas for presenting magic under adverse conditions.

The basic rules of performance are that the magician must be seen and must be heard. And this applies whether I perform from the stage or up-close.

I learned to be sensitive to the light while acting in the theatre — to be aware of where the light was most intense and to position myself in the hotspot. The use of light for the close-up magician is often overlooked, but if you want your magic to have maximum impact, you need to be aware of how the light is falling and where the shadows are.

Before I do any startling transformations (a coin changing from copper to silver for example), I want to position the object in the best light. If I’m obstructing the light and casting a shadow over the area where the magic will happen, the magic will get a muted response.

The more light I can get, the more impact my magic will have.

(As a side note, check out the movie, “To Have and Have Not,” with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Whenever Bogart or Bacall would light a cigarette for each other, the director (Howard Hawks) would use a pin spot to illuminate their faces (in addition to the general lighting) to throw in some extra light, and to make sure we would focus on their faces during these intimate moments. Sure they had good chemistry, but Hawks wanted to ensure that we would see this chemistry, and so he literally highlighted these shots.)

The thing I saw in Las Vegas, which I immediately adapted for my work, was the practice of bringing your own light to the table. In a night club, the lighting is often poorly suited for the performance of magic, however, at the Wonderground, magicians brought their own portable light to the table.

Here’s a light that I’ve been using:

This is the Lumatec Everest Reading Light. It costs about $20, runs on 4 AAA batteries, uses 2 LEDs (so the batteries will last for years), it collapses to fit easily in my coat pocket (6-inches long), and is free-standing so I can set it on the table and go to work. When I bought it, it was white, but I spray painted it black so it wouldn’t draw too much focus. Naturally, there are many other lights that will do the job.

Shortly after my Vegas trip, I worked with an event planner who wanted me to do close-up magic at her event. The catch was that she wanted to do a Rave-like theme with glowing necklaces and bracelets, and flashing ice cubes, with everything else in the dark (aside from the DJs light show). While I had some magic that would work in the dark (using D’lites and glow-sticks), the portable light really saved the day.

And one of the venues where I regularly work has extremely poor lighting at many of the tables, so when I produce my own light, I look professional and I get credit for coming prepared. (”Master of my domain,” as Docc Hilford would say…). Plus, it’s also useful for those times when a sponge ball rolls under the table…

Just a little tip I picked up during my travels; hope someone finds it useful.

Performed mix & mingle magic for a Bar Mitzvah reception on Saturday.

I’ve been told umpteen times (by other performers) that this is a tough age group to work for, but I’ve never found it so. To be clear, I would NEVER perform “children’s magic” for 13-year-olds. The young people get the same high-caliber magic that I would perform for my grown-up audiences. At this age, they’re more likely to have seen David Blaine or Criss Angel (or Cyril Takayama via YouTube) than their parents, so if you have to be able to deliver the goods.

What makes these gigs fun is that the young people give free rein to their emotions. If you fool them, they will laugh, they will scream, they will run out of the room (and come back with bunch of their friends in tow).

I do suspect that some of my success with young people stems from my age. I’m not a teenage magician (who wouldn’t be worthy of their respect), but I’m also usually younger than their parents (and therefore still able to wear the mantle of hipness). If you’re too close to their age they’ll take you down. Ditto if you’re too old. I happen to be at the right age where I can claim the role of Alpha dog and assert order on what could become a wild pack.

One thing you need to be prepared for is to think on your feet. Unlike the more polite adult audience, young people (giving free reign to their emotions) will call on you to “do it again!” or “roll up your sleeves!” or “let me shuffle the cards!”

So only bring your strongest rock-solid material to these gigs. If you’re working on a new bit and you’re the slightest bit uncertain, they’ll smell your fear and (unlike their parents) they won’t hesitate to call you out.

Hmm. I started off this post by saying that this is not a tough age group to work for, but after reading my own advise, perhaps I should amend that.

Yes, Mitzvah-aged kid are tough to work for. But if you come prepared, if you earn their respect, if you have the confidence to take charge, it’s a fun and rewarding age group to work for.

I’ve been doing a number of home parties these past few weeks; not for children, but for grown-ups.

The host has invited his or her friends for an evening of food and drink, and I have been hired as the entertainment. Sometimes I am asked to give a single stage performance and other times I provide “mix & mingle” magic.

I enjoy this type of performance because in this environment I can have a tremendous impact on the evening, and it’s up to me to steer the event to a successful conclusion.

That being said, home parties can also be one of the most challenging environments, and demands a good deal of flexibility and quick thinking from the performer. This venue is not for the faint-of-heart. You’ll need to be able to take charge and also go with the flow — and know when to do either.

Because the host is not a professional event planner, they may only have a general idea that they’d like some magic at their party. You’ll need to ask them whether they envision a structured event (”Everyone please join us in the living room, the show is about to begin!”) or a more informal event (”Drinks are out on the porch, grab a plate whenever your hungry…”).

But even when I perform from the stage (at a more structured event), there can still be a lot of unresolved issues when I arrive. Be prepared to take charge. Sometimes the host will have a performance space set up with seating for everyone, but many times they’ve asked me, “Where do you think would be best?” So be prepared to render your professional assessment, ask some polite questions (”Would it be possible to move the dining table back about 3 feet?”), and do whatever is necessary to ensure that you can give a great performance.

You and the host may have agreed that the show will start at 7:00, but the host may not have considered how to make that happen. Who will announce that the show is about to begin? Who will round up the stragglers and get them in their seats? Will anyone introduce you?

And once the show is over, who will tell the guests what happens next? Would the host like YOU to announce that everyone should go to the dinning room for dinner? Or hould you reintroduce your host and allow them to take over the proceedings? Or do you get to lead everyone in a rousing chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” as they wheel in the 5 foot tall cake?

Don’t assume that your host will have thought out all these details. So be prepared to take charge and orchestrate a great event. And also make sure you communicate with all of the hosts. Sometimes you are working for more than one host, and if so, they WILL have different ideas about how the evening should go.

Performing “mix & mingle” magic (aka strolling, close-up, table-hopping) can be even more daunting.

True, you can go in and entertain small groups of people for your allotted time, but I prefer to work towards a bigger goal.

The ideal show for me would be to start the evening by working for small groups, and then towards the end of the evening, begin pulling together a larger group by button-holing some people I’ve already worked for. My vision is to finally draw everyone’s attention for one final piece of magic. And then I do a larger bit of magic (stand-up or cabaret, really) that’s a real show-stopper…and I take my bow and leave.

I find that to be more satisfying than just entertaining small groups all night, and then (at my appointed time) stopping and leaving.

So I always come prepared with a larger piece. Upon arrival, I scope out which room will be the best suited for the grand finale, and work knowing that this is where I want to end up.

Sometimes the party will attempt to gravitate too early with the crowd growing larger before I want it to, so I try to work the periphery and pace myself before diving into the center of the party.

Also, because groups will disperse and reform, I make sure that I have 3 or 4 sets of close-up material at my disposal. Early on, I do the same set of magic for every group that I meet. Then later, if I approach a group and find 3 new people and 1 person that I’ve already worked for, I can switch to my second set, and know that everyone is seeing something new.

Again, I’ve just managed to scratch the surface, but if you understand what it takes to make a great evening, and can take charge to make it happen, and contrariwise, if you’re flexible and know when to go with the flow, home parties can be a very rewarding venue.

There is quite a bit that I can say about social graces for the magician, but today I’ll confine myself to making conversation after a performance. This applies to those who perform a stage show, but especially to those who work up close (mix & mingle, strolling, walk-around, table-hopping, what-have-you).

If you’re sensitive to what happens after you finish your performance, you’ll know that people will say things like, “Wow!” and “That was great!” and “That was amazing!”

And then, if you’re not prepared, there’s a pause — which can grow to become an awkward silence — as your guests run out of superlatives and fall mute.

If you think about it, it’s quite natural that your audience be at a loss for words. If you’ve done your job well, they’ve probably never experienced the level of astonishment that you’ve just given them. You have seized the spotlight and amazed them, and nothing in their social experience tells them what to do next.

I mean, imagine you were at a cocktail party and you met someone and they said, “Look what I can do…” And then they spun their head around 360 degrees ala Linda Blair.

After you say, “Wow!” what do you say next?

It’s a conversation stopper.

And magic can do the same effect, so it’s up to us (as good entertainers) to help people out by assisting them in restarting the conversation.

Of course you can just say thanks and walk away, but it is not my preferred route. True, sometimes the situation dictates that you not spend time visiting with the guests. Once I was hired to perform for a reception of 300 people for 1 hour. I told the event planner that in order to ensure good coverage (to allow a majority of the attendees to see some magic), I recommended either extending the duration of my performance for a couple hours, or hiring a couple other magicians. Budget constraints, however, would not allow it. So I performed a very short piece of magic for each group, and without pausing to converse with my guests, I would make a speedy departure to find another group to work for.

It was not an optimal situation however, as I’ve found that most guests enjoy interacting with and talking to the magician (how often do they get to do that?). For many people the highlight of the event will be “I got to meet the magician.” And not “…and then my card turned over in the deck!”

But as I mentioned above, sometimes, especially after witnessing great magic, they don’t know how to proceed with the conversation. (In my experience, only 1-in-12 people are skilled enough in conversation that they can ask, “So how did you learn magic?” or “How long have you been performing?” or “Who are your favorite magicians?” or “Where else do you perform?”)

So one thing I do to help them out is to turn the subject of the conversation back to them.

If they’ve indicated that they enjoy seeing magic, I like to ask, “Do you do any magic yourself?”

I’ve met a number of amateur magicians this way, and even if they don’t currently perform, they will often tell me that they used to do magic when they were younger or that they used to have a deck of magic cards, etc. At any rate, I’ve restarted the conversation and I’ve given them a path for us to move the discussion beyond, “Wow, that was great…”

Another conversation starter for someone who has indicated that they like magic is “Who’s your favorite magician?” Or “Who else have you seen perform?” Now they can talk about who they saw on their trip to Vegas and you can tell them which shows are worth seeing next time they go, etc.

When working restaurants, at the end of my performance I say, “So are you here for a special occasion?” It’s not always a “special” occasion, but they usually have some story to tell about why they chose to come here tonight. And of course, if it’s a birthday or anniversary, well, I have a special trick up my sleeve to commemorate the occasion.

In my opinion, it’s you’re ability to interact with people in a social situation that will get you booked back. If you’re a magician who is a master of sleight-of-hand, but you lack the social skills to put people at ease, it’s going to hurt your ability to get bookings.

Some final thoughts about Fringe marketing from a full-time professional magician.

First, for those who are in the dark, the Boulder International Fringe Festival is a 12-day festival of live theater, circus art, performance art, spoken word, puppetry, music, dance, multi-media, film, visual art, storytelling, and yes…sometimes magic. Performers pay a fee to participate, and receive in return: a venue, support staff, and some marketing. After that, 100% of the ticket sales goes to the performer, so the onus is on the artist to sell tickets.

A brief story. Years ago, I was active in a Boulder, Colorado, community theater group. The group would produce 3 or 4 plays each year and I acted in some of the productions, stage managed others, and even sat behind the ticket counter at times. At show time, despite the consist high quality of our productions, the auditorium (more often then not) was mostly empty. And the House Manager and the Stage Manager would confer in the lobby, gazing out into the parking lot to see if any stragglers were forthcoming. And during the Winter months the following conversation would ensue:

SM: So…do you think we’ll get anymore people tonight?

HM: Well, it’s been snowing all evening, and no one wants to go out when the weather is bad.

SM: Yeah this bad weather has really kept people away from the theater. I guess everyone is staying at home tonight.

HM: It’s a pity, the show is quite good.

Of course if it were Spring or Summer, the conversation would go like this:

SM: So…do you think we’ll get anymore people tonight?

HM: Well, the weather’s so nice this evening, and no one wants be sitting in a dark theater when the weather is so nice.

SM: Yeah this good weather has really kept people away from the theater. I guess everyone is enjoying the pleasant weather tonight.

HM: It’s a pity, the show is quite good.

The point is this. There will ALWAYS be obstacles that will deter people from coming to your show. Your job as a salesperson is to make your show so compelling that it overcomes obstacles. Imagine your friend is be driving home from a hard day at the office, when he remembers that your performance is tonight. Will he (or she) say, “I’ve had a hard day at the office. I think I’ll just go home and relax and skip the performance.”? Or will he (or she) say, “I’ve had a hard day at the office. I think I’ll go the the Fringe Festival and relax and have some fun.”?

The difference will depend on your ability to sell your show.

Earlier I mentioned that you should premier your show before the Fringe so that you’re confident in your ability to deliver the goods. Your confidence will help convince your friends that they should see your show.

So you’ve spoken with everyone you know about the show. You’ve asked them to come, though few people have actually committed.

About 5 weeks prior to the show, I began my letter writing campaign. Just a brief note to remind people that the big day is approaching, and that I’d be very happy if they could attend. I include a postcard with the dates and times. (It’s likely that I already gave them a postcard in person, but I send them another one, just in case they’ve misplaced it.)

By the way, if anyone asks, “What night is the best night to attend?” I tell them to come opening night, but to be sure to reserve their tickets in advance. (I’ll explain why in a bit…)

Also, I didn’t give out very many comps. The oft cited theory is that if you give away free tickets, it will generate word-of-mouth buzz which will translate into greater attendance. In my experience, people are grateful for the free tickets, but it does little to boost future ticket sales. True, if you’ve only sold 10 tickets, you can then fill the house with comps and thus create the illusion of a sold-out performance, but I had set my sights higher — I wanted every show to genuinely sell-out.

About 3 weeks out, I wrote a press release and got my name in the paper. Don’t worry if you’re not picked up by any of the major papers, even a small town paper will give you a little visibility. And you’re going to leverage this moment of fame. When I got a newspaper to pick up my story, I began emailing all my friends with a link to the on-line edition and the article generated even more interest in my show.

About 1 week out, I sent out another email with a Mapquest link since many of my friends were coming up from Denver and would not be familiar with my Boulder venue. Also, I gave them tips on where they could find parking, and advised them again to reserve their tickets in advance.

Remember how I told everyone to come on opening night if they could? Well my opening night performance played to a Standing Room Only crowd. And the sell-out crowd gave me one more opportunity to remind people about the show. So I sent out an email that night to all my friends warning them that the show was a big hit, and that people were turned away at the door. I advised everyone to reserve their tickets now, or risk being denied the opportunity to attend.

And with that, I ceased marketing and turned my focus to giving great performances.

Well, it was hard work, but all my efforts paid off. Of my six performances at the Fringe Festival, four of them sold out, and I earned the 2007 Encore! Performance Award for highest attendance at my venue. Was able to turn a handsome profit too. I know there was a good deal of buzz throughout the Fringe community with people wondering how I got so many people to come to my show.

Well that’s how I did it.

[Update: June 27, 2008. I forgot to mention when writing my friends I would use phrases like, "It's a show your whole family will enjoy." Or, "Enjoy a night out with your friends or co-workers." I've had too many experiences of having a friend show up, by themselves, on closing night, and tell me after the performance, "I really enjoyed that. I'll have to tell my co-workers about the show." But, of course it's too late.

For some reason, when I invited them to come to the show, it never occurred that they might also bring their friends, co-workers, and/or family. So I decided that I would help plant the idea. Just a reminder that it's more fun to Fringe with a friend.]

Continuing from where I left off yesterday…

The next tool I used to promote my magic performance at the Fringe was a postcard with all the specific details about my show. Postcards are, hands down, the best form of print material you can have for the Fringe.

First, they are relatively inexpensive to produce at about $.15 apiece for 1,000 postcards. I used an online print vendor called 48HourPrint, but there are many others (like ModernPostcards) that will do as good or better.

Allow me to interject one personal exhortation. Do yourself a favor and pay someone to design your postcard for you. I know that we all have software that will allow us to layout photos and text, but we don’t all have an eye for good design. And if your postcard looks amateurish, people will assume that your performance will be amateurish too. So make sure that your promotional materials are every bit as good as your performance is. Thus ends the personal diatribe.

You can design your postcard as a self-mailer, provided you leave certain areas free of print for the post office. Your print vendor will often provide templates showing you which areas are verboten.

I chose not to use my postcards as a self-mailer because I would have to sacrifice valuable space, and because I’m not convinced that enough people will come to see a play they’ve never heard of before (mine was an original work, as I believe most Fringe performances are) just because they received a postcard.

Let’s examine some of the marketing challenges specific to Fringe performances. As I alluded to above, unless you’re doing Hamlet or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof you will need to find a way to convey what your performance is about. A postcard is a very poor vehicle for this (due to space limitations), so it will need to be supplemented somehow. I opted to speak with people face-to-face, and to write personal letters.

Your performance has several dates & times and they are irregularly distributed. Postcards do very well here. By giving your prospect a postcard, he or she will have a record of each performance date each start time. Carry postcards with you at all times and hand them out liberally. It sure beats having someone try to write down, “…Thursday the 19th at 8:30, Friday the 20th at 7:00, Saturday the 21st — no show…”

Because of the variety of dates and times for my magic performance, I decided not to produce any posters (nor did I write chalk messages on the sidewalk, nor did I use any other marketing devices of this ilk). Posters can work to promote a Fringe show — but only to a degree. And there’s the rub. Because I wanted to be as profitable as possible, I needed to keep my expenses down. This required that I use only the marketing tools that would produce the most bang for the buck (and the most torque for my time).

Posters can work for bands, because there is less to remember (Radiohead, Saturday, June 7th at 8:00, Fox Theatre). And posters can even be effective for a more traditional theater run (The Odd Couple, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00, Sundays at 2:00, through the month of June at the Dairy Center).

But because I needed to convey so much detailed information, I realized that I needed a promotional piece that people could walk away with.

You’ll need to map out a strategy for how you will use your postcards to determine how many postcards to produce. There’s no point in printing 5,000 postcards if you only know 20 people (I hope you know more than 20 people…).

For my show, I make a list of everyone I knew in Colorado for whom I had a mailing address (I didn’t send them as self-mailers, instead I included the postcard in an envelope with a short letter inviting them to come). Then I make a list of all the networking events I would attend between now and opening night and set a distribution goal for each event. I made a list of postcard friendly businesses that allow people to leave stacks of promotional material, and calculated how many postcards I would need.

OK. That’s what I know about using postcards. I think I’ll do one more post about promoting your Fringe show to wrap up some loose ends. But again, I’ve got a magic gig to prepare for, so I’ll stop right here.

I’m looking forward to the Boulder International Fringe Festival coming up in August. There will be a magician and a mentalist this year (but I will not be performing). It is one of Colorado’s true festival gems and is not to be missed. And although I won’t be participating in the Festival this year, many of my Fringe friends have been asking me for advice due to the tremendous success I had last year (4 of my 6 performances were sold out…). Here’s what I learned four-walling my magic show — though these ideas will apply to any type of show.

First, you need to spend a lot of time promoting your show. As artists, you may want to devote time to working on your performance, but it’s time to become a business person. My advice is that you finish working on your performance now. Set it aside, and begin focusing on marketing.

If the work is new you may have planned to premiere the work at the Fringe Festival. I recommend against this. Go ahead and schedule some performances now, in advance of the Fringe. Premieres are overrated. There are always problems with a new work that will be found after the first few performances. Fix them now and you’ll have a show that’s even more Fringe-worthy.

The other reason for debuting the show now (instead of at the Festival) is that you’re going to need to start selling the show now. And you can’t sell the show, if you don’t know what you’ve got. When you talk about your show with other people, they’ll want to know what the show is like. Is it funny? Is it thought-provoking? Is it gut-wrenching? If you’re not finished writing your show, if you have never performed it for anyone before, then you’re not going to be able to speak with any authority. And you need to be able to speak with authority if you want to convince people to come see your show. People can tell if you’re uncertain. And they won’t buy from you if you’re uncertain.

So get the show up and running in front of a live audience. Get some feedback; make some fixes. Then spend the next two months promoting your show.

More advice: Begin talking with people about your show now. Whenever someone asks you, “What’s new?” Be prepared to tell them that you’re excited to be in the Fringe Festival in August, tell them briefly about the show and then say, “I really hope you can make it. Will you be able to come?”

It is important that you remember to ask people to come! If you forget to ask them to come they might think, “Maybe the show isn’t something I’d enjoy. Maybe it’s too avant-garde for me.” People will think all sorts of crazy things if you don’t ask them to come. So make sure you ask. If they say yes, then thank them and tell them how much it will mean to you to have them in the audience.

As a side note, I am shocked at how many of my friends will say, “I wasn’t sure if I should come or not. I was afraid it would make you nervous if you saw me in the audience.”

The only explanation I can think of is that they went to see another friend in a performance, and after the show their friend said, “I saw your name on the reservation list tonight, and it made me so nervous that I could hardly concentrate on my performance.”

If you’ve ever said that to any of your friends, please STOP. You’re making it really difficult for the rest of us to sell tickets to our friends.

But back to the issue at hand. In truth, when you ask someone, for the first time, to come to your show, most people will not want to commit. Many people will begin to choke and stammer, and they’ll mutter something about needing to check their schedule. That’s OK. It is perfectly natural, after all, you’ve only spoken to them for 60 seconds about the show. They’re not ready to buy. Like the expert fisherman (or fisherwoman) that you are, you can practice “catch and release” and set them free unharmed. Just tell them that you understand and that you’ll be sure to give them more information when it’s closer to the event.

This is enough to get you started. Get your performance ready to go now. Get it to the stage now (rather than later) so you can polish the rough spots. And begin telling everyone you know that you expect them to come see you show. Remember, “catch and release.”

I’ll write more at a later date about how to follow up, but now I need to get ready for a performance this afternoon…

(Ran the Bolder Boulder 10K today, so I’m relaxing and cogitating, because I’m too sore to move about. I had hoped for a better time, but at 1 hour 16 minutes, it was my slowest time since I began running the BB 13 years ago. Actually, I was in need of a miracle, as magic kept me too busy to train this year — and at my age, training is no longer a luxury. But enough with the personal tidbits, you came here for hardier fare…)

A question some of my magician colleagues in Colorado have asked is, “How much magic do you need to know to make it as a full-time professional magician?” My standard answer is that you need to know everything possible about the art. One of the great boons I received was the opportunity to apprentice in a magic shop for six years; during which time, I was exposed to a wide swath of differing magic styles.

The need to know a great deal of magic flies in the face of some highly-respected magicians like Eugene Burger, who says that when he became a full-time professional, his performing repertoire consisted of six effects.

In addition there is the old standard that a magician should “Learn six effects, but learn them well.”

I believe that the advice regarding “six effects” is meant to counter the obsession that some amateurs have with amassing hundreds (nay, thousands) of esoteric magical variations. None of which are adequately mastered. And none of which are discernibly different from one another.

The wisdom of “six effects” is that it forces the magician to focus on and to perfect his or her performance of a few pieces of magic, rather than accumulating more secrets that are never worthy of performance.

Still, the advice to learn “six effects” — while an admirable ideal — lacks much in the realm of practicality.

When I perform mix & mingle magic (also know as “strolling magic” or “walk-around magic”) I can get by with a repertoire of six effects. But if the DJ (or band) is too loud to converse, then I may find it necessary to switch to a second set of six effects, magic that can be performed without speaking. And if the lights are dim, I have at my disposal a third set of six effects for low-light situations.

When I work from the stage, I have a standard set of magic that I rely on for audiences up to 200 people. But when performing for audiences of more than 200 (without the aid of a video camera) I have another set of magic.

When I develop material for the stage, I classify it, not only by the number of people that can see it, but also by the technical requirements. Some magic requires the use of a wireless clip-on microphone. Other magic can be done with a wireless hand-held microphone, and other magic can be done with a corded hand-held microphone. Some magic requires specific sound or lighting cues and the attendant rehearsals.

All of these situations describe venues that I work in. If I only have “six effects” at my beck and call, I would need to turn away a good number of performances. If you’re interested in been a full-time professional magician (that’s making any money), you’re going to need good deal more than six effects. But please note that I’ve expanded my repertoire with a purpose. Collecting magic that doesn’t make you a more versatile (more bookable) performer is an acceptable hobby, but a poor use of time for the full-time professional.