Avoid These Magicians – How Magicians Annoy People

What’s the difference between an annoying ‘show off’ and a highly successful entertainer? Why do some magicians constantly annoy people?

Have you ever seen skilled magicians that you simply don’t like? They may be highly recommended magicians, but for some reason, they rub you up the wrong way. Why are some magicians great at entertaining people, whilst others simply come across as show offs?

I don’t think the difference is talent. There are hugely talented magicians who seem to be nothing more than self promoting egos. Yet at the same time, there are highly successful magicians who only perform very simple techniques, yet hold everybody spellbound.

I suspect it’s about the choices that the magicians have made when they have developed their performing characters. Without thinking about how they come across to spectators, some magicians fall into the trap of believing their own hype, whist as the same time, becoming generic and interchangable in their performing persona.

I've found that the following characteristics can be common in many magicians who have not taken the time to think about their performing character:

Irritating
Attention seeking
Cheap and tacky
Patronising
Annoying
Self promoting
Arrogant
Superiority complex
Fake
Generic

Lets look at a few ways to avoid these characteristics that lead to magicians annoying people with their magic:

Use your natural personality

Be who you really are. Develop a stable consistent version of your own characteristics that you can project into your performing style. This will give you a unique and predictable character that audiences will believe in.

Don’t annoy people.

You’re goal is to entertain and delight people. It’s not a game between the spectator and yourself. Try not to push yourself into peoples conversations, force magic down peoples throats and demand to be the centre of attention.

Avoid being arrogant.

You may be a skilled performer, but that doesn’t mean you are better than your spectators. You don’t know who they really are, or what skills that may be an expert at. It doesn’t matter how many years you have been practicing your sleight of hand, or how good your misdirection may be. It’s totally trivial to anyone who doesn’t care about it. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you are special, simply because you are really good at fiddling with playing cards, following magic trick instructions, or because you can be charming. Respect everyone you show your magic too. Don’t let the status of a magician go to your head. There are experts in their own fields everywhere. Looking down on people is a sure fire way to lose work, and fail as a magician.

Never be tacky.

Avoid terrible jokes and one liner gags as much as possible. It makes you look cheap and generic. Add your own humour and style. Be witty and comic if that suits you, but smutty jokes and put downs make you look ‘low rent’.

Do This:

Think about all your best characteristics. Take a moment to write down all the best things people like about you. If you are feeling brave, ask some trusted friends to write a short paragraph about what they like about your character and personality. Once you have this list, look at ways that you can communicate these characteristics into your performing persona. Perhaps the backstory to your magic powers? Maybe by using presentations that describe a story about you, and how you reacted to a specific situation?

Look at one liners that you may use, and the jokes and gags you like using. Do they fit with the description of the person your friends have described? Decide WHO you want to be. You are what you do, and because of that, you have control over how you will be perceived by your spectators. It’s a fantastic opportunity.

How did David Blaine push a needle through his arm?

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

The magic shop is getting requests from people all over the world asking ‘How did David Blaine push a needle through his arm?’

David Blaine’s new TV special Real or Magic seems to have done its job very well! He perfectly blurs the lines between illusion and reality and the magic trick that blurs this line the most is his personal version of needle through arm that closes the show.

So, how did David Blaine push a needle through his arm? The truth is that nobody other than David and his most trusted associates really know. The general consensus of the public is that he must have actually pushed the needle (or skewer to be precise) through his arm. It should go without saying though that no one should attempt to copy this illusion as there are many things that could go wrong including paralysis and even death.

When looking at this amazing piece of astonishment though there are a few things to take into account.

Firstly, David Blaine has been preparing this TV special for nearly a decade. He puts immense amounts of care and thought into his presentations, he also prepares himself for each stunt or magic trick over long periods of time. He is a perfectionist and takes his performances very seriously.

David also has access to the best medical advice and the best magic consultants the world has to offer so whether it was an illusion or real he has advice from the world’s best and most sought after authorities on the subject. So whether it was real or magic he has had the best advice and the best tuition on how to perform this bizarre feat.

David Blaine performed this to an actor in the show. It was a controlled, staged and directed performance, with a spectator that was not an unsuspecting member of the public. Ricky Gervais was part of the show himself.

David Blaine is as committed to the art form of magic as anyone could be. He has the time and money to delve deeply into any theory of any subject he wishes. There is no telling if he spent months learning these techniques from the tribesmen of New Guinea or Mayan’s (who regularly pierce their faces and bodies as part of a ritual they perform), or whether he and his team have in fact, come up with a diabolical method for showing this effect!

Once again David Blaine has fooled us all. He has an amazing ability to keep us all guessing, whether you are a magician or a layperson.

I would like to mention that we at the Merchant of Magic do not advise anyone try any such stunt at home, David Blaine is a professional and has some of the world’s best assistants help him train to perform these illusions and stunts. Maybe it was really a magic trick, in which case really trying to push a needle through your arm would be very silly!

However, if you wish to perform a magic trick that shows an illusion like David Blaine’s needle through arm I highly recommend you check these out:

How to Keep Your Magic Tricks Interesting – Using Variation Techniques

by Dominic Reyes 3 Comments

By Dominic Reyes

How can magicians make their magic tricks more interesting and keep the attention of their audiences?

Times have changed, and audiences simply don’t have the attention spans that they did in the age before the internet, TV, and Smartphones. Popular culture has taken it’s toll on the ability of an audience to hold fixed attention for any extended length of time.

The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span. – Karl Kraus

The problem of reduced attention spans is only going to get worse over time. Kids are growing up in a new type of society, where they are focused more on screens than real world interaction. Children are developing their minds in a world where everything is a quick ‘search on google’ away. The need to put effort into accessing information is reducing all the time. As children develop, their social and emotional development may be hindered by a lack of contact and conversation. Real world interaction shapes a child's intellect. The shorter time spent interacting with people – and the more time the spend in their own passive relationship with a computer screen, the less time they have to develop the ability to read nonverbal cues from people. The next generation may be the worst in history at reading behaviour face-to-face, in real time, and expect all their information and entertainment to be served to them as quickly as possible.

For close up magicians, this situation is even more pressing. The performing conditions at a party or dinner are filled with competing draws on the spectators attention. How should magicians deal with this problem?

The secret to holding a spectators attention is VARIATION. It’s use within your close up magic act is a powerful way to keep your audience engaged with the show you are presenting to them. People get bored quickly, and that leads to distraction. Making sure that you add enough variation into the magic tricks you perform, is a powerful way to keep them interested and involved with your magic.

Variation isn’t speed.

In an attempt to be interesting, some magicians simply try to increase the pace of their magic. In the hope of keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, those magicians try to cram in as many different tricks and flourishes as possible, and perform them at break neck speed. The result isn’t usually good. Speed can cause confusion, which in turn leads to boredom and frustration. It’s important that you go vary your pace and keep the energy up throughout your act, but sometimes slowing down can be just as engaging for spectators. The key is to have a variation in both speed and pace, as well as in the types of magic tricks you perform.

You can present only card magic tricks and still have variation.

In order to vary the content of your act, you don’t have to change the style of magic you perform. If you are a card magician, it’s fine to only use playing cards. If you are a mind reader, there is no need to switch to coin tricks in the middle of your show, to give your act variation. The props can remain the same, but the presentations that you use should have variety. Adding in fast, punchy magic, slow emotional pieces, and a little comedy, can give variation to an act which have a strong common theme running through it. A great example of this can be seen in the work of Derren Brown. His shows are all mentalism, but he plays with pace, comedy and style in a way that creates variation within his show.

Core techniques to create variation in a magic act.

There are many ways to ‘mix things up’ in you magic tricks set.

Speed: Change the speed of your presentations and actions within specific tricks, and also within the framework of your whole act. This gives your magic a dynamic quality and keeps the audience focused on you and your magic.

Duration: Work through each of your routines and try to identify any slow or ‘dead’ parts where nothing is happening. Think about how you could change the routines to reduce these dull moments as much as possible. Ensure that each magic trick has a ‘punch’ quite quickly in its performance. Pay attention to how your spectators react when you present a magic trick to them. Could you bring the ‘moment of magic’ forward by a simple change to the method? Could you introduce a little magical event that occurs before the main ‘effect’, so the audience gets magic along the way? As you develop as a magician, your magic will go through a natural process of culling. The tricks become ‘tight’ as you remove unnecessary parts, pauses and procedure from each presentation.

Shock: The best magic routines add in a little shock or surprise into the mix. The audience is led down a false path, an outcome suddenly changes, or something simply appears or vanishes. Structure your act so it becomes hard for your audience to double guess what is coming next. Nobody wants to be watching a magic trick when they know what the outcome will be.

So you see, it’s quite possible to build a successful act with a specialised theme like mind reading, playing cards or coin magic. Any collection of magic tricks can be as engaging as the next. Variation is the magic secret to ensure that the shrinking attention spans of your audience don’t work against you. Adding variation techniques to your existing magic act can breath new life into your show, and ensure it’s suitable for a future audience that have been raised in the age of Google.