performing for the public Archives

How to Connect with Your Audience When You Perform Magic

Rapport is essentially one of the biggest things that will distinguish between a great, memorable performer, and a person who does a few magic tricks. It’s about learning how to connect with your audience. Think of a couple of your favorite magicians. Odds are that they have great people skills, the ability to draw the audience in. How many magicians can you think of that lack this skill? Personally, I can’t remember any. And why can’t I remember them? Because there was no human or emotional connection. It’s not really surprising though, as we have been brought up never to talk to strangers. How do we break this and why is it important?

Emotional connection.
When we talk about emotional connection, it is immediately assumed too often that we are referring to the art of attraction, or upset. Emotional connection covers all areas of humanity, and the secret to gaining a connection with your audience is actually easier than you may think. Essentially, you need the audience to like you. Fortunately, you are already half way there as the audience wants to like you. People naturally want to be relaxed. So, smile!

Happy, smiley people.
The first step to establishing rapport is a simple smile. A smile travels miles. And as a bonus, they are free and require very little practice. A person smiling shows confidence, positivity and requires no words. It is universal and inviting. It shows you are relaxed, and in turn this gives the audience confidence in you, so smile as much and as often as you like. You’ll be surprised how many smiles you receive in return. I find it really helps before I start to have a glass of water at the bar, and strike up a chat with the bar staff, then crack a silly joke. They may not find it funny, but it makes me smile, which is a great head start for your first audience.

Maintain eye contact.
Picture yourself sat in an audience, and the performer glances across the audience, and then makes eye contact directly with you. How do you feel? One thing for sure, you will feel more involved in the act than you did moments before. Now imagine your seated at a table, and a magician approaches the table and begins his act. He spends most of his time looking at his hands, and when he does look up, he looks at everyone at the table other than you. How do you feel? Isolated and uninvolved.

Here, are 3 simple ways to ensure your eye contact is drawing the spectators in:

Every time you are speaking make sure you are making eye contact.
Mentally take turns with who you look at. I personally begin making eye contact with the person furthest away from me, opposite side of the table. This then involves the whole table. Then I mentally take turns as to whom to look towards next time.
Talk to the people, not your props. Your props are purely that, props. You are the magic, not the props.

React and respond.
I think it’s important to ask the audience questions, as soon as possible. Involve them.

“Hello there. How are you all this evening?”

They have to respond. If there is music playing, or they have had a meal, ask them how it was. Let them know you are not there purely showing magic. You are a person, part of the entire event, and you want to hear about their evening. They are investing their time in you. Invest some of your time with them. It will be appreciated. If they like you, they will like what you do. But first they need to know that you like them. Also, react and respond not only to the audience, but your surroundings. If something occurs in the background, for example, a waiter drops a plate, comment on it. Involve the surroundings. Turn these possible disruptions into advantages. This will convey to the audience that you are not scripted, you are human.

Be emotional.
Reveal your humanity with emotions. You need to reveal a part of you, and you do that by letting us glimpse your innards, your emotions. To show a passion for something is to show humanity. To show humanity makes you instantly likeable and encourages connectivity, which is a natural, human desire in all of us. So, show emotions, be as surprised as the audience, be as disappointed you didn’t find that playing card as the audience is. And should any mistakes occur, mock it with the spectators! Share the emotions of your act.

Leave them wanting more.
Always leave the audience with a smile and a laugh. It’s true that if you leave them smiling and laughing this will be the lasting memory of you. This is also the ideal time to remind them who you are.

“Thank you so much for your time. I’ve had such a great time. Have a few more drinks and I will pop back and show you the same tricks again. I have been (insert name here). Have a lovely evening all.”

Smile, make eye contact, and shake their hands.

Follow these simple guidelines on how to connect with your audience, and you will find your reactions to be much stronger, and most importantly, the audience will enjoy you and your time ten times more, which in turn means they will remember you as a person.

Finding It Hard to Perform Magic in Front of a Crowd

by Merchant of Magic 5 Comments

‘I’m 14 and have been doing close up magic for just over a year. I find it hard to perform in front of a crowd. I really need help with this.’ – Kieron

That’s an awesome question Kieron, and one that we get asked a lot, so you are not alone there. We call it close-up magic, but often, there is nothing close-up about it. You start off showing a magic trick to a couple of people, and before you know it, you have a huge crowd all around you. Pretty scary stuff.

Part of the anxiety is stage fright. That never really goes, but does decrease over time as you get used to it. The key is experience. The more you expose yourself to those kinds of situations, the more used to them you will become. The best way to face this is to get out and perform as much as possible.

Due to your age, finding good venues for your magic can be tricky, but community events, fetes and charity fundraisers would make ideal practice gigs for you to become more used to performing for the public. Contact a few local organizations and ask if you can attend for free to perform.

Ideally perform for the general public, with your parents also attending. Preferably in front of non-magicians so you can get ‘real’ feedback. If your school has a drama club or there is a local theatre group in your area, we highly recommend that you join. You will learn so many valuable skills that will transfer directly to your magic.

Putting in the time to go out and get experience will REALLY pay off whilst you are a young magician. Far more than any private practice can bring you.

We recommend that you read this advice from Ben Williams:

Overcoming nervousness for magicians.

A great technique from Seamus Hayes

Breathing exercises before performing often help.
If you have a lot of anxiety, there is a “Tapping” method, which may help you…

“Could you believe it if I told you that you can tap yourself out of an anxiety? Yes, actually tap away your anxiety.

Anxiety about your golf stroke, anxiety about your performance at work, anxiety about achieving your personal goals, anxiety about your family, anxiety about being bullied, anxiety about how you appear to other people, anxiety about coping, in fact anxiety in whatever shape or form it raises its head may be eliminated through focused tapping.

Consider the following. There is a rat in a box on your desk. Notice how the thought alone can create a reaction.
Now, do the following while thinking of the rat on your desk:

1) What is your anxiety?, is it fear? Is it panic?…
2) Rate the intensity of the anxiety between 0 and 10 (10 being the most intense).
3) While tapping on the “collar bone” repeat 3 times “Even though I feel this anxiety I totally & completely accept myself”
4) Now, while Repeating the Words “This anxiety”, tap 7 times

a) Above the eye,
b) Below the eye,
c) On the collarbone
d) Under the arm, (about half way between the belt line and the armpit)

5) Rate the intensity again. In most cases the intensity has decreased.

Will this simple technique work for everybody? I have witnessed, in my own practice, a lady who had not done exams for over 30 years, release severe exam anxiety in less than 30 seconds with this simple technique. In a few cases, no immediate result seemed to occur, however comments like “I feel calmer”, “I feel more in control” or “I feel less tired and full of energy” surface in conversations days later. A small percentage of people need a longer version to achieve results, however, persistent work always facilitates some change for good.

Philosophers and Psychologists have always recognized the fact that thoughts influence behavior. In the case of the rat above, if you have a negative perception of a rat, as you think about the rat, you will reflect your thoughts in your body as an emotion (anxiety, tension, fear…): Your body’s energy has been disrupted in some form. Focused tapping or pressure on acupuncture points restores the balance to the disrupted energy. By tapping on these pressure points, you begin to separate the emotion from the thought. By thus doing, you increase your control over the situation. I have seen people, who suffered great anxiety at the sight of a mouse, actually hold the mouse in their hand without any negative emotion within minutes.

Is this simple method “off the wall”? Users of reflexology and acupuncture will easily understand the philosophy behind this simple technique. Chinese Medicine, from which this technique comes, has been successfully treating the “whole person” for centuries. Today we call it Energy Psychology. It blends in easily with today’s lifestyle. It’s free, easily applicable and within the personal control of each person who may choose to use it.”
– Seamus Hayes – Source http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Hayes2.html

Do you have some advice that would help Keiron and others like him who are facing fear of performing in front of a crowd? Please post your advice in the comments section below:

How to Build Magic Tricks into a Routine?

by Merchant of Magic 8 Comments

We get plenty of emails asking how to organise and build magic tricks into a routine that flows smoothly so they can perform with confidence and know that by the end of their routine, everyone will have had a positive experience.

Professional magician, Ben Williams gives his top 3 tips for creating a close up routine that flows:

1) Every routine should have a Start, a Middle and an End

First, you must concentrate on your magic tricks, which effects to use and which ones not to use. Every routine should have a start, middle, and an end. This is something that you may have heard before. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Let me explain what I mean and what each part of the routine should convey to your spectators.

The Start
First impressions count. Your introduction and first magic trick are when your spectators will make their judgement of you and your magic. An opening effect should be something that is not too long and does not involve too much process. Most spectators do not want to invest too much of their time in you and for magic… Yet (unless you have a spectator that is either very polite or really LOVES magic, in which case you will have time to perform a lengthier effect to them later). A spectator needs to be satisfied straight away with your promise of magic. Produce your deck of playing cards in a magical way or make your Sharpie pen appear from nowhere, these are great ways to establish magic within your performance. Your first magic trick (not counting pulling the pen from behind their ear!) should still be punchy and to the point, visual magic is great, magic in their hands is even better. When working professionally and performing my card effects, I almost always start with a card being selected with some amusing patter, shuffled back into the deck and then having an indifferent card placed in their hands which magically turns into their card. There is little process; it can be performed within a minute, and the revelation happens in their hands.

It is only now you can gauge their actual interest and see how far down the rabbit hole they are willing to go with you.

The Middle
This is the part of the routine that you can tailor the most with your own preferences and to how you feel the spectators are going to accept your performance. For instance, you can add some routines that you personally enjoy; they don’t have to be as short and punchy. This is also the time in the routine where you can try out your new material as they have been shown something impressive already so the pressure is off and you can really relax. I usually have a few magic tricks on me that I know can work together, and what the spectators say or how they act will affect what I do next. Sometimes the spectators will say they love card magic, and this may influence me to perform a lengthier routine with the cards such as Triumph or a signed card effect (that has a good kicker ending) like Ambitious Card ending with a deck vanish or card to wallet. Maybe they mention a famous magician and say what they saw him do on TV, like David Blaine biting a coin in half, in which case I would probably go into my coin bend routine or ring flight routine. If you have given yourself a choice of magic tricks, make sure you limit them somewhat to a few effects that will fit this segment of your performance so as not to confuse yourself!

The End
This is the routine that you will perform and leave your spectators with; this has to be memorable. Maybe you set out a premise for this in your introduction—for example, you hand a prediction to your spectators at the beginning and come back to it at the end of your routine, allowing the performance to go full circle. You may want to save something very strong for this performance like a drawing duplication. You have earned their trust, gained their respect, and now you can really hit them between the eyes with a meaningful performance that will leave them with something as a reminder of your time together. Remember, they make their judgements about you at the beginning, but after you have gained their respect you can leave them with whatever impression you want. If you want to be remembered then this is your chance, make it count.

2) Don’t confuse yourself.

I touched on this, albeit briefly earlier. It is very important not to over-complicate things for yourself. It is too easy to cram as much magic as you can in your pockets and not think about where it is going. If you do this when you are performing, your routine, you will be fishing around in your pockets trying to identify your props sight unseen, just using the sense of touch. It will look awkward, and your spectators will definitely notice this, it will look like you don’t know what you are doing and add pressure upon you which will compromise your performance. Take a moment to think about pocket management (we have an article talking about this in a lot more depth lower down in the blog); make sure you know where your props are before you go to get them. It will help you keep a clear head and improve your performance as it will minimize thinking about things other than your performance.

3) Script your patter.

It is very important for the flow of the routine if you have a scripted patter. This is your safety net. I don’t necessarily mean that you have to stick to the script word for word—it is more a script that you can fall back on that can help you keep on track with your routine. By all means, improvise with your performance and be personable with what you are saying, but having a script can help to get your routine moving along smoothly. I personally have a set script that I use. It changes frequently as sometimes you think of a funny line or try something new that works amazingly well, but it helps me should the spectators cause the routine to go off track. I have, many times during performance, being in the middle of my ambitious card routine when something funny has happened, after laughing and joking with the spectators, I have not known where I am in the routine. It was only when I returned to my script that I knew which sleight to perform so I could continue with the routine successfully.

By all means, enjoy your performance. Go off on a tangent, and if there is something that you wish to add or take out, then do so (after all, trying new things and jazzing with your magic or script a little, is the only way to develop and improve), but having the script as a backup can help in times when it is needed. Scripting is just another tool in your arsenal that can help the flow of a routine, like good pocket management, and it is all these little details that count.

So in summary, keep it simple! Make sure that the effects you choose reflect your personality but also take into account what your spectators think. Everybody has a preconceived notion as to what they believe magic to be, make sure you are aware of this when you plan your routine.

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