Will You Ever Be More than an Average Magician?

I was asked this question today:

‘How can magicians script and arrange several magic tricks to get maximum entertainment value? Is there a tried and true method of determining what order of the effects is best?

This is what I have learned so far:
Opener – something quick and visual to let the audience know that the magicians, good and that they will be entertained.
More Magic . . .Use the audience as much as possible, they love to be involves (most of them at least, I hate to make fun of a volunteer or make them look foolish)
Closer – usually the best and biggest WOW factor magicians can do.

Any suggestion about pacing the routines and what goes well with other tricks?’

That’s a great question. In fact, it’s one of our favorite questions to be asked! This magician has been hard at work. He has chosen the tricks he wants to perform, which is really the easy part. Now he faces the biggest challenge magicians have: Making it all flow together into a polished and entertaining act.

Option 1:

Don’t worry about it. Magic is a fun hobby, and a great second income, if you decide to perform magic for money. Just keep finding new tricks and show them to as many people as you can, The ones that don’t get great reactions can be dumped and new ones added. Your local magic dealer will LOVE YOU, and you will have a decent reputation locally, as one of the best magicians. You will constantly be met with requests to ‘Show us what new tricks you have’.

Option 2:

You take the time to find out who you are as a performer. The style of magic that suits you best, and the most effective way for you to present your magic. You select only tricks that strengthen your performance and your act. As you study each trick, you create, test, and refine the way you present them. New tricks are added in a way that increases the power of the other magic tricks you do, until you have an act that is the best it can be.

If you look at all the magicians performing magic today, some are pretty terrible to be honest. Some are really good, but most are just an average magician, after all that’s what average means.

Ticking along with option 1, WILL give you results, and your magic will improve over time. However, it will never push you past being one of the average magicians. All magicians are searching for new magic tricks. Magicians everywhere are practicing like crazy. That’s what everyone does:

It’s a path to being just an average magician.

DO THIS: You need to CHOOSE right from the START, where you will fit into this scale. It’s not something you can just gradually move along, until you wake up one day, years from now, better than everyone else. Every day you spend practicing without making this choice, is a wasted chance.

Decide RIGHT NOW to set your aim above the average magician, then do something to act on that decision.

Magicians that asked me this question, are on the right track. They have got to the stage where they want more from their magic. Professional magicians have something more than new tricks. They are doing more than the average guys. Not by accident, but by a conscious choice to study more than the moves of a new trick. They follow option 2. They look at themselves, and their performance, and find ways to make THAT part of their show as good as the tricks within it.
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By Dominic Reyes

How Magicians Can Keep Clients Informed

Doing Magic Tricks For Halloween – Scary or Funny?

by Merchant of Magic Leave a Comment

It’s that time again. Everyone likes to dress up as monsters and ghouls and throws a party. As a magician, it’s one of the busiest times of the year. There are two challenged that face close-up magicians during the spooky season:

Do you change your working act to fit in with the theme, or stick with your tried and tested material?
Perform scary tricks, or go for a lighthearted, comical approach?

Many magicians design a special set of routines just for the Halloween season. Once you have constructed that set, you have made an act, that you can perform each year at its own show. This goes down really well with clients, who will be searching for just the right entertainment for their party.

Other magicians introduce just one or two tricks into their sets, so they can perform something spooky during their show. This means they don’t have to practice a complete new set of tricks Deciding, which approach, depends on your style as a magician and the venues you will be booked to do magic in. If you are not sure which way to go, perhaps start by introducing just one or two scary tricks, into your existing set, and see the reactions that you get.

Knowing how to present the magic is also an important choice you need to make. You can play the serious paranormal expert, or take on a more playful style that doesn’t take yourself too seriously. If you already perform mentalism and your persona is quite serious, then going for the full out horror theme may well work for you, but if your performing style is more cheeky and funny, then doing scary magic with your tongue firmly in your cheek, may well get you better reactions.

The important thing is consistency.

If you go from a very serious trick, into a comic routine, that may jar your audience, as your persona is changing right in front of them. The best course is a direct one, choosing your style, and keeping to it, through the whole set of tricks.

Once you have decided how you will present a few darker tricks, you need to choose the right ones to fit your style. To help, we polled magicians on Facebook, visitors to the magic shop, and working professionals that use our consulting services. The results are quite revealing. The 2 magic tricks, that consistently get the best reactions from spectators tend to be more serious in nature. They have a paranormal feel, dealing with spirits and the dead. The third most popular trick was a gore and horror effect.

The runner up, that didn’t make it into our top three, was The Web trick This really surprised us, as we thought it would be in the top three, as it creates a jump scare for the spectators. It may be out of favour from performers as it uses a toy spider, and may just be too much for some spectators to handle at public gigs

Crunching the data from the last 5 years for orders over the Halloween season, seems to suggest that magicians get the best reactions from tricks in this order:

Paranormal – spooky
Gore and Horror special effects
Jump scared and shocks

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I Want to Be Like Derren Brown

by Merchant of Magic 26 Comments

Derren Brown is at the top of his game at the moment, and quite deservedly so. His shows are well produced, entertaining and generally awesome. From the perspective of the magic community, they are one of the best things to happen to magic in many years. Inspiring a whole new wave of future magicians and mentalists to start the journey into magic and mentalism. But where do they start?

There is a huge range of material on the market promising to teach you the techniques and secrets of Derren Brown. Most can be quite low quality, with more hype than content. So we are often asked which training books and DVD’s are the best in our opinion, to get a beginner started. This is what we usually suggest:

The first step:

13 Steps to Mentalism by Corinda

This is the core source for starting to learn mind reading and mentalism tricks. Perfect for beginners, the book requires no previous knowledge and will show you the fundamentals as well as the presentation and performance skills to get the best from them. This belongs on every mentalists hands.

Banachek PSI Series DVD

A great series of DVD’s teaching mentalism for both the casual performer and the seasoned professional. For those of us that prefer to learn from a DVD, this is great material that is easy to perform and teaches you the core principles you will need, along the way.

Reality is Plastic – Ebook

If you want to dive into the world of hypnosis, but designed for magicians rather than stage shows, then this ebook by Anthony Jacquin is highly recommended. Derren Brown is know for his extensive use of impromptu hypnosis, and this ebook is probably one of the best ways to begin to learn these techniques.

Mentalism is general is very much presentation based. Often the props are simple, sometimes no more than a pen and a sheet of paper. The power of the tricks comes from how they are performed, and the interaction between the performer and the spectators. Knowing the secrets, is a very small part of the learning process. We strongly suggest that you seek out every opportunity to watch other mentalists as much as possible. Go and watch how Derren Brown performs magic in his latest show and pick up the DVD’s of his previous shows. They don’t teach how he does the tricks, but they will teach you the way he presents them. His showmanship is world class, and priceless tuition for you.

Official Site for Derren Brown Show information