MagicShow.Tips – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Sound System for Magic Show

Nothing drives me crazier than people who run sound that don’t know how to run sound. Let me start by saying that I don’t know how to run sound. I do know how to run it for my show, but that’s my limited scope. I couldn’t be a sound tech for a band, or your magic show, just mine.

A few weeks ago, I was at a drag brunch, and the person running the sound had a soundboard that ran off some strange cord that wasn’t compatible with the venue’s sound system. They had to set up their speakers in from of the venue’s speakers!

That’s kinda ridiculous and a lot of extra work that’s not necessary. The industry standard is XLR cords for live sound. You can use headphone style 1/8 inch cords, but you’ll usually need additional adapters to get the sound into a professional soundboard. Just carry the correct thing, which is an XLR, and you’re good to go!

Another thing was the microphone receiver placement, which wasn’t the best place, which led to it repeatedly dropping out. Oh, and the microphone was USB-charged, which sounds like a good idea, except if you’re in a situation where the power on the mic is low, you really don’t have any options for instantly giving it power. At the drag brunch, they kept having to plug the mic to charge it for a few minutes at a time. If you’re using a battery powered microphone, you just swap out the batteries.

I currently have two microphone set ups that I use:
1: My good mic which is a Sennheiser
2: My beat it up mic which is a Saramonic

Both have battery powered receivers as well, so I don’t need to find a plug to use them. Having good audio that works is just one less problem you need to deal with.

-Louie

Nest of Envelopes as a Running Gag

This routine is starting to take shape. First, I had the idea of doing a running gag with a nest of envelopes. Then I figured out what the magic trick payoff at the end of the running gag would be. The last piece of the puzzle is to figure out the routine.

Each envelope will have an instruction written on it. This is independent of the card selection process.

The rough flow is that they will make a choice, like red or black. Then they will open the envelope, and written on that envelope will be an instruction. They do that. Then you do another routine and come back to the person with the envelope. You give them the next choice, like hearts or diamonds. Then they open the envelope and do what’s written on it. That is repeated until the choices have narrowed it down to a specific card. The last envelope has the invisible deck in it, which reveals the selected card!

I think this will make the invisible deck play bigger with all the envelopes, but also allow me to get more time out of the prop, without it being a single routine that’s dragged out.

-Louie

The Nest of Envelopes Trick

For the Nest of Envelopes, I need to figure out what is going to end up inside the envelopes. I’m thinking that a choice will be made as each envelope is opened. And those choices will narrow it down to a single thing. Then that single thing or representation (i.e., picture of it) will be in the innermost envelope.

While I hate for this to end up being a card trick, it looks like it will be. A deck of cards lends itself to being a group of items that can be grouped in a lot of different ways that are easily remembered. You can give people choices like: color, suit, letter or number, odd or even, male or female, exact value (i.e., four). A performer friend and I sat down and tried to brainstorm different things that could be grouped in different ways, hopefully four or five groups. We didn’t come up with anything that was good or easy for a person to understand.

If the trick is going to end up being a playing card prediction, then the obvious choice is an invisible deck. I travel with Rough Stick, so I quickly made an invisible deck:

I don’t know if this will be the final method, but it’s nice because it’s self-contained. The deck can go into the smallest envelope, and I don’t need to add or alter anything. Just open the envelopes, and when we get to the invisible deck, spread it to reveal the selection.

-Louie

Magic Show Running Gag

The School Assembly Tour that I did in April had a running gag in it. It was a bit with Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (smiley face version), and you can see me do it in my School Assembly Set. I really liked how it played, and I’m thinking of adding a running gag to my show.

In the past, I’ve done a thing with the Nest of Boxes, I wrote an article about it over a decade ago called Call Back: My Take on the Nest of Boxes. Basically, I was using the nest of boxes as a running gag throughout the show. I really would like to use them again; however, the reality of how my show travels prohibits me from using a traditional nest of boxes.

The Nest of Envelopes!

The idea is a Nest of Envelopes. The idea is that something is inside a nesting set of 4 or 5 envelopes. The thing inside doesn’t have to be an object that has vanished; it could be a prediction or even some sort of punchline. This opens up a lot more possibilities.

The nice thing about envelopes over a set of boxes is that they pack flat and are much lighter! Also, something that, in an emergency, could be sourced in any city with an office supply store.

-Louie

Old Magic Props in Real Life!

There are magic props that look like they were created to make a trick work, and don’t exist in real life. The TV Card Frame magic trick where a card appears between two pieces of glass is one of those tricks.

Recently at a junk shop I saw a picture frame that I’m guessing is what the TV Card Frame is trying to look like:

I’m always amazed that these things that look strange to me, but were created long before I was born, were designed to sort of look like things that existed in real life back then.

I wonder what props that look like everyday items now won’t look like anything people will have interact 40 years from now?

-Louie

Stage Show Props

These are the props that are in my hands or pockets when I walk onstage. This is for a 90 minute theater show.

The paper will have a person’s name under “congrats”, but that will be filled in right before showtime. The paper goes in the envelope, and that, along with the mic, goes in my hands. Everything else is in a pocket or under my coat.

I will say that switching from putting the ball in my back pocket to a ball dropper to steal the tennis ball is a game changer for me! I use it in my Stand Up Chop Cup routine (from my 2025 lecture notes). The steal is cleaner, with less motion and I don’t have a lumpy butt for half my show!

-Louie

What’s the Out?

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with magic props that use electronics. There’s so much that can go wrong, and when it does, how do you still do the routine? For me, I usually run two different methods at the same time and can switch from the cleaner/easier electronic method to the analog method instantly.

I’ve got a bit in my new show that uses an electronic magic prop, and the easiest solution to it failing is to have a second one running at the same time!

I do have a third backup method that’s analog; however, the more efficient way is two of the electronic gimmicks.

With magic methods moving towards apps, and electronic gimmicks, I think it’s important to look at your show and figure out where the potential failure points are for tech and how you would deal with them when it happens.

It will happen!

-Louie

Not Doing Material

When I host a variety show, I try to do as little of my formal material as possible. I do have a lot of material ready to be used, however I try to make the show not about my act…unless I have a scheduled spot in the show.

Here’s my MC props from a gig a couple weeks ago:

Of those props, I only did my routine with the Evaporation gimmick and there were 13 acts in the show, so I was on stage a lot! Luckily, the transitions were pretty tight, and there were a lot of announcements that needed to be done, so that gave me things to fill transitions.

I also did things like interview someone from the audience:

…and fed a guy licorice out of my mouth!

Both of these things were spontaneous and really created fun energy for the show. I always try to find things that take me out of my box and to create a show that’s unique to the people who are in the audience at that specific show that they know they’ll never see again!

That’s why people go see live entertainment, to be a part of a unique experience!

-Louie

Magic Show Opener

The opening magic trick in my magic show has been a quick trick where juice turns into confetti, then the cup turns into a streamer. It’s a great flash trick, but right now I’m playing with a different opener. I’m starting to use my stand up chop cup routine as the opening trick for my outdoor magic show.

The pros of this chop cup style routine as an opener are that it has a lot of magic that happens without a lot of preamble. It gets into the magic quickly. Then the trick has a great payoff with the production of a tennis ball.

The downside is that while the ball in the routine is a yellow ball, it’s small. Ideally, I’d like something visually larger as the first trick in the show, but for now this is working…

-Louie

Magic Show Consumables

Last week, my magic show did 12 shows at a fair in California. When I was packing to go there, I took a picture of all the consumable stuff in my magic show. This is stuff that isn’t reusable and I have to replace each show or every few shows:

Here’s what’s in that picture:

Pad of paper
Dollar bills
decks of cards
Gift bags
wet naps
confetti
garbage bags
paper plates
throw coils
produce bags
evidence bags

It feels like a lot of stuff, and it kinda is when you’re seeing 12 shows worth of stuff, plus a couple of back ups. For a single show, it’s not a lot. The nice thing about having stuff that gets used up in the show is that my case going home is a little bit lighter!

-Louie
PS: I have written tons of posts about traveling with a magic show on this blog!