I'm on the road from July 12th to August 17th.
No physical item orders will be shipped until I return on August 18th.
Digital products will still be emailed during this time
-Louie Foxx Dismiss
When you talk to people who are big on social media, they all tend to give similar advice: 1: Post consistantly 2: If something works, repeat that
I’m not huge on social media; I really post stuff that I think is interesting. My average Instagram post right now is between 2k and 20k views. However, recently this one hit 300k views:
That is an outlier for me, so I went to the advice of repeating what you did. The video from above is part of my shell game routine, and I have more of the same clip that I could use, so I made a second one:
This one is sitting at just over 8k views. The formula worked spectacularly for the second video! I do have another phase or two from the original video, I might put them up to see what happens.
I guess I’m going to parrot the advice, that if something works, do it again and repeat until it stops working!
When a magic prop breaks, what is your plan? I’m not talking about if it breaks during a show, but while you’re on the road traveling. Recently, I got to a gig and was setting up, and the prop wasn’t working. It’s an electronic prop, and if you’ve read this blog, you know that I try to use analog methods whenever possible. However, there are times when an electronic prop is the best way to do it. I’ve planned what to do if they fail during the show.
At the show recently, I was setting up and noticed that I had left my Inception unit on, so it needed to be charged. After charging it, I got this screen:
That’s not good. That’s where my backup plan kicks in. I have a Blackbox Magic Mental Voice in my case. This is my emergency backup unit, as my routine is an 8 minute chunk of my show, so a large part of the show.
I’ve had the Inception since it came out; I was part of the preorder, so I’ve had this for a long time! I sent it back for a repair once because I managed to crack the screen. I have a feeling that it may be time to buy a new unit. This one has served me well for YEARS! I’ve contacted ProMystic’s customer support, so we’ll see what my options are for repair. They do a good job supporting their product after the sale, unlike many magic companies!
When you perform at a smaller county fair, you’ll have kids who are there all week. They’re usually 4H/FFA kids, or the children of vendors. One of the challenges is that since they’re there the full run of the fair, they’ll follow you around if you’re doing roving magic. That can lead to a challenge of them saying what’s going to happen in the trick before the ending.
I’ve got a new technique that I’m using, and it’s working out great. After I do my close up set, I say, “If you’re here the rest of the fair, each day you see me say “Hey Louie, show me the trick of the day!” “
This does a couple of things; it tells them that you’ll gladly show them more tricks…tomorrow! This lets them know that the you’re done with them for the day. I didn’t have any kids follow me around last week. The other thing that it does, is create excitement about you when you’re walking cross the fairgrounds. Kids will yell to you to show them the trick of the day!
When I do roving magic at fairs, I work out of my pockets, so I don’t have a lot of room to carry a ton of extra stuff. I do have room for one trick of the day!
One of the things that I try to do when creating magic routines is to think about what they look like. This is important when you perform at places like state and county fairs, where you have a transient audience. Having strong visual hooks that will stop someone that’s walking by is important in that market.
Here’s an example of a visual hook, it’s part of my Body Language Book Test which is in my 2025 PCAM Lecture notes.
In the routine, a guy ends up hitting me in the belly with a tube. It’s a great bit, but more importantly, the routine is visually interesting virtually the whole time!
Three Easy Way To Adding Visual Appeal To Magic Routines
Here are three common, and easy ways to add visuals to magic routines: 1: Props – If you have an interesting prop, that is obviously visually interesting, and of course, the bigger the better! People need to see it from a distance, or they won’t stop. 2: People – More people onstage can create drama. You’ve changed your show from monologue to dialogue. 3: Action – Having motion onstage makes people stop to watch. A bad dance troupe will having an easier time getting a crowd than an amazing stand up comedian.
Ultimately, most things will use more than one of the things above to draw attention.
Also keep in mind that not every single routine needs to be a giant thing, for texture in your show, you should vary things. A great example is Franz Harary in one of his MEGA illusion shows also does silk to egg.
Travelling with show props is a challenge, it’s even more stressful when they’re fragile!
I’m heading out for a gig with my Vintage Organ, and normally, when I fly to the gig, I ship it there, so it travels independently of me. However I have a gig coming up where shipping it ahead isn’t an option, so I have to fly with it.
The first step in flying with anything unusual is to call the airline. Since it’s technically a musical instrument, there are some exceptions to some rules that could apply. After chatting with the airline, none did. I did learn the parameters of what oversize is and the limits to that. This case fits the definition of oversize without exceeding it to a size that I wouldn’t be able to take. I also learned that I needed to put a fragile sticker on each of the six sides of the case.
The other thing that I did was a suggestion from the person at the airline that I talked to. That was put in step by step instructions on how to unpack and repack it if they need to take it out of the foam to screen it.
The other thing that I’ve asked about and haven’t gotten a clear answer about is whether I can be present when it’s screened. I’ve seen that you can request it for a musical instrument, but it’s not guaranteed and not an option at every airport. I won’t know until the day of. I’m writing this post from the airport I’ll be flying out with the case in a couple of weeks, and couldn’t get a clear answer.
One of the things that I do to work on my show is record them. Nothing fancy, just a camera in the back of the room. I have a bad habit of almost forgetting to take my camera, so what I do is put a note in my case that simply says “camera now”.
When I’m packing up and I get to the note, I stop everything and go grab the camera. It’s a simple little thing that has saved me forgetting my camera many, many times!
Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about how I now consider close-up mats to be a disposable item. I just opened this close up mat and the first group I performed for put two marker dots onto the mat!
Well, instead of getting a week or two out of the close up mat, I got 5 minutes. After that group, I ran back to my gear and opened another brand new close up mat.
The nice thing about close up mats is that traveling with two of them isn’t really a big deal. I probably wouldn’t travel with three; I think two is reasonable. If the second one gets stained, I’ll just have to commit to using that one for the rest of the event.
On Monday I popped by Magic Monday in Seattle. This monthly magic show has been running for over twenty years! The show is currently run by Jim Earnshaw, and it usually features 3-5 magicians each month. Then in August, they do magic show that’s all young magicians performing.
This week it was Jim Earnshaw, Sven “The World’s Tallest Magician”, Monty Reed, Me and Master Payne.
This is a fun show to do because it’s a fun hangout…and because it’s a fun crowd! Here’s a table of magicians in the back watching the show:
Then after the show we go downstairs to pub and hang out.
Whenever I’m in Seattle and this show is happening, I always pop by!
He’s popping up everywhere, and that got me thinking, what magic trick could I do with him.
A Simple First Step To Creating Magic Tricks
The easiest way to create a magic trick quickly is to find the theme, in this case Jimothy and figure out what to do with it. I’m travelling right now, so I’m limited with props, which can be a good thing when trying to create something new. I did have some blank face playing cards, so that gave me a start, it’ll be a card trick, with a picture of Jimothy.
My idea was to do an ace assembly type trick, with Jimothy and things raccoons eat. The challenge was that I didn’t have enough blank face cards to do it in the traditional way with 16 cards. I think this was a good thing, because most ace assemblies are too long and redundant, but you kinda need to have three “traveler” piles because there are four aces. I didn’t have that restraint for this trick.
Recently, I was the headline act for a stand up comedy show at a casino. The show had three acts, and an MC who did 15 minutes, a feature act that did 30 minutes, and then the headliner (me) who did 60 minutes.
One of the things that many magicians don’t understand is how to be a good opening act when you’re in a show like this. Magicians think they need to go out there and DESTROY an audience almost with a “try to follow that” attitude, and there are places for that, but as an opener in a comedy show, that’s not your job.
The MC’s job is to warm up the crowd, not to crush. The Opener’s job is to keep the energy going so that the headliner has a hot crowd when they step onstage.
I’m not saying you should intentionally be bad, or not give it your all. The thing is that you’re working within a show and the whole show needs to be successful. If you’re constantly blowing the headliner out of the water, and you’re not moving up to that position, you should look at why you aren’t moving up.
Do you have enough A material to fill the 60 mins?
If not, you should be working on that, and not necessarily doing the stuff you know crushes every time.
Are your first 25 minutes any good?
I’ve worked with tons of acts that have an amazing 5-10 minutes, and they close with that. However, everything before that is pretty bad. They close strong, but don’t move up to headliner because the rest of the show sucks.
Is there some other reason?
Are you hard to work with offstage? Do you follow the rules of the venue? These are all things that can keep you from moving up the ladder to the headline position.
How I Learned The Opener’s Job
Many, many years ago, I had a closing bit that crushed. One day, I was on the phone with my stand up agent, and they told me that they didn’t want me doing that bit as the opening act. It really changed the energy in the room and made it hard for the headliner to follow. The agent then explained to me my role, and once I understood that, it made me work harder as a performer to figure out a more appropriate ending to my show for that venue. More importantly, it made me look at my show and really start working on the steps to move up to the headliner spot.
I should point out that you absolutely should do your best, but sometimes a choice of material that’s better for the show as a whole is the right choice.
