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

Should You Tip A Performer?

Someone who was performing with a circus posted a picture of them performing, and I noticed this banner in the background:

Let me start by saying that they were performing in a location that should be paying the circus a decent fee. There are many other circuses and sideshows working in similar spots that are paid a great contract price. My question is: why is this circus soliciting tips? Did they take a gig for less so that they could try to make up the difference in tips? Or is this just a money grab?

If you need bonus money, make some stickers and sell those. Virtually the same profit margin as a tip; however, then you’re not contributing to the “starving artist” stereotype. If you have a banner like this in your show (unless you’re a true street busking act), you can’t be upset when people ask you what your other job is because your banner makes them think your wage is tips.

-Louie

Stud Playing Cards

My all time favorite deck of cards are Stud Playing cards. Recently made a post about finding a couple of decks of them at a junk shop. I finally opened up the deck and and starting using them as my “fun” deck.

These cards handle exactly how I remember them! I could immediately do a table and in the hands faro with the deck!

When I was a teenager, these were the cheapest usable decks that were around. There were cheaper, but those were junk by any standard. Stud cards were made on great stock, had a great finish, and were available for a great price.

I wish these were still available…

-Louie

Juggling Monte Magic Trick Idea!

About a month ago, I had an idea for a routine that’s a three shell game sort of routine, but with juggling. You can read about it here. The premise is that a prize is put into a slit in a tennis ball. That ball is then juggled with two other tennis balls that also have something less valuable in them. The person from the audience needs to track the one with the prize, but can’t and end up winning the two lesser value prizes.

I had an idea, what if instead of prizes, I had predictions. Inside the first tennis ball was a piece of paper that said, “You Will Pick This One First” and the second that says, “You Will Pick This One Second” or something like that. That gives a magic (mentalism) payoff for each selection.

To my surprise, when I actually tried this, it fell totally flat. I’m guessing because the trick took the surprise turn, and the bonus effect wasn’t expected…and probably not that good.

Testing ideas in front of the audience is part of the creative process for me. Sometimes it hits, and sometimes is misses!

-Louie

Outdoor County Fair Hay Bale Seating Challenges

It’s been a while since I had hale bale seating for my audience.

Yes, I know these are straw bales, but no one calls them that, so I’m going to refer to them as hay bales. There are a lot of challenges that come with the audience sitting on hay bales. First, they’re pokey, so not fun to sit on if you’re wearing shorts. Next, they give kids stuff to fidget with, which is a distraction. Finally, kids and parents look at them as a jungle gym, and they let their kids play on them and generally destroy them.

Parents will let kids run around, jump from bale to bale, and that’s not conducive to building a crowd. People don’t want to make the kids stop playing, so they sit in the bleachers in the back, which isn’t the best scenario for engagement of the show.

When I noticed this, I tried something. When I got on mic, I said, “Just a heads up, now that I’m on the mic, my insurance doesn’t allow me to have you all play on the hay bales. I’m sorry, but once I start talking on the mic, it’s now my show, and if anyone falls off, it’s on my insurance. Once the show is over, it’s the fairs insurance, and you can jump all you want; it’s not my problem, but unfortunately, my insurance requires me to have you stop now or we can’t start the show.” Once I said that, all the parents got their kids and made them stop. That’s compared to simply asking them to stop because the show is starting. In the past, when I’ve done that, I think people think that since the show hasn’t started, I’ll just let them continue to play until the show starts and the rate of people stopping their kids from playing was virtually none.

This is the classic thing where if you give people a good reason why to do or not do something, you’ll get much higher compliance.

-Louie

Remote Control Chattering Teeth – USB chargeable

One of the most requested products I get from magicians is for me to make a USB-chargeable set of Remote Control Chattering Teeth. There’s a reason that I haven’t made them before, and that’s because I sell what I use. Personally, I prefer using disposable batteries. If I forget to charge them, it’s not a big deal; I just swap them out.

Well, in my show, I’m having more and more things that use batteries that need to be charged. From things like the phone that I use to run the production of my show to mic pack batteries. Charging things is now a bigger part of the end of my performing day than it was a few years ago.

I’m learning to install the battery and charger, and I have my first working set of USB-chargeable Remote Control Chattering Teeth.

joke remote control chattering teeth, with a cord plugged into them

The next step is for me to use them so I can gain some confidence with my design. I already noticed one thing to change. I have an on/off button and not a switch. With it as a button, you don’t know if it’s on or off. Going forward, future sets will have a switch!

-Louie
PS: you can learn more about the currently available Remote Control Chattering Teeth at: https://www.magicshow.tips/product/remote-control-chattering-teeth/

Stud Playing Cards – New Old Stock!

When I’m on the road, I frequently stop to stretch my legs and walk through junk shops. I was super surprised to find two unopened decks of old stock Stud Playing Cards!

These were my favorite playing cards when they were available. They haven’t made them in years. I think someone (US Playing Card Co.?) made another batch of them about 10 years ago; however, they were on a different stock than the original, and basically Bicycle Cards with the stud back printed on them.

I’m planning on adding these cards to the stack of nice cards that I practice with. They’ll last longer that way than a working deck that lasts 45mins to a hour.

-Louie

Color Change with Cards

A couple of days ago Doug Conn posted about the book Card Finesse by Jon Racherbaumer:

His post about the book, made me remember an cool card move that’s in that book. Well, I’m 99% sure it’s in that book, it might be in Card Finesse II.

I had to slightly adjust the camera move. When done as written, there’s a slight flash that the normal human eye watching won’t see, but it won’t withstand repeated viewing on the internet.

-Louie

The Donut and Bagel Puzzle!

In my daily writing, I’ve been trying to come up with something to do with a couple of sponge donuts that I picked up in a box of vintage magic about a month ago. They’ve been sitting on my desk, or in the box of magic tricks that I travel with.

It hit me that they’d be great for some sort of ring on a string sort of magic routine. I played with a couple of things and quickly realized it needed something else, so I added a real bagel, and here’s what I came up with:

It really surprised me how much people liked it! I thought it’d get a “that’s neat, what else do you have…” sort of reaction. I need to try to figure out some sort of ending for this, right now it’s got a good opening line, the trick, but I feel like it needs something else.

-Louie

What is a Slick Card and How is it Used in Card Magic?

When I was a teenager, I remember reading in (I think) Scarne on Card Tricks about slick cards. These are cards that have a smoother finish than the rest of the cards. In that book, John Scarne mentioned that they were made by using car wax to make the face or back of a card smoother.

At some point when I was a teenager in the 1990s, I noticed that Bicycle Pinochle Cards had a different finish than the poker cards, even though the box said they had the same “air cushion finish” and those cards could be used as a slick card.

Recently I came across an old deck of pinochle cards and made this video:

Most magicians back in the 1990s had never actually seen slick cards; they’d only read about them in old books. I’m pretty sure that now even fewer magicians have heard of them.

What can you do with them?

First of all, you don’t need to drop them as I did in the video. You can bump the deck and it’ll break at the slick card. That will give you a spot to then cut or shuffle to.

Another thing you can do is toss the deck on the table so that they spread a little bit. The deck will naturally spread wider at the slick card, and that can be used for the psychological force of them taking the card at that point.

It’s a weird thing I wouldn’t want to rely on, but it’s fun to play with having one in the deck!

-Louie

How to Add a Beat to a Packet Trick

Yesterday I made a post about David Regal’s Off With His Head. I wanted to add a third beat to it, and one of the ideas I mentioned was making the three cards that weren’t selected blank. This is really following the B’wave format.

Here’s it with the three blank cards as the ending:

I think it’s (for me) a better trick than the original and away to turn B’wave from a mindreading trick to a magic trick.

-Louie