I believe all full time proffesional magicians would do shows for event companies here in Singapore. I wonder if any of you happen to experience the following. Hopefully the pros can share their experiences with us. Thanks in advance.

OK, here's the question.

An event company calls you to confirm a show. With the time and date of the event all confirmed, he advises you that you will be doing an hour of magic for children. You agreed. So on the day of the event, you bring only your props meant for a children show.

When you arrive at the venue, 15mins earlier, you noticed that there only 2 children in the entire event, but alot of young adults (say late 20's to early 30's). You do not have enough time to go home to get other props, the show must go on, what will you do.

Appreciate if those who ever experience the above scenerio can share their experiences, thoughts and comments.

Thanks
dry_gin

I'm curious to see if anyone has any tips for something like that. I personally experienced this before as well - supposed to do a 2h walk around mingling type magic. So I turn up with my typical walk around magic - your typical hello/goodbye 2-3 min type effects.

There were 8 people there. I was supposed to be there for 2h.

You should always bring along your magician's case, always ready with some backup tricks/props in there to suit different audience and sets, and not just bringing the list of tricks you had prepared for the show. You also need to prepare for location as there might be some changes, since you last check the location, e.g. too windy, lighting effect, or you were initially agreed a corner location only to be change to a surrounded performance...

You could try checking out Tom Krzystof - Go Pro with Tom Krzystof Vol 1-2 DVD for advice and suggestions. You can also get Peter Wardell's Crowdpuller DVD, there's advice suited for trade shows..

I agree with feifei, though I am not a professional Magician doing for event company.

Unless its a pre-set stage magic where rehearsals are needed and its a "show", I have seen magicians that are well prepared to change to suit the environment. Though its very hard to expect what kind of situation, but for typical situation like the first scenario, you could have brought extra stuffs, not because you are expecting that kind of situation, but situation where the adults asked you to perform something for them. (Where there is children, there bounce to have adults) So you cannot really go for a pure walkabout kids event expecting only to perform to kids.

But if its a show you are talking about, they hire you 1 hr for a stage kid magic show, then of course, you bring only the stuffs for the stage show, and a little bit more, then you can perform and run away. :)

For the 2nd scenario, that is seriously tricky, because 2 hr for 8 people, even though you do it non stop, it will be boring for them. For this kind of situation, I do experience it before, (but under friend situation, so its easier), what i feel is that, you shouldn't bomb them with magic right away. I feel, you can walk to a particular group, talk to them, like you are the representing the host, asking them how they feel, what they working as, then 15 min or so, you engage them into your magic. But then, you have to do it slow, everytime you finish a effect, you stopped to chat. Then bring them to a higher level of engagement, and another set of magic.

Though, its easier to say than done, but sometime i feel that having a smaller group, might benefit you if you chat with them and engage a bond with them, because you can give out your name cards, and they will call you some day, or you got more friends to recommend you. :)

Its purely what i think.

Larry

This is interesting and it looks like you could have gone through this. In fact, I've had this situation before. There are a couple of ways to which I combat this.

First, always bring spare performance pieces. My suitcase table has a permanent invisible deck in it. Just in case I need to add another routine or fill in for an adult audience. There's also a pack of balloons to perform an immediate balloon swallowing. Learn some impromtu stage effects such as psychokinetic touches and time by banachek. You can perform them in almost any conditions.

Another method, is to incorporate your kids routine with adults. For example, once in a while I perform the mouth coils routine with an adult instead. Trust me, when the volunteer's friends are around, there's definitely a roar of laughter when they cant follow what you're doing.

Bosco the magician(My Magic star), performs a change bag routine with aduts. And trust me, it contains the break away wand. I saw this routine 2 years back when I opened a show for a company and Bosco closed the event with his. Its was Super funny. If you perform the change bag routine with a red silk, keep a spare red G string in yuor bag. You never know when it'll come in handy.

When performing with music, bring along an extra CD with some tracks you know you can perform. WIth a slow song, the right conditions, and a few cards, you can perform a simple yet effective card manipulation routine.

In short, Just be prepared for the worse. Don't need to bring a truck load of props, but jus keep 1 or two spares to save yourself. At the end of the day, when you entertain everyone, young and old, you're the STAR!!!