Entries from May 2008 ↓

Continuing from where I left off yesterday…

The next tool I used to promote my magic performance at the Fringe was a postcard with all the specific details about my show. Postcards are, hands down, the best form of print material you can have for the Fringe.

First, they are relatively inexpensive to produce at about $.15 apiece for 1,000 postcards. I used an online print vendor called 48HourPrint, but there are many others (like ModernPostcards) that will do as good or better.

Allow me to interject one personal exhortation. Do yourself a favor and pay someone to design your postcard for you. I know that we all have software that will allow us to layout photos and text, but we don’t all have an eye for good design. And if your postcard looks amateurish, people will assume that your performance will be amateurish too. So make sure that your promotional materials are every bit as good as your performance is. Thus ends the personal diatribe.

You can design your postcard as a self-mailer, provided you leave certain areas free of print for the post office. Your print vendor will often provide templates showing you which areas are verboten.

I chose not to use my postcards as a self-mailer because I would have to sacrifice valuable space, and because I’m not convinced that enough people will come to see a play they’ve never heard of before (mine was an original work, as I believe most Fringe performances are) just because they received a postcard.

Let’s examine some of the marketing challenges specific to Fringe performances. As I alluded to above, unless you’re doing Hamlet or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof you will need to find a way to convey what your performance is about. A postcard is a very poor vehicle for this (due to space limitations), so it will need to be supplemented somehow. I opted to speak with people face-to-face, and to write personal letters.

Your performance has several dates & times and they are irregularly distributed. Postcards do very well here. By giving your prospect a postcard, he or she will have a record of each performance date each start time. Carry postcards with you at all times and hand them out liberally. It sure beats having someone try to write down, “…Thursday the 19th at 8:30, Friday the 20th at 7:00, Saturday the 21st — no show…”

Because of the variety of dates and times for my magic performance, I decided not to produce any posters (nor did I write chalk messages on the sidewalk, nor did I use any other marketing devices of this ilk). Posters can work to promote a Fringe show — but only to a degree. And there’s the rub. Because I wanted to be as profitable as possible, I needed to keep my expenses down. This required that I use only the marketing tools that would produce the most bang for the buck (and the most torque for my time).

Posters can work for bands, because there is less to remember (Radiohead, Saturday, June 7th at 8:00, Fox Theatre). And posters can even be effective for a more traditional theater run (The Odd Couple, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00, Sundays at 2:00, through the month of June at the Dairy Center).

But because I needed to convey so much detailed information, I realized that I needed a promotional piece that people could walk away with.

You’ll need to map out a strategy for how you will use your postcards to determine how many postcards to produce. There’s no point in printing 5,000 postcards if you only know 20 people (I hope you know more than 20 people…).

For my show, I make a list of everyone I knew in Colorado for whom I had a mailing address (I didn’t send them as self-mailers, instead I included the postcard in an envelope with a short letter inviting them to come). Then I make a list of all the networking events I would attend between now and opening night and set a distribution goal for each event. I made a list of postcard friendly businesses that allow people to leave stacks of promotional material, and calculated how many postcards I would need.

OK. That’s what I know about using postcards. I think I’ll do one more post about promoting your Fringe show to wrap up some loose ends. But again, I’ve got a magic gig to prepare for, so I’ll stop right here.

I’m looking forward to the Boulder International Fringe Festival coming up in August. There will be a magician and a mentalist this year (but I will not be performing). It is one of Colorado’s true festival gems and is not to be missed. And although I won’t be participating in the Festival this year, many of my Fringe friends have been asking me for advice due to the tremendous success I had last year (4 of my 6 performances were sold out…). Here’s what I learned four-walling my magic show — though these ideas will apply to any type of show.

First, you need to spend a lot of time promoting your show. As artists, you may want to devote time to working on your performance, but it’s time to become a business person. My advice is that you finish working on your performance now. Set it aside, and begin focusing on marketing.

If the work is new you may have planned to premiere the work at the Fringe Festival. I recommend against this. Go ahead and schedule some performances now, in advance of the Fringe. Premieres are overrated. There are always problems with a new work that will be found after the first few performances. Fix them now and you’ll have a show that’s even more Fringe-worthy.

The other reason for debuting the show now (instead of at the Festival) is that you’re going to need to start selling the show now. And you can’t sell the show, if you don’t know what you’ve got. When you talk about your show with other people, they’ll want to know what the show is like. Is it funny? Is it thought-provoking? Is it gut-wrenching? If you’re not finished writing your show, if you have never performed it for anyone before, then you’re not going to be able to speak with any authority. And you need to be able to speak with authority if you want to convince people to come see your show. People can tell if you’re uncertain. And they won’t buy from you if you’re uncertain.

So get the show up and running in front of a live audience. Get some feedback; make some fixes. Then spend the next two months promoting your show.

More advice: Begin talking with people about your show now. Whenever someone asks you, “What’s new?” Be prepared to tell them that you’re excited to be in the Fringe Festival in August, tell them briefly about the show and then say, “I really hope you can make it. Will you be able to come?”

It is important that you remember to ask people to come! If you forget to ask them to come they might think, “Maybe the show isn’t something I’d enjoy. Maybe it’s too avant-garde for me.” People will think all sorts of crazy things if you don’t ask them to come. So make sure you ask. If they say yes, then thank them and tell them how much it will mean to you to have them in the audience.

As a side note, I am shocked at how many of my friends will say, “I wasn’t sure if I should come or not. I was afraid it would make you nervous if you saw me in the audience.”

The only explanation I can think of is that they went to see another friend in a performance, and after the show their friend said, “I saw your name on the reservation list tonight, and it made me so nervous that I could hardly concentrate on my performance.”

If you’ve ever said that to any of your friends, please STOP. You’re making it really difficult for the rest of us to sell tickets to our friends.

But back to the issue at hand. In truth, when you ask someone, for the first time, to come to your show, most people will not want to commit. Many people will begin to choke and stammer, and they’ll mutter something about needing to check their schedule. That’s OK. It is perfectly natural, after all, you’ve only spoken to them for 60 seconds about the show. They’re not ready to buy. Like the expert fisherman (or fisherwoman) that you are, you can practice “catch and release” and set them free unharmed. Just tell them that you understand and that you’ll be sure to give them more information when it’s closer to the event.

This is enough to get you started. Get your performance ready to go now. Get it to the stage now (rather than later) so you can polish the rough spots. And begin telling everyone you know that you expect them to come see you show. Remember, “catch and release.”

I’ll write more at a later date about how to follow up, but now I need to get ready for a performance this afternoon…

Aside from establishing your character and ensuring that your show has “something for everyone,” (see earlier posts) here are 8 things you can do to strengthen your script. If you’ve had any training in acting, then many of these will look familiar.

Add Conflict — The magician standing on-stage and unopposed is not as interesting as when the magician is in conflict. Conflict could manifest in a challenge from a spectator, or trouble with the props, forces of nature, or even telling a story about a past conflict.

Add Drama — It’s not enough to merely establish the semblance of a conflict. You must further emphasis in your script that the outcome is in doubt. If you can make the audience wonder, What’s going to happen? Will the magician succeed? If you can create genuine moments of uncertainty, then your act becomes riveting and stage-worthy. Remember those 30 seconds during Derren Brown’s Russian Roulette routine when he seemed flummoxed? Somehow his calculations had gone awry. What would he do next?

Raise the Stakes — Put more on the line. Can you, in your script, heighten the consequences of failure? If you promise to award $50 if you can’t find their card, you’ve given your audience a reason to be interested. If you announce that you’ve promised a severely ill child that you’ll break the World’s Record for him doing your strait-jacket escape, then you’ve succeeded at raising the stakes. Of course Derren Brown’s example above takes the cake.

Use Suspense — Suspense is an underused device in magic, whereas, surprise is an overused device. In your scripting, let them know what you intend to do, but then make them wonder if you can do it. Suspense involves all of the above: Conflict, Drama, and High-Stakes.

Use Repetition — Repeating a phrase or a sequence of actions can establish a rhythm. Now if you control the time between repetition you can establish a tempo which you can increase or decrease.

The Rule of Three — It’s an old saw, but if you are going to repetition, the third time around is a good place to close strongly.

Modulate Your Status — Magic (or any act that puts you in the spotlight) will raise your status. Don’t be an overbearing bore. Let people know you’re human. I have a theory that being heckled simply means your status has stayed too high for too long. Script your act so that your not alway God-like; people will like you better.

One Sentence Description — Can your audience accurately describe what you do in one sentence? You can help them remember your magic by first limiting the scope of what you do (a real nuts & bolts way of scripting). Then use your script to help clarify (in the minds of your audience members) what it is that you do by spelling it out. Give them the talking points that they can use the next day when they tell their friends, “I saw this magician and he…”

Magicians are often at a loss when it comes to “finding” their character. Much ink has been spilled in an attempt to advise, partly because so many magicians are perplexed, and partly because it is a difficult subject to tackle. Here is my contribution.

In an earlier post I mentioned several archetypes for magicians (courtesy of Bob Sacamento), but how does one know which archetype one should play when creating their role as a magician?

The most sure-fire way I know is to find a director that you trust, and ask.

That’s easy to say coming from a theatrical background, but for most magicians, this opens up a whole other can of worms, as most magicians are fiercely independent and aren’t interested in taking direction from someone else. It is a foolish attitude to take, because — if you think deeply about it — you’ll realize that you cannot see how you come across to others. Only someone other than you can know what it’s like to see you as a performer.

A simple example is this: Do you know how your voice sounds to others?

Most people don’t know, because the sound you hear when you speak is different than the sound I hear when you speak. This is due to the fact that your voice is carried to your ear through the air and through the bones of your head. Whereas, your voice is carried to my ear solely through the air.

If you’ve ever heard yourself on a tape recording, you probably thought that the recorder had distorted your voice. Well, the recorder was fine. You just don’t know what you sound like to others, because you can’t hear yourself objectively.

Jason Alexander (aka George Costanza from Seinfeld) tells that as an acting student he was obsessed with playing Hamlet, yet every director he auditioned for would instead cast him in a different role. This infuriated Jason because he knew he could be a great Hamlet, but he finally came to realize that directors (and audiences) would never be able to see him as Hamlet. And when he understood this, it freed him to begin developing his talents as a comic/character actor.

Magicians who are courageous enough to subject themselves to the unflinching eye of a director can learn a lot about themselves (and the characters they can play) in a very short time.

But let’s assume that you can’t bring yourself to work with a director. What can you do?

Try this: Ask a dozen of your closest friends to participate in an anonymous survey. Ask each of them to list 10 things that he or she really LIKES about you. (A more insightful exercise would be to ask them to list things that they dislike about you, but your friends might balk at this, and your ego would most certainly take a blow.)

Then take all the lists and compare them. Can you identify any themes? What do people like about you? Do people like you because you’re gentle, humble, and thoughtful? Or because you’re mischievous, daring, and playful? How about assertive, outspoken, and sarcastic?

Whatever the case may be, this insight into how others see you is pure gold. You can begin to base your character on this information. Go back to the list of archetypes; do any of them resonate with what your friend say about you?

Then go back and evaluate each piece of magic that you do. Does the magic support, emphasis, and evoke the things that people like best in you. Or (as is often the case) does the magic undermine, stifle, and retard your best assets?

Look though your repertoire and root out anything that doesn’t allow you to showcase your strengths, or that tries to remake your image in a way that runs counter to how you are perceived by others.

I know a magician who (when he’s not on stage) makes us laugh with his self-deprecating humor. He always delights us with stories about his failures and shortcomings. He’s the epitome of the “lovable loser.” But when he gets on stage he wants to portray himself as an elegant and sophisticated gentleman.

The result is a disaster.

Because he is unable see himself as we see him, he’s using his magic to create a character that no one would ever believe, while at the same time abandoning the character that could make him famous.

(Ran the Bolder Boulder 10K today, so I’m relaxing and cogitating, because I’m too sore to move about. I had hoped for a better time, but at 1 hour 16 minutes, it was my slowest time since I began running the BB 13 years ago. Actually, I was in need of a miracle, as magic kept me too busy to train this year — and at my age, training is no longer a luxury. But enough with the personal tidbits, you came here for hardier fare…)

A question some of my magician colleagues in Colorado have asked is, “How much magic do you need to know to make it as a full-time professional magician?” My standard answer is that you need to know everything possible about the art. One of the great boons I received was the opportunity to apprentice in a magic shop for six years; during which time, I was exposed to a wide swath of differing magic styles.

The need to know a great deal of magic flies in the face of some highly-respected magicians like Eugene Burger, who says that when he became a full-time professional, his performing repertoire consisted of six effects.

In addition there is the old standard that a magician should “Learn six effects, but learn them well.”

I believe that the advice regarding “six effects” is meant to counter the obsession that some amateurs have with amassing hundreds (nay, thousands) of esoteric magical variations. None of which are adequately mastered. And none of which are discernibly different from one another.

The wisdom of “six effects” is that it forces the magician to focus on and to perfect his or her performance of a few pieces of magic, rather than accumulating more secrets that are never worthy of performance.

Still, the advice to learn “six effects” — while an admirable ideal — lacks much in the realm of practicality.

When I perform mix & mingle magic (also know as “strolling magic” or “walk-around magic”) I can get by with a repertoire of six effects. But if the DJ (or band) is too loud to converse, then I may find it necessary to switch to a second set of six effects, magic that can be performed without speaking. And if the lights are dim, I have at my disposal a third set of six effects for low-light situations.

When I work from the stage, I have a standard set of magic that I rely on for audiences up to 200 people. But when performing for audiences of more than 200 (without the aid of a video camera) I have another set of magic.

When I develop material for the stage, I classify it, not only by the number of people that can see it, but also by the technical requirements. Some magic requires the use of a wireless clip-on microphone. Other magic can be done with a wireless hand-held microphone, and other magic can be done with a corded hand-held microphone. Some magic requires specific sound or lighting cues and the attendant rehearsals.

All of these situations describe venues that I work in. If I only have “six effects” at my beck and call, I would need to turn away a good number of performances. If you’re interested in been a full-time professional magician (that’s making any money), you’re going to need good deal more than six effects. But please note that I’ve expanded my repertoire with a purpose. Collecting magic that doesn’t make you a more versatile (more bookable) performer is an acceptable hobby, but a poor use of time for the full-time professional.

One of the great benefits of being a full-time professional magician is being able to meet with other top-notch magicians to talk shop.

Yesterday, a very talented magician from London was passing through Colorado. So I met him in Denver, at the bus station, yesterday afternoon and was able to spend several hours with him (and a few other magicians from around town) talking about the business and also watching him perform.

I was struck by how “magical” his magic looked. Upon analyzing his magic, I realized that his greatest gift is his ability to recognize the awkward or unclean moments, and to seek out ways to fix them. He had a keen eye for what looked natural. As a result his magic looked effortless — as if the magic just happened.

In many cases it didn’t require large changes or Herculean efforts. What he had done was taken simple maneuvers — albeit maneuvers with tiny flaws or uneven bits — and polished them until he could perform them, “in such a manner that the most critical observer would not even suspect, let alone detect, the action.” (Quotation from the mysterious author of “Expert at the Card Table,” S.W. Erdnase.)

All too often magicians are satisfied with executing their secret maneuvers with competence. That is, doing the move well enough. Although doing “well enough” might still earn the applause, it doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of being magical. Audiences may applaud your dexterity and they may even be amazed at the outcome, but if they suspect that we’ve engaged in some chicanery, if they suspect that there may have been some funny business, then we’ve fallen short of the mark. Creating magic comes from mastering the details.

Character is an issue that many magicians seem to struggle with, so let’s begin by sketching out some general character types. Of course, each individual will have their own way of expressing these archetypes.

Different character types for magicians can be categorized by the magician’s relationship to his or her power. How is their power derived? And to what ends do they use their power?

Lest this begin to sound dreadfully academic, I’d better provide some examples:

Fool or Clown — Gets fooled by others as well as by ordinary objects, the victim of magical circumstances. A character often played by children’s performers, but also by the great manipulator, Cardini.

Trickster -– Pulls pranks on others and upsets status quo. Uses magic to expose other people’s shortcomings, like the work of Penn & Teller. In some traditions can impart wisdom by exposing small-minded conventions. In mythology, the basis for the Coyote trickster and the Sufi Nasrudin.

Thief — Manipulates objects with dexterity, cheats to gain advantage. The pick-pocket or con-artist. One who lives by subtle skills (physical and intellectual) rather than brute force, like magician Harry Anderson.

Don Juan — Controls other people with to intention of seduction. Like the hypnotic power Svengali holds over Trilby, or early David Copperfield where he acted out vignettes in which magic got him the girl.

Wizard — Holds power over animals, forces of nature. Think Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings.

Athlete — Develops physical ability to overcome barriers. Harry Houdini the escape artist and the more recent performances of David Blaine (as endurance artist) epitomize this archetype.

Scholar — Develops intellect to overcome barriers. Ricky Jay, to pick a rather obscure magician. Also, the Amazing Kreskin (to pick another obscure example).

Messiah — Transcends self, uses power in the service of others. I’ll take some flack for even mentioning his name, but John Edwards (from the talk show, Crossing Over, not the politician) is a good example of this archetype.

Others (Jeff McBride, Eugene Burger, Robert Neale) have made similar analyses with different categories. This taxonomy was developed by my friend, Bob Sacamento.

While it is possible to blend two or more archetypes into a single character or performance, the power of these archetypes is that they clarify (and make understandable) who you are as a performer. Trying to embrace too much, may only muddle the picture.

The number of times an event planner actively looks to hire a magician for a corporate event must be very small indeed. (At least that’s the case here in Colorado, where magic — as entertainment for grown-ups — tends to fly under the radar.)

But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a need, it simply means that, as magicians, we have to spend a lot of our time explaining how magic can help.

To begin with, magic can be used as a theme for many different events or products. For fund-raisers we can demonstrate “The Magic of Giving.” For a product launch, “The Magic of the New XTR2000.” For a sales kick-off, “Make the Magic Happen.”

And if we’re skilled at developing new bits of magic, we can even provide magic that illustrates the features of the XTR2000, or we can assist the CEO in performing a bit of magic to rev up his or her audience, or use magic to demonstrate the impact of the donor’s gift. If you can find a way to entertain people while informing them about your client’s product, you’ll always find people who are interested in booking you.

Using magic in this way, to help convey a message, is one of the most overlooked ways that we can help. Even if the client does not want to commission a customize piece of magic, we can still convey a message. If I’m working a client appreciation event, I will say to all the guests, “On behalf of Company X, thanks for being a client; we appreciate your business.” If it’s an event for employees and their families, I will tell the employees, “Ms. CEO has asked me to thanks each of you for your hard work on Project X.” I do this whether I’m working from the stage or doing mix & mingle magic at a reception.

The truth is that very few people need someone who can do card tricks, but there are people who need help hosting their event. There are people who need you to make their guests feel welcome. There are people who need you to thank their guests for attending. And there are people who need you to make their guests feel special.

An all together different way that magic can help a corporate meeting planner is to entertain the guests during the slow spots to keep the energy up and to keep the momentum going. Often, after the last business session, guests decide to skip the reception and go back to their rooms before dinner. As magicians we can provide incentive for people to attend the reception and can kick-start the festivities.

Also, as restaurateurs have long known, magicians can entertain guests while they wait for their food. At a banquet, people take their seats and the waitstaff begins serving the first course, but it may take 30 minutes to get the salads out to the last table. Then another 30 minutes go by before the entrée arrives. For events where the chef and the front captain are slammed and can’t get the food out any faster (or where tables must wait their turn to go to the excruciatingly slow buffet line), a couple of magicians, offering table-side entertainment, can help make the time pass more agreeably.

One final idea that we can bring to the table when meeting with an event planner. Very often business events can become content heavy. Throughout the day, the attendees are loaded-down with a ton of information. So much so, that they reach their saturation point. And before they can learn one more fact or figure, they need a break. They need to relax and have some fun.

Magic (either from the stage or up-close) can help people decompress, can help people relax and refresh. Magic gets people laughing and having fun, it allows them to blow-off some steam, and prepares them to learn more. And magic is safer than alcohol.

So while most corporate event planners won’t think of magic as a solution to their problems, there are a great many ways that magicians can help make an event better.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” — David Hannum (though often misattributed to P.T. Barnum)

Many times, when I watch other magicians perform, I wonder if they don’t hold a rather dim view of their spectators. The manner in which they treat their audience members makes me suspect that these magicians view their audience members (the very people who have paid money and taken the time to see their show) as suckers.

True, we do fool people with our magic, but this is not the same as making fools of them. When magic truly works, it is because our audience members allow themselves to believe. They chose to be astonished and to experience the wonder of the inexplicable. We need to understand that they are active participants in our theatrical endeavor; they are not suckers.

Magicians would be better served if they listened to P.T. Barnum (to whom the above quote is most often misattributed; read the fascinating story here.) When one reads legitimate Barnum quotations, we see that he had tremendous respect for those who came to his circuses, and he worked mightily to see that everyone got good value for their money.

“A circus should have something for everyone,” is one Barnum quotation that magicians could learn from.

To begin with, although magicians enjoy confronting puzzles and sussing out solutions to mysteries, many people do not enjoy such challenges. And yet many magicians will write shows that include nothing but one brain-buster after another. My goal in scripting a show is to have elements that are puzzling, elements that are funny, elements where I equalize the status between myself and the audience, and elements where I inspire people.

After the show, some people will thank me for the inspirational message, other will offer their theories on how a bit of magic was accomplished, and still others will talk about how much fun they had laughing.

I’ve learned a lot from listening to (or watching) live stage shows of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, and Barbara Streisand. Naturally, they sing their latest hits, but they also parody their own songs, tell jokes and personal anecdotes, offer biographical stories, and crusade for serious causes. And in the end, they offer “something for everyone.”

Today’s magician would benefit from studying the ideas of P.T. Barnum, and eschewing those of David Hannum.

Being, at core, a methodical person, and having worked extensively with mnemonic (memory) triggers, I like to organize annual events around my birthday (which happens to be today).

My birthday reminds me (mnemonically) that I need to change the batteries in my smoke detectors at home.

And it reminds me that it’s time to buy a new set of maps for Colorado.

As a magician who works all along the Front Range, I need to know my way around the Denver Metro area and Boulder. So I always carry a set of maps with me.

Of course like most people today, I make use of Google Maps and MapQuest, however, I’ve found it unwise to rely solely on online maps, not because they are often wrong (although that has happened on rare occasion), but because traffic may dictate that I make an unplanned change of course.

Last Thursday, on the way to the airport, I spotted a massive accident up ahead. Traffic had come to a complete stop and was just beginning to back up. Fortunately, I there was still an exit available (but I had to act quickly) so I ducked off the highway, pulled into a gas station, plotted a new course, and was on my way.

I only had a few seconds to decide to get off the highway, and having the maps in my car meant that I could change course on the spur of the moment and get to the airport on time. If I had passed the exit, I would have been stuck for who-knows-how-long.

So until I get a GPS, I purchase a fresh set of Mapsco maps every year. What a pragmatic way to mark my birthday.