yep, that went well.

The wedding gig last night was AMAZING! I had a good time my partner in magic had a good time and the audience apparently had a fantastic time. EVerything went very smoothly but I came away with some useful information to smooth things more.

Do as I do - No good when standi9ng. If I prepped a deck to kick off with Do as I do then I need another deck good to go for a set of standing tricks. I need to work on two versions of each routine, one standing, one sitting.

Wee Wee Mentalist- EVERYONE loves the Wee Wee Mentalist! Need to keep a good location for where he can hide until needed.

Cromancay- All handling of this effect were very well received

Darkside-This is it- again, loved by all BUT do not perform on the very drunk

invisible deck _ scary good

The Disappearance- again very well received. HOWEVER it would be nice if I could have a second version prepeed and good to go. Time to start playing with a lazer printer.

Ambitouse Card- n effect I've ignored f late. Big mistake, this was incredibly well loved and seen as a real feat.

I think all in all I was overly worried about not having enough material for each routine. what I have is enough in length, now I need to weed out the weaker routines and replace them with stronger effects. This crowd cared less for mentalism and were more into classic slight of hand so I'm glad I prepperd up for both in mind. I didn't get the classic "show us something that's not card magic" BUT need to add some none card work into the repertoire. Eugene Burger's way of handling potential hecklers worked a storm(Secrets and Mysteries of the Close Up Entertainer). Don't see them as the enemy. Se them as bubbly people who want to be the centre of attention for a little bit and just let them, respond with grace and civility and humour them., Do this from the very very start and actual heckling/trouble doesn't even begin to happen. I took one VERY drunk guy and showed him some gambling magic, explaining how it worked. For this I used "Big Deal" where you openly show yourself dealing from the bottom for one hand, and then deal from the top the second time, the second time having stacked the deck gives you a far better hand. Because he was "Watching and learning" he wasn't acting up at all, not trying to catch me out by insisting the cut the deck every second. He thought he was learning a magic trick to scam friends with instead of participating in a bigger magic trick that left him baffled.

In conclusion. Awesome time. MY love of magic has never waned a bit of late I was begging to doubt my chances of making a living from it (and hence lapsed in the study of the business side of magic) this has now changed :) as I said before, if in doubt,t suck t up and get a gig, I think it's Kill or cure. Even if all bar one group hated me the reaction of one positive would be enough to make me study and practice to make things work, a positive reaction is THAT powerful. And I had a LOT of them last night so I don't think I'll stop smiling any time soon.

Why I blog

A very quick glance suddenly made me relaise I neglected 3 VERY strong effects, Wee Wee Mentalist, Four Sight and Oil and Water. hmm which goes where?
Oil and Water in Classic Slights
Four sight in Gambling
Wee Wee mentalist, anywhere which will appreciate a happy cute routine.

The Calm before the Storm

Well today is Gig Day. I'm swaying between calm and confident and terfied. I don't know why I'm worried though. My retuine went down very well at the charity gig I did and the effects have just become smoother since. I also have a few new effects I believe are very strong. The following isa list of what I plan to do for each group, it's more for my benifit than anyone elses BUT may be usefull to others..

Classic slight set.

Card in hand
Here then there
Ambitious card and or "The Disappearance"

Mental/rapport set

Do as I do
Direct mind reading
Invisible deck
"Cartomancy" and Or Out of this World.

Gambling set
Big deal
Aces High
Direct Mind Reading
3 Card Monte' and or Ambitious Card

I ay well read through my blog for half an hour just to remind myself what works well with what

Hectic but happy

Been a while snce I blogged but trust me, much has been happening in my magic. Too begin with I got older (though I don't act it). To celebrate another complete orbit of Sol I was given some rather niifty gifts. A BEAUTIFUL deck of picture playing cards, The Master Push Off DVD,By Andi Gladwin Cartomancy By Peter Nardi and The Dark side Deck by Lucas.

The Master Push Off is an instructional DVD for performing a for of double lift. Very worth while I'll go more in depth about this in the future. The dark side deck is hard to talk about without spoiling the effect. I'll post a video about that next week as well. However Cartomancy is one to talk about. An interesting effect mixing a measure of control with a deck and little scratch cards which reveal a certain card. I've performed the effect for many friends, muggles, magicians and inbetweeners. There was a certain discord about how best to reveal the cards at the end f the effect (the scratch card revels a playing card that matches the card selected). I have yet to make up my mind fully whether it is better for people to turn a card over and then scratch off a scratch card or if the scratching should come first and then the card revealed. However there was concensses that my story telling behind the trick needed a LOT of work. This is the power of honest friends. I've reworked the presentation and hopefully Will be able o report back on the best way I presented the trick after my next live gig this Thursday.

On the subject of my gig. I was very worried that I had not enough material (which is rubbish as I haven't forgotten any effects) and I've been perfroming some magic each Saturday at the shop so I am in practise. But I wanted to become a little slicker, a little smoother. Trust me, if you're struggling with achieving a level you're happy with after a year dig out your initial learning materials and re read or re-watch., There's nothing like going back to the beginning again to polish off any rough edges.