This past weekend, I did magic at a festival for the second year in a row. I went in with a grand idea and, like usual, called an audible and changed things up a lot until what I did was nowhere near what I planned to do. I had a lot of fun though, and I'm going to try to recap what went on.
Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, wear sunscreen. I forgot all about it on Saturday and unfortunately, my spot was directly in the sun for the first half of the day. As the sun moved I got in to the shade of the building I was set up next to, but it was too late. I've got a nice burn on my arms and face which left me with a weird tanline from my Fitbit and now my face and arms are peeling. I put sunscreen on for Sunday and I don't know if it helped much or not. By that point it just hurt to stand in the sun.
Last year when I worked this festival, all I had was a TV tray with a briefcase on top, usually with a deck of cards sitting on top of that. Nobody had any idea what the hell I was doing. For this year, I bought an easel from Ikea for like $15 that has a dry erase board on one side and a chalkboard on the other side, with a little shelf that folds up. The plan was to do shows throughout the day (more on this later) using the dry erase side to say "MAGIC SHOW! NEXT SHOW XX:XX" as an attention grabber. On the other side, I clipped a canvas bank bag to the shelf and wrote "Thank you for your donation!" After the final hat line, I would turn the whole easel around and collect the money in the bag.
Last year I more or less did the Invisible Deck all day long and had a tip jar out. The plan this year was to do a full show, gathering a crowd and doing it more traditional busking style. I wanted to do escapes, and even bought a straitjacket. I based my routine on Dan Harlan's Pack Small Play Big Escape Act (I bought the whole series last year and have been meaning to write about them. One day.) picking a few highlights and trying to trim the time down but still have it look good.
Yeah, that went to shit after about the second time through. I quickly found out that the sign was getting people's attention, but I wasn't getting people to either wait or come back for the showtimes. At least they knew what I was doing. I went through the whole show, I think, twice. The first time I had a crowd of maybe five people. The second time I had six or seven, but three of them were back from the first show. I found out, unsurprisingly, the straitjacket drew a huge crowd but it came at the end of the show and they all trickled away and didn't tip. I also learned quickly that my hat lines which (I think) are funny when delivered to a crowd sound kinda harsh when delivered one on one.
I changed my sign to read 'STRAITJACKET ESCAPE! NEXT ESCAPE XX:XX" and draped the jacket over the top of my case. I was just going to ditch the rest of the act and to the straitjacket and 100 ft rope escape, which I take just about everywhere just in case. That worked a little better in getting crowds, but I still had a problem getting money from people. I did the jacket escape a few times while standing on a metal folding chair I brought, which is a nice visual and gets more people to stop. Unfortunately, it was a shitty chair and bent when I stepped off it one time so that was the end of that.
I think I ended up doing the jacket about ten times that day. I use an ungimmicked jacket, and let me tell you ten escape in the hot sun all day long is a bitch. By the end of the day, my shoulder hurt, my thumb was rubbed raw from scraping on the canvas of the sleeve, and I was just tired. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do the escape all the next day. What really clinched it for me was when, as I was packing up, I started talking with a couple of teenage girls who were working in a booth next to me. I made a joke about how they could probably escape from a jacket after hearing me all day and I hope it wasn't too boring for them. They said they liked watching and they liked magic and asked if I did other tricks. I grabbed my cards and did a really quick card to mouth trick for them.
They freaked the fuck out. I had been killing myself all day long doing straitjacket escapes and I got the best reaction of the day from a dumb card trick. I needed to think things over.
The next day I scrapped the escapes and brought back my Invisible Deck. I had some other things with me, but for the most part I just did the ID all day long. I set up in my original spot but standing in the direct sun was really hurting so I hunted around for a place to move to. I found an open spot right beside the DJ booth. The MC was a guy I've met a few times here and there and have a good time with. It was nice to set up beside him because he would talk about me throughout the day and I would goof around with him. One time he started a song and then out of nowhere announced, "Andy said he'd dance for the duration of this song. It's nine and a half minutes long. Cheer him on!" I did it. It wasn't pretty, but I did it. Even managed to show someone a trick while shuffling my feet so I didn't quit dancing.
I brought my easel with me again, but instead of doing showtimes I just tried to get something eye-catching to get people to stop. I started the day with "I CAN READ YOUR MIND!" I would see people read it and then kind of do a double take, and then I would say something like, "It's true! Come check this out!" It worked pretty well. I planned ahead and had a business card in each pocket, one with "You're the mindreader..." written on the back and the other with "You tell me!" I figured someone would be smart when I asked their name. Surprisingly, I didn't have to use them at all. After about half the day, I changed my sign to "WILL TURN TRICKS FOR FOOD" which got a lot of laughs and attention. The last hour or so I changed it to "THE BEST MAGIC YOU'LL SEE! ...here..." I really like the funny sign idea, and I would like to keep thinking of more to use for future events.
As I said before, I mostly did the Invisible Deck all day long. I did the Card to Mouth for several people throughout the day, and I used a thumbtip to vanish a silk a few times. I had a lot of fun with that, getting the attention of people in stopped cars or walking on the other side of the street and doing the vanish. That's another thing I would like to explore: long distance magic. Things visual enough to be seen and understood by people far away.
I think that's pretty much the rundown of the day. I had a lot of fun once again, made a pretty good chunk of cash. I think I learned a lot, and am really looking forward to getting back out and doing more festivals. I have a blast doing them and I think I'd like to work on finding more to perform at. We'll see how it goes.
- Andster
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