Magic Performing Tips! #198

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 198 of the Magic Guys. Let me say it again. Welcome to the Magic Guys episode 198. To my left, we've got Nick K. I used to be in a band.

Yeah, he did. down below we got doug khan nanu nanu yeah that's what i'm talking about and i'm josh norbedo welcome to the show where we talk about our lives as professional magicians and the crazy stories and stuff that happens along with it and boy are they crazy so first up we got to recognize our friends in the chat we do this live so that we can interact with you and bounce off your questions and uh nick who do we have in the chat today we have josh debito what

are you doing in there you weirdo oh yeah oh yeah let me explain really quickly too we did have obviously everyone saw mr masato was going to be joining us but because he is so popular he picked up a gig for this evening in the u.s which i can respect and he's off to go make some money like we do this episode yeah let it be known if need be i'm prepared to talk about linking rings at length.

That's a good ass point that's a good ass point on purpose and just be like we have copperfield coming everyone better be there and then it's like sorry man copperfield had to go do a thing but i'm here we'll talk about sexy dave on the thumbnail next week could we sell a show like that where we've sold it as david blaine and it's like i couldn't be there but nick case here don't worry you'll still see a banging show i've had scenarios like that

where we'll talk about that in a bit i'm gonna write down a note to touch upon that and what that experience is like where they had a headliner famous comedian and then it was like by the way they're expecting him and no one knows he's not coming you're the guy so good luck. Oof. Yeah, good times. But like we said, friends, this is a live show where all the mistakes are live, so we're not perfect. And we know that. But we are here to dispense what wisdom we have to everyone in the chat.

Starting off with Thomas Conger, Tim Askin, Scotty P, who has been doing some really amazing things as of late. So we're really proud of you, Scotty. We have a new face here, Sally Plannikik. Right on. And my good friend, Gary Davis. We also have Mike, who is not a stripper. Noah, the Magician Official, and Chris the Tone. Thank you, friends, for being here. It's really good for you guys to be in the chat. Again, apologies for, you know, things do change. It is a live show, but we do jazz.

We make things up along the way. But fear not, we actually have so much to talk about today. And if you guys were backstage, y'all would have been in stitches because... Yeah, we're basically like discussing what of these stories can we say on air? One should be left. Now, let's preface that by saying that we're in the middle of December, and it is ultimately what is the busiest period for performing magicians.

And it's a time where everyone is having their corporate Christmas functions, their birthdays, et cetera. It is just a busy, busy time. A lot of people delay their birthdays and things of that nature when a busy year end will do it at the end of the year and things like that. So between Josh and myself, we've done... Actually, I've done seven only this week. which ain't too bad. But that being said, I've given away a lot of gigs as well because it's just been so crazy busy.

Now you experience things in this period. You also learn a lot of things in this period. And there was something wonderful that Josh learned backstage, which had me in stitches. Josh, tell them what we spoke about backstage. Yeah. Oh God, which, which story are you talking about? The, the one that starts with the G?

The one that starts with the G and ends with Astro pills. All right. I'm just going to say it. Okay. Because maybe it'll help someone out there. Okay. So like Nick, I also had seven gigs last week. And let me tell you, when you're on the run and you're performing, you're really not like planning out how well you're going to eat, at least for me, I'm not really planning out. I can't fit in wonderful food.

That's not going to make me have to use the bathroom, you know, especially someone with Crohn's, even though my Crohn's is under controlled, it still makes my stomach weaker. And so, you know, if I was to down a sausage roll at the, at the petrol station, you know, an hour later, that's coming out. Yeah. Let me say to your point in this time of year, it's the type of thing where it's like, I need to eat crap or starve.

And we're basically talking about being able to eat crap and survive. Yeah. Yeah. How about going rogue at the gigs where you can hit the buffet table, maybe get an oysters Rockefeller in real quick or something like that. You know, you see that sometimes. Hold up, hold up. What is an oyster Rockefeller? I mean, it could be a char broiled oyster with maybe bacon. Is it got cheese on it?

I don't know. I'm just picking fancy food. Okay. it is well i mean fancy food too like because it's unknown it's not it's not the thing you always have in your body it can it can mess you up anyway you don't go for the oysters rockefeller they probably got fruit you could go snag some strawberries you just have a nice bowl of leafy nonsense so the thing is so the priority is are the gigs you're trying to do and the food is kind secondary is what i'm getting at so because i

know how my body is and it might decide that i need to find a toilet asap and i could be driving to a gig and that's going to be it's going to really throw off the timings anyway news flash you do not want oysters rockefeller oh wow doug's put a picture on the screen i want to explain what this looks like to the listeners oyster rockefeller looks like you have an oyster shell that's been left out in the wilderness to the point it's just grown moss what i'm realizing that's

not doing the the dish justice that's not it's spinach is so it's it's what parsley and other green herbs and then it's butter you know and they're char grilled so do you eat oysters in australia is this common food over there oh we never heard of them back down under. I don't, I don't eat, do you have them? We just eat holy shitty grubs. What the fuck? Yes, we eat oysters. I mean, like they're growing in our backyard in Louisiana. They're wonderful.

Yeah. We can go get them, you know, really cheap around here. Yeah. I put up in my story the other day that there was, they had a whole buffet seafood table spread. I don't personally eat seafood, but that's because my mom is allergic to iodine. So I never grew up with it as a kid and now it's all weird. And just two weeks ago, a client after my show gave me barramundi and I thought it was chicken. And that was a whole thing when I get into it.

But this story is about how I just made sure I wasn't going to have any issues running from gig to gig to gig in this hot weather. And I'm trying to eat food. I got myself some gastro stop pills, which is these tablets you get from the chemist that just suppress your poops. Okay.

Suppress the poops. people didn't you mention this for an air fly like a flying tip yes yeah nick mentioned it for flying yeah but what i want to suggest is if you're someone that has a delicate stomach it and or because we do get nervous doing gigs it helps me anyway i just want to say i got through all four gigs without pooping so i don't know if we have an applause for that there we do, did you upgrade your roadcaster is that right you didn't talk about this yeah we

doug how awesome is that doug you can change your voice in real time i know that you're showing it off it is and you can also live cut out your swearing you mother i can't believe you said that it's very fun i highly recommend these and yeah because you can go when you're telling the story and then Karen said, well, why don't you let me shuffle the deck? And I said to her, you're not doing that. It does enhance the storytelling. Okay, guess your stop. That's my story.

Out of the many stories that we have to tell today, that was one that did help. Well, we have a comment from Scotty Painter. It says four gigs, no poops, ready for big boy pants. I mean, that's a feat in itself. It is wonderful to not have to poop at a gig. And if you're like me, and I know I am, I don't know about you guys, but I just kind of go into field mode.

You know what i mean when you're when you're in field mode it's just sphincter just says no yeah and you just end up like and you're just like all right we're good and then for me like it's either like the moment i get home or like the next morning after a sniff of coffee it's like hey we're full of crap and we're gonna deal with this now yeah it's kind of important i guess.

The only thing i can imagine worse than this is being gassy while you're trying to perform and i have been there sometimes podcast come to okay let's let's yeah let's put a bowl on that but yeah but finish the note about it yeah well just like i couldn't imagine anything worse than just sort of like crop dusting through the audience as you're doing right i always try to hit taco bell before my gigs yeah that would that would suck all right well

look talking about food okay let me just throw out this little tip here i've brought this up before but when, caterers when you're doing a cocktail party the caterers are always the battle force like we're always conflicting where they come up with canapes and interrupt the group you're performing to and i'm gonna make my own separate youtube video for this just so it lives in the ether and people can find it but i finally recorded

the moment so i can show you what it looks like when you do magic off the canapé table.

Carry around thing and you keep the flow of magic going instead of them stopping your flow you waiting and then having to try and restart so i've mentioned this before i would just pretend like i'm gonna take one of their canapes and then i actually produce a coin off the table and go oh yeah i'll keep this for later and this is it's a very short video but it's just the moment that i did that I happen to be wearing the meta Ray-Bans and I thought I should capture it. So here we have.

I will just grab this one if that's okay. Just for later on. But thank you. You deserve it. Okay. I'll have another. I'll have another. Excellent. Thank you so much. That's awesome. Brilliant. Save that. Save that caterers. Those kind of look like oysters Rockefeller.

Actually yeah they they probably are it's a small nothing moment but even at the end of it you kind of hear them tail off and remark about it like oh that's amazing nick's got something so food aside guys i mean one of the things i like to do is protein bars because you can keep a couple of protein bars they are long lasting you can keep a couple in the glove box of your car a couple in your magic kit and i think that if you are dying for a snack in between things to

the point you're going to get the shakes that's a good thing to help bail you out because the protein does make you feel full for a while yeah yeah i've been getting the protein cookies that they sell at the petrol stations they've been pretty good there are plant-based protein cookies i forget the brand it's got two guys on the on the cover. Broke back cookies. Maybe we should have a magic guy's bar of some kind.

Instead of a beast bar, it's like a magic bar. Magic bar. With some guarana in it to keep you, get a bit of pep in your step. Yeah. But anyway, I hope you guys, if that maybe is some food for thought, when the caterers come around and they're about to interrupt you, just quickly palm a card, grab it from underneath their tray or a coin or a sponge ball.

It is it is effing awesome the amount of times people remark about it like wow how did like how did you do that how did you like anyway i've just all good things come from we should go back to developing this workout bar we could you know where you put the pre-workout in it you guys are always talking that stuff up and then put some of that no crap in it so you don't have to poop and then round it out with some protein. Can you imagine that? Can you put gastrostop in the protein?

I've got some herbs I'd like to put in it just for my own well-being. Wow. This is, you know what? Funny. It's funny, but we could be onto something. It has, so it has guarana in it, which is like pre-workout. Then it's got gastrostop, but then it's got some carbs to keep you going to feed your brain and maybe low on sugar or whatever.

Shredded pages from the Tarabelle books just to make sure that you know that's what the rap that's what the rapper is it teaches a trick on every rapper oh my god. Mm-hmm certainly for magic conventions that's that's awesome okay look we.

Have a story we have some speedpipes one is from scotty p it's it's perfect to talk about in this episode and to set the scene he just did a charity event gala maybe two weeks ago and did some roving there and this is a story from that day i'm going to look at nick for the audio volume because we didn't test this but here we go hey magic guys scotty p again i have a gig story and this gig story goes for about two minutes so it'll probably be split up over two speak pipes but it starts

with me approaching one of the tables and before i could get out more than my name a grumpy lady in her 50s let's call it karen spoke for the whole table and said quite sharply no I don't like magic keep going and pointed away from the table I tried to ask the rest of the table but she gave me another verbal shove along and not letting anyone else answer so me being quite a passive person and also relatively new to this whole audience management gig I just smiled and said to the table

enjoy the rest of your night and then I continued to work the rest of the room I later saw that she had moved to another table and was being grumpy somewhere else so I went back to the table that I missed and said sorry I don't feel like you actually had a chance to answer before would anyone like to see some magic. Another lady at the table said she'd wanted to see magic in person.

For as long as she could remember so i chose an effect that not only got her involved but also left with a souvenir stay tuned for part two so let me just say for the first part that was handled perfectly yeah you know the only thing that i would do is always give people an opportunity to change their mind and just quite politely say now if that's not a good time or something of that nature i go cool we've got if you change your mind just give me a wave i'll come right

back folks and walk away that's the only thing i would have done different from nice standpoint but i think you handled it perfectly scotty let's see what part two has to say yeah i that's a good point i should open up part two and while i'm opening that you know and for being scotty's like fourth gig that is bloody well handled to to have the foresight to go back you know yeah crazy all right part two here we go hey guys this is part two of the story so i'm sure most

of you know the routine but what she experienced was she signed the face of a card it was lost in the deck and she then got to choose a butterfly sticker from a sticker book that i had and she placed the sticker on the back of an indifferent card i then made the butterfly fly from that indifferent card back to the deck did that a couple of times before making the butterfly invisible and handing it to her she then threw the butterfly back into the deck and it landed on.

The back of her signed card a simple trick. But it was the most memorable reaction of the night she didn't run around yelling like on social media reactions but instead she was almost frozen in disbelief and she looked at the card and just let out a quiet wow as she exhaled so glad i went back. Yeah, bloody well done, mate. Well done. How good does it feel, hey, to do those gigs and have those kind of wins like that? We forget that people just don't see magic. Like, they don't get to experience

it. So, it's pretty beautiful. Yeah, can I, if I could add one more thing to that, is just that, like, I mean, Karen's situation is whatever it is, pal. But I will say this, like, I just hope you didn't feel any rejection from Karen being Karen.

Because what you have is a gift and you offered the gift carries Karen was a Nazi and was like no magic for you to everyone else so that's fine but the fact that you went back and delivered that and gifted them the magic it's just a reminder to everyone who experiences anything like this that, you have a gift and if somebody doesn't accept the gift don't feel bad you still get to keep the gift for yourself and give to somebody who deserves it and when Karen left exactly what scotty did so full

round of applause for scotty everyone show him love in the chat the guy's doing great give him some love that's the wrong one that's not how you do it josh.

I'm so sorry hang on there we go there we go sorry yeah we got uh compliments on handling, exemplary out of the gate man i think that's exactly the way you should have done you know say all right see y'all later come back when the windows open and then on the way out what you do is trip the lady from behind kind of kick her, and she'll fall over easy yes from happening for future magi now for the broken and restored hip,

Yeah, that's going to be, that's going to be difficult. You did mention you might take one swing at, you know, putting it on track instead of just saying, okay, so you might, you know. You know, there could be something, but you know, it depends on the person, you know, you can tell if someone's a fun hater and they're just going to hate, you just let it go.

Nick, if it is a, if it is a 10 person banquet table and one person does firmly say no, will Will you still be like, and what are the other nine people vote? Or will you just say your line of let me know when you want me to come back? No, man, I'll just walk away and say, like, if you change your mind, you know, just give me a wave. I'll come right back, folks. And I kind of single out that person, but give them permission to welcome me back.

And sometimes somebody will see the speak up over Karen, but Karen might've been somebody of authority in this group. She might've been their manager, their boss, their something. So you don't want to like, you don't want to create.

Like you just, again, like it's the gift they say no you take the gift with you i don't think it's worth sort of pushing back because i don't know man like i would never force anything of mine onto anybody ever i wouldn't force my belief my kindness my anything like it's just not what i do like if i offer something and you say no it's cool man i can offer you 10 grand cash and you say no you're a dickhead i can offer you magic and you say no that's also a dumb thing to

do but you made the choice brother man it's your choice and when everyone is having a great time you made the dumb choice good choice you know yeah the best revenge is when you absolutely annihilate the next table and they see how much fun they're having yeah and then you get them to say oh actually yeah you can come over here now that's when i definitely get that vibe like i'm amped up to do super good at the very next closest stable i can after that happens

for sure yeah but like i said just as long as you're not experiencing the rejection like you're the gift bro you're the grip you're the gift and if they say no you still have it if i have a box filled with gold which is what you're giving these people and they say no you still get to hold the gold man you ain't losing they are remember that super important lesson yeah bloody great job mate yeah.

We have one more speak pipe do you want to take it there or do you well i guess i've already opened the can of the box haven't i we have a speak pipe from speak pipe billy fisher wrote in and i think this is one that nick is going to really resonate with i'm going to play billy's question, here we go hey guys wish i had thought of this question a couple weeks ago but it just dawned on me i am having a suit jacket altered like just fit you know tailored to the length of my arms and

body and with the shoulders etc and it dawned on me that if i'm already having it tailored why should i not throw some i don't know topics or i don't know i don't know what you would call them alterations in that are helpful for magic i'm only a hobbyist but between weddings and and christmas parties and things i go to where i wear a sport coat i know that this definitely could see some use i've already done some magic you know dressed in places and ways that i would

wear this so nick you talk about magic you have built into your suit all the time i mainly do card magic, but other than just a few things i've read from like darwin ortiz or maybe guy hollingsworth about you would need alterations to perform certain things i'm not super versed in in what i would need i'm sure you guys have tons more knowledge than i do if you could give me you know ideas or places to look for ideas. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, great question. Great place to ask this question, Billy. Yeah, Billy, thank you for sending that question in, pal. Now, ultimately, it depends on, in my opinion, what you want to achieve with your experience. With your suit okay so dove magic is. One of the places that sort of has like the most gnarly of suit. Setups because you've got so many compartments in which you're holding doves.

That's probably not going to apply to someone like yourself but if i was going to suggest anything just for the sake of having a utility in your jacket you were going to look at things like toppets i would probably suggest looking at michael lamar's toppet pattern which you can purchase you get given exactly what it is you take it to your tailor they pop it in it's extremely easy to do mine is based off his mine's customized but the thing is mine took seven generations to get right

for myself and what i'm performing with it but i think that that would be a good place to start you can do things like double pockets which is not anything too crazy it's just quite literally put an extra piece of fabric in your pocket which would make it give you two separate compartments within a pocket that's pretty handy for deck switches if you're going to do things like that in the same breath you don't have to do that you could just as easily put a piece of

cardboard a deck switches taught by sean farquhar so there's another couple of options there i don't know if sleeving is going to be your bag which is primarily what i do and why my suits need to be customized if you are going to go down the sleeving realm i recommend you look at things like rocco rocco sleeving stuff is covered very very well the probably the most recent one and easiest one to access would be the penguin magic lecture where he talks about how he customizes his suits the

lengths that it needs to go to. What I mean by length is that all these suits go down to his first knuckle on his thumb. As far as length goes, they're five inches in diameter as far as the opening goes. So there's things of that nature. If you want to explore stuff like that, I would recommend looking at that.

And then everything else is just sort of as you're going along, you would sort of go, you know, next time I'm going to make a suit from scratch, I'm going to have it so the armpit hole is a bit bigger so I can put things down the sleeve, which is what I do with my suits.

There is pros and cons of that happening as far as your suits wearing out thankfully i buy one or two suits every year and i perform so often that i have to i literally wear my suits out to the point it's like oh look at a homeless person if i wear them for any longer than a year two at most so that's a good start as far as card guy stuff don't do everything at once just do it progressively.

Get a suit every two years make an adjustment here and there if you're going to just use the one suit you know depending on how much you gig you can always go back and make a couple of alterations you can sew pockets in yourself the one last thing i'll leave is doug i'm gonna need you to remind me of the gentleman's name it's like three names he's got a pocket in his sleeve here so when he lifts his hand up the coin falls down and then he goes to retrieve it j scott berry is his

name thank you doug i'm glad i didn't have to come up with that i wouldn't have yeah j scott Barry, if you have a look, it's the way that he's designed his topics. You mentioned Rocco. He's done some interesting work along those lines using magnets to hold objects in the upper part of the jacket. So after you sleeve, the magnet keeps it up there and then you can release it later on. I had a guy I wanted to mention there, as you were mentioning guys, I'm just going to bring this up.

Carl Cloutier, who combines poppeting with sleeving for some amazing magic. This guy, the stuff he does is incredible. Yeah. I don't know. This is the best resource, but it's a good one. You know, it's one of my favorites, super advanced stuff. And I will say that there is a particular thing he does with his pants, his pant pockets.

There you go. allow him to do the most impossible cards across and effectively without revealing too much imagine a pocket that's just a tube that goes from left to right so like in your pant pocket oh yeah that's insane yeah you can put the signed card you can like peg the pocket and somehow it can trend yeah you know who i saw recently who had a cool jacket thing jaffo jason fields he does a routine he's done it on fool us where coins vanish from his

hand and appear in his jacket pocket audibly so you can hear the coins arrive in a glass in his jacket pocket signed coins one at a time there's the signatures bang they're in it's in bobo's coin magic and he brought it to life it's a great piece and the jacket is very integral to the effect look at thomas trying to just work nick up here do any of you do much index work with suits don't get nick started come on shut your mouth thomas i will take over this podcast but then

on the on the on the complete opposite side of the world i don't do any alterations with my suits and that's just because of the style of magic i perform and my lack of ability to do what nick does so my suits are all normal you're also too buff to get away with hiding anything in that suit oh thanks.

That's all we need to say about that then i wear vests and alter my vest to accommodate different inside pockets where vests don't normally have these things so in essence i'll have a five pocketed vest where normally you'd be have two pockets maybe three at best so question to you have you ever seen i think it's called a vortex top it that it's a top it that's made for vests. You ever seen that though? You know, I've seen topics that are built into the crevice of the vest.

So you're, you're ditching into the, into the V here. Is that what it's doing? It's like, was that what it's doing in this kind of? Yeah. Oh, okay. You know, it's also interesting boy here. This is a great one that no one uses and really should a belly servant, which rests here.

Right. And, and ideally goes into your pocket. So now when you bring your gut in, your hand can come back to your belly and ditch an object, you know, into what, if you could consider half a coffee can, maybe, you know, it would be like resting here. That same idea to be brought upward to the vest. Yeah. There was a belly servant. There was something that kind of never really took off, which was Jeff Kaler's TKO gimmick, which has a kind of belly.

It goes into a belly if you will for retrieval which is also a very interesting thing and that's not a suit gimmick as much as it is for your shirt oh yeah right that's a cool yeah so it's it's very ingenious but it's something you yeah but you have to physically sew it into your shirt which basically kind of makes it redundant makes cleaning a little bit difficult you know because there is a length of wire that's sort of stiffened and it's an extremely falling piece

of of magic it's very smart it's and very very very smart i will say when when you say you have to sew it in, when yeah when nick says you have to sew it in what it what you have to do is you have to remove a button off your shirt and put it onto the the the piece of gimmickry that's kind of all you have to do right because the rest of it just go it's a little more than that if you're looking to have it.

Yeah i guess the tad more because josh and the matrix i think he's got stuck it's a tad more than that yeah but i i guess i bring it up in a sense that like it's not transferable from shirt to shirt that's all this is sort of what i'm alluding to there's some there's some metal involved right yeah yeah some wires yeah there is but look i mean those those are some tips by all means we have a discord you're welcome to match us you know like we

have socials you can scope myself out and nick k magic on instagram drop us a line and show us what you've done and i'm happy to show you bits of my suit if it makes you happy yeah i'm learning minimalism so now people can send me messages telepath telepathetically i'm working that into my ovra. Excellent. Am I unbroken now? By the way, I saw the chat say that I had a stroke and okay, great.

What I was going to end with saying is I much prefer Jeff Taylor's version one of the TKO, the any card to any spectator's wallet. That can go straight into a shirt. It can come out again. And it's such a great way to hold out card or a bunch of cards or even your business card.

I love the idea of having your business cards in it. So seemingly when someone asks for a card, you can just rest your hands come out and produce a card give to them it's good stuff it's good stuff all right look we let's go back to um to gigs because we just had a flurry of them and you know you can slip up and clients can slip up as well when you know so much is being organized and nick you had a phone call from a client thinking that you weren't where you're supposed to

be right yeah now dude i actually i felt deeply bad about this because it's three things that I pride myself on as a performer is to be easy to work with, be talented, and be on time. And so when I received this phone call on Friday, I was on my way to do a pretty large-scale gig at Marvel Stadium. And I received this phone call from a woman who's like, hey, are you here yet? And I was just like, oh, no, I'm on my way. I have a six o'clock arrival for a 6.30 star.

And she's like, no, no, no, you're starting at 5.30. And I'm like, oh, but no, I don't think that's, I'm on my way to marvel as we speak and then she's like no not marvel you're maribyrnong state. And I was like, that's tomorrow. I was like, it's happening right now. And I was like, give me a moment. And so I pull up the contract, which I always keep everything on my calendar, along with a physical, like a PDF copy of the contract and so forth that I send to the client and everything.

And I was like, I'm terribly sorry, but the information I have here is for tomorrow. You know, I got the email string from Kayla. I've got this. I've got blah, blah, blah. She goes, give me a second. And she kind of came at me with a bit of aggression because obviously I was supposed to be at her event.

She checks the contract she gets back to me and says yep our bad don't worry about it thanks and, i was just like oh well i just wanted to hang up on me and i was just like well wait that's okay just just contact me on monday shoot me your email or text it back to this number we'll mediate a refund for a portion of the booking just you know we'll definitely get you sorted you know now i felt bad about it obviously because they paid a

privilege for me and mind you this gig was an hour out of town which was to my knowledge was supposed to be doing the next day so is this a talent agent that booked it or client direct no this was a client direct yeah and just to be very clear as far as my processes go booking confirmation is sent with the in the terms of my performance are on the invoice they're physically on the invoice in my zero i created a product called terms and the terms,

all the details of your event, which is the contact person, my arrival time, my starting time, my finishing time, like all that information is present on the invoice. So if ever we need to check anything, it's there clear as day, right? It's basically a product at a zero cost, but it's there for that reason. And... I also contact people gone. These things end up on a calendar. Can you talk about your process to put all of this in an accessible calendar? And I think that'd be good advice.

Absolutely. So every time I get an inquiry, I try to gather as much information about it as possible. And what I do is I enter it into my calendar. My calendar being either like your Google calendar or in my case, my Apple calendar, which also syncs with my Google calendar.

I will make footnotes of everything i've talked about gathering much as much information as possible so for example hey i got a gig here great is this a residential or a or a venue oh it's a venue oh great do you so then i can get the address of that venue instead i'm just saying like oh it's a gig in sydney i'm like sydney's a big place man you know like i need to know where in sydney is it an hour out of sydney is it like you know what i mean so how many people are

you're expecting is there any audio visual stuff is there lighting did you want when you do a show great can you put me in touch with the with the av tech so i can just mediate what stuff they have that i could be utilizing for your show to give you the best value so i make all these notes and then effectively once it's all locked in i put the terms of the contract cut and pasted directly into my calendar and what that also allows me to do once that's once the gig's been confirmed the

reason i do it like this is that if you're getting inquiries, especially this time of year, I can receive multiple inquiries for clashing times. The idea is, is that you talk to somebody, you quote them, you go, no worries. I'll put a light pencil in my calendar. In the meantime, if anything clashes, I'll reach out to you. So when someone goes, Hey, are you available at this time? You explain to them, you are one of three inquiries for this time bracket.

And it's also a means of them saying, like, I'm not disinterested in giving you any discounts. You're one of three people who want my time right now. If you want me, you can lock it in right now, you know, or you've got to say, I just need to confirm with the person who tried to book me first, who's dragging their feet, you know, or not answering your calls or whatever it might be.

But just by having this physical calendar, which you should be abiding to, the reason you want to do things of this nature is that you can put in the address of where you need to be. You can set reminders of when you're supposed to leave to ensure you arrive on time. You can also...

Invite people to these types of things as well accessing the contract you said you'll attach that you'll link that up so you can look at the actual contract yeah you can add physical pdfs to that bracket as well so you can actually go in there look at your contract look at all the things you're supposed to do because sometimes when you're doing events especially large-scale events like like if you're going to go to like an arena for example like if i was at marvel arena

there is one of nine gates you can enter in through so sometimes you're giving information where it's like please go to gate four talk to this person a b c and d your green room is located here that information is normally sent in the form of a pdf you can attach that pdf to that calendar invite and put it there as well and also if you're booking people like i am when you send these things so if i got someone who's working for us like in our agency i send them a calendar invite and they've

got everything they need. That's like a whole package in there of the person to talk to, a copy of the contract, everything they could possibly need. So it's just a means of ensuring that you've got a central point where you can look at all your inquiries, all your confirmed stuff, times your on hold. On hold means that the person wants to move forward. You've sent them the invoice, but they haven't paid it yet.

So I put it in that state. So it goes from inquiry to on hold on hold slash confirmed and then paid and when it's paid it's like you cannot budge from that time bracket now let me tell you a story of what happens when you don't do what nick just said okay because this happens me like this happened to me last week this is what will happen if you don't do that there are sometimes just human errors and even though i've been in this game for so effing long now. It can still happen and it sucks.

But unlike it being the client's fault when Nick was just explaining, this happened to me last week and I just had to own it. So I'm driving between events. I've got like an hour and a half break right now before the next one. And I'm like, great, I might just drive and get some lunch or something. Next minute, it. I get a phone call while I'm driving, answer it. I think maybe it's an inquiry for another event at Christmas. Great. And they go, oh yes. Yep. This is me from this company.

And he's saying it like I should know who he is. So I'm like, oh yeah, how are you going? And it's like, yeah, good, good. Just wondering how far away you are, mate. And I'm like, and my heart just freaking falls into my feet. I'm like. Oh, this is such and such from, sorry, which company again? He's like, oh, yeah, this one. Yeah, we've got you booked for 4 p.m. And it's 3.58 right now. I'm like, oh, Chris, I am just driving, but let me just pull over for a second and I'll call you right back.

And I look at my calendar and there's nothing for that time slot in my Google calendar. But in my emails, I see the performance agreement and the invoice and him paying and all that stuff. And the memory of that gig just floods back into my head. I'm like, how did I just erase this from my memory that this gig was on? Because I was doing gigs all day and I already thought, oh, cool. Yeah, I'm going to time everything. I'm going to take my gastro stop.

This is going to be a good day of slaying these gigs. Meanwhile, I've completely missed one.

So you guys i hope will never have to experience this in the chat but like it's the worst feeling when someone's paid you to be there to do magic and you're not there and you just have no memory of it the cortisone just hits your body and you just feel like oh wait i've got this built into this you just go fuck anyway um so i i had to just call him back and be like look i'm going to be honest with you, it is my fault that I'm not there right now.

For some reason, your event isn't in my calendar and I can only put it down to human error. I'm so sorry. What I'm going to do for you is I'm going to send you a full refund right now, but I'm also heading to your event right now, which I'll be there in 20 minutes.

This is on me, but I'm going to do a group show for everyone and let's just have fun but i apologize again and i'll send your money back and he fortunately was like you know what shit happens that's really kind of you to to give us a refund i'll see you soon and we did the show and like everything was fine and the the email i got afterwards after i sent him the refund basically said look you know thanks for handling that so well thanks for still entertaining everyone look i'm sure

we'll be in touch next year and like everything just ended amicably and it was good, but God, it feels terrible when that happens.

Now on the, on the plus side, I thought, damn it. Now I've just, I've just made myself lose, you know, this X amount of money for this gig, but something very weird happened. And I wonder if it's serendipitous to that happening. The next day I have one event and it's on the Gold Coast. So this just happened two days ago. I go to the Gold Coast and I get to the Gold Coast like an hour and a half early for this event because I just want to make sure there's no traffic issues.

The casino is right next to where this event is. So I go, let's just go in the casino. I'm a magician. Why the hell wouldn't I? So I go into the casino. I roll into the casino. I'm dressed up for my gig. I leave my jacket in the car. And I take out $200. And I'm like, I've had a crazy week of events. Let me just enjoy some blackjack. You know, this would be fun for half. I only have like half an hour I can allow before I have to go to this event. Josh has 16 reasons to gamble.

Admitting it is the first step josh yeah what's your story well look that i guess there's two versions of the story but the good part of it is i only had half an hour so in the last two bets that i have guns yeah so i've basically worked my way up to winning 200 right so i've kept my $200 and I'm up 200. You're playing blackjack? Blackjack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm playing $50 hands cause I don't, I don't have time to mess around.

So, so for everyone listening, so the $200 I took in, I've put back in my pocket now and I'm playing with house money, which you, which is funny. You care less about it because you didn't come in with it. Yeah. So I'm like, I have to leave now, but I'm just going to bet this whole $200 on one hand because why not, you know, and it wins. And I now have $400 of profit. And the lady looks at me, the dealer is like, wow, you know, you won.

I'm like, great. And I got to take it. And I'm like, I got time for one more of this. And I put the $400 I just won back onto one hand. And I do the, like the egotistical thing where you stack it all up in one tower. And she looks at me and she's like. That's your money, you know? I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it's not really. I didn't come in with it. And she's like, no, no, but it is your money. Like you can leave with that right now. And I'm like, why, why would you tell me not to bet?

What kind of pit boss is that? Yeah. And it occurs to me like this table has been pretty hot, like almost this whole time I've been here. It's like, maybe that's why. So anyway, so now everyone's watching me with this $400 stack.

I mean, in the scheme of things, that's not a lot of money to, you know, most gamblers but for me i'm like this is crazy anyway so i sit i sit 400 on there black one blackjack hands the dealer busts and i've now won 800 within like two hands i give her the 200 that i brought in as well and she cashes me out with a thousand dollar chip i cash that out and i'm walking out And I realize after tax, because I get taxed like a motherfucker here in Australia, that probably is

after tax what I would have ended up with from that gig that I refunded the money to. And so the week kind of balanced itself out still anyway, in a weird way.

And then i had the best gig ever after that because i just rolled in on a high like the magician that just won money from the casino to then come and do an event where everyone's like oh we should go to the casino after this and i'm like yeah i was just there just happened to go to the casino because i'm a magician yeah yeah exactly and so that was very fun i don't recommend always hitting up the casino before your gigs guys but if you do the casino every day because i'm a magician.

That's right. We're always rolling the dice, baby. Do they have, is there several casinos in Sydney? Is that like a thing there? Sydney has. You're not in Sydney yet. Yeah. I'm in Brisbane. We have one in Brisbane and we have one on the Gold Coast, which is an hour drive away. So they're both stars. Jupiter's? It used to be Jupiter's. Yeah. Now it's a star. Yeah. So it's known as the star now. Yeah. Like the one in Sydney and now the one in Brisbane as well.

Absolutely so yeah that was just a cool story one at the casino and that was dope and it felt great and it was good and that's all good it's a good time well let me ask a question actually gosh because you told me you did like four gigs in a single day which is pretty phenomenal i wanted to ask you do you do any costume change in between that meaning do you put on a fresh shirt do you do or do you just go like same shirt stanky because i sweated my ass off from gig to gig like i'm just

curious if you if you do any of that or if you if you're if you just stay fresh it's hot where you are it's why i ask yeah no no absolutely so the first two gigs was during the day where it's hot and i know from scoping out where their events are it's outdoors like it's undercover but it's outdoors so it's not an aircon yep so i yeah i have two identical black button-up shirts i take them both i have an undershirt and so for the first two gigs i'm just wearing a vest

over the shirt with an undershirt as well i get through those two events and then i switch it out i put on the new button-up shirt and now i'm leaving the waistcoat and i'm putting the the jacket on instead absolutely because by the second one yeah that.

Button-up shirt was getting pretty gnarly and you just want it it feels good to like go into the next last gig or whatever like just feeling fresh again so absolutely what about special requests i've had agents like i had i had a talent agent like last christmas they're like doug can you can you wear a santa hat to this gig and i'm like santa hat i got a red hat i'll wear the red that and they're like all right yeah can you can you say uh ho ho ho magic christmas a lot it's becoming

clear that this man has booked me as a magic santa but doesn't want to tell me, yeah had he done that i probably would have said i'm not doing this but yeah i'll do it i mean like special requests to like dress it up a little bit do you how do you handle that you know, oh i do it all the time i did a gig just last week right to dress as a magic genie.

Is this an extra charge event in your calendar like i just i throw like an extra 200 bucks on top of my normal fee yeah where i wear a costume i look like an idiot and then i get changed and i go home like that's just yeah that could like be repeat use boy like a one of like i'm not gonna be magic santa again you know i'm not gonna go oh no you have a costume shop so i have a costume shop that i go there i don't have a genie like i don't know i think kinky thing there we

go the your world tips yeah so yeah set up a friendship with a costume shop just tell them it's an extra 200 bucks it's probably like 70 bucks to hire the costume i had to wear like basically a hat no shirt on just a vest but it's like a sparkly vest and then pants and kind of like a i don't know what you call it but it's like a like a garter almost but it's just a red silk that you put around your torso so you look like the like a

genie yeah yeah and so like i had to wear that i think it was for like two hours that i had to wear that and it sucks because it's like i'm still charging my full rate but i got no pockets whatsoever so i'm just roving with nothing but three coins which i think actually no one coin i had one coin which i had stuck at my wrist watch.

And one pack of cards and that was all i did i roved with it you know and i had this room 230 people at this gig and i was just like that that's all i can do but that's worth considering when you're charging for these kind of events it's extra work and trouble for you not just to rent the damn thing you got to return it maybe clean it you know yada yada yada so yeah yeah i love the solution yeah so just say like either extra 150 to 200

bucks hire the costume and then you got to go do it you know but it's like and the thing is you can't like you're gonna get changed at the gig sometimes like we want you to dress up but there's no dressing room or there's no green room you're like you want me to rock up looking like a muppet and i've had to do like that you know.

Just like a spaceman and painted in silver and just been like far out you know like or you've got people like me and will wear a costume even though i'm not booked for a gig, i went out this is what josh wears on tuesday i i went out and bought a minion costume because i had the day to myself and i knew that i had this idea to do it because i bought a minion deck of cards in Singapore at Universal.

And so even though no client was requesting it, I went and got myself a bloody minion costume from the costume store, which I now own, if anyone needs one. And that was just for my own doing. But normally clients don't ask that that much. I had one event last week that just asked if I could wear red because that was their theme.

So I wear these, it was like a pool party. So I wore my red cap and my red blingy shoes that I wear and showman which have like they it looks like they're like bedaviled shoes but i already had that stuff anyway and i was yeah it was it was easy you just triggered a memory pool party i did an event which was a 60th birthday party on the weekend and i gotta tell you this story because i feel kind of bad about it what happened was i was performing away right they booked me for a couple

of hours of this event i was there from bang on 7 p.m and there wasn't a lot of people there now Now, when you're in those scenarios where someone's like, can I show you a trick? Can I show you a trick? We've spoke about this before. I'll be like, don't wash your hands. Your hands look gross, blah, blah, blah. But there was like, you know, and I'll just be like, and I just, you sort of play it off. But there was no one around.

And I'm like, I think everyone's going to rock up late. And I thought, well, what the hell? This will kill six minutes. I'm like, I give him the deck and I'm just showing the importance of the deck. Don't put it in the wet patch on the table, please. Don't do this. Don't mess up my deck. Don't crinkle the cards. It's like, I got to use this tonight. So I do a thing and whatever else, this chick calls her boyfriend over.

And he's like, I know a bit of magic. And I'm like, oh, no, what am I going to do? Like, idiot. Like, I'm going to crush this guy. So I do. I do my thing. And he's like, can I please, please, please show you a trick? Like, I'm like, I'd rather you didn't, man. Like, I'm getting paid a lot of money to be here. And I don't want to, like, maybe when I'm done, please, please, please, please, please. And I was like, you know what? Nuts. We'll do it.

And so I see him do this trick. And then he gets the spectator, Angus, next to me.

And he goes do this and just throw those out there it's when you hold your two fingers out bend them in like triggers because what is he going to do he's going to do the trick that should never be done where he's going to slap the cards out of the guy's hand and i said don't do it don't and i held out my hand like don't do it don't hit him don't hit the deck don't don't do that don't don't and he just ignored me and then hit me and cards went over the floor,

and I was like, damn it, man. Card all over the floor. Guy turns the thing over. Everyone's like, did he just hit... I'm not using names. Did he just hit blah? And it's just like, yeah. And I just went, I can't use those now, man. No, I'll pick them up. And I'm like, nah, nah, you keep them, dude. Here's the box. You keep the deck. I'll go grab a fresh deck. I didn't make it a thing. I want to be very clear about that.

So I go back and I'm performing to another group. And he comes over after he's picked up all the cards. And I just went to my case, grabbed the, I was performing with the red deck, went and grabbed the blue deck, went back. And he comes over and he's like, sorry, man, you can keep the deck. And I'm just like, no, I can't use stuff that's been on the floor, brother. Like, you know, and I'm like, no disrespect to the floor.

Like, it's a beautiful house and I'm sure it's clean. It's just that I don't want people to be touching things that have been on the floor. Like, I'm classier than that. And I shoot cards in the air. I catch them in my mouth. I do all these things. I don't want to know like you keep it. I don't want it. I don't want it. No, no, you have to have it. I'm like, dude. What is happening? I was like, I was this close to like off away from me right now.

And the guy who booked me was the son of the, of the birthday boy was like, I'll take him. Thank you, fella. He took them.

And then he pulled me aside afterwards. was he goes i just told him just leave magic to the magicians all right fella now i don't know the status of this guy i don't know what his deal was i think he was just a plus one that nobody particularly liked because they're all just like we don't even like him he's from brisbane and so that made me laugh oh yeah the reason i felt bad was as i was walking about the party i saw him afterwards and he looked like he'd been visibly like

physically crying his eyes were just like a mess and i was like oh no that's not the customer experience i wanted and so i i i spoke to the guy who'd booked me and i'm like man i i hand to god i did not make this a big deal i just said sorry man i can't use stuff that's been on the floor you keep it i'm gonna get a fresh deck i did not make it a thing it's a two dollar deck of cards as far as like, like there's no need to be so precious about it you know and he was like don't

worry about it like that guy's been doing my head in all night was the energy he put out but i just couldn't like.

Fathom i actually spoke to my mentor about it you know what i mean and it's just like it's just i think it's just what happens when somebody does a little bit of magic and maybe used to get a girl in the past and then they meet a real magician and then you kind of like show him what a real magician is and in that moment he had almost like an identity crisis and just fell apart like that i wasn't acknowledging him as something like it was a weird experience

and i want to know put it out to you two professionals like did i do anything wrong was i a dick i don't think i was i certainly didn't intend to be you want to make a grown man cry this guy was like in his probably mid mid-20s possibly even 30 like he's a grown-ass man i wonder i think we've talked about this before but i forget like we played i've never ever done this but i don't hate the idea of having, crappy second deck on me that is for spectators when they ask you to do a trick.

I wonder if that if that would stop us having to you know get a deck destroyed every now and then or worry about the trick they're gonna sit all 20 times on the table when he was insisting that you take it back like i don't want it you could have been like oh man all right and then maybe that would have not made him cry i don't know yeah maybe that maybe that's what i should have done but i was like mid performance for another group on the other side of the property on the

other side of the house and then he come in yeah yeah drunk and emotional that's the thing he's trying to like make it better and you're making it worse you know because he's like hey man i'm sorry here you go and you're like fuck off yeah it's in the middle of something bro like read the room you dick like you know places that you're just like an education and then he cried you know it was a 60th birthday party i was two with old people like go away you drunk young

person you know like yeah but it was a grown-ass man so i guess maybe i should have just gone thanks brother i appreciate that and paid it off but you know yeah yeah or i mean or in hindsight you could have gone all right let me really show you how you can do a trick take that deck shuffle it like You could have gone into a thing where he, you know what the top card is or whatever. And now you do it, you know, do as I do or something. Could be fun.

Scotty P sent in one more speak pipe, but I'll summarize it because he... Let me know he sent it in and just so he can squeeze it in before we end today. Scotty, thank you for sending this. I listened to it before the pod. Basically what Scotty also said he has started doing, which is great for this tips episode, is if it's a banquet table event where you've got 10 to even 20 different tables, every table has a number on it.

And that's so that the guests know which table they have to go to to sit at. And also so that catering knows which tables to deliver food to. But what Scotty said he did was he got there an hour early and he had pre-planned this, but he was going to do an effect similar to Angle Zero, where the corner of a card disappears and reappears somewhere. And he would get the numbered card and associate that with the actual numbered table so he could remember which piece of a card was on which table.

Clever stuff. so he would he was saying that he he took the corner and he put it underneath the actual table the number stand that was in the middle of the banquet table so that he could do that effect on any table he wanted and he knew by looking at what number table they were at which card which gaff they needed to ring in essentially fun stuff fun stuff and because only that table is seeing that effect happen they're probably not going to put two and two together oh is it a four because

we're at table, you know, if anything, you can make that seem more miraculous. Oh, you picked a four and we're at table four. That's even better, you know? So great work, Scotty. You wanted to slip that in there because that is also a nice little tip. Yeah. Let me add to that. Sometimes tables have salt shakers on them.

And if you're performing very early in the evening, well before food gets there, it's not a bad idea to throw a little something in a salt shaker and then going to that table typically it's a good idea to also make sure that like the ceos in that table you know do an angle c grab a salt shaker and get a bit of a shake and then you show it's gone turn the salt shaker around it's in there crack it open pour the contents you know what i

mean like because they typically have like cutlery and wine glass so it's a little something i've done in the past you know here's the hot tip you vanish the salt shaker into your new topic. And then he back goes home with you as you take Wester's Rockefeller on your way out the door. You walk away with a trail of white snow just leading all the way to your green room. You just walk around just toppeting like the silverware and everything. My entire kitchen has been filled with gig banquet wear.

None of it matches, but it's all real nice. Can you imagine messing with the event now? Like you line your toppet with plastic. And every time a canapé, the caterer comes up to you, oh, would you like one? Yes, but I'll save it for later. And he just top it like every little meatball thing they have. And it's just all going into this plastic thing you can clean out later. But that's... That reminds me of Mike Cavaney's act. Have you seen what he does with someone on stage from their jacket?

No. I got called on stage for Mike Cavaney for this act. He borrowed my jacket. And he says, oh, hold on a second. And then he goes, oh, he's doing something in my jacket. He's like, what's this? And he pulls a fork out of my jacket. He says, helping yourself to some of the tableware, huh? And he goes, oh, hold on a second. And there's a spoon and a knife. Starts dumping copious amounts of silverware onto the stage.

A drink bucket hits the ground. And then he goes, and hey, who ordered the chicken? And it's a chicken. Oh, my. A live chicken. So this is Mike Cavaney's closer, which I got to experience at the Singer Theater from the stage. Wow. Yeah, that's impressive, yo. Mike Cavaney. It's probably in his book. What's the name of Cavaney's book? Yeah, Mike's never spoken about that, and I've jammed with him quite a few times, but I'm going to bring that up when I see him next.

That's fun, man. Oh, it's hilarious. Oh, I don't want to blow it. Well, once you learn the method, it's so, so. Well, we could talk about off air. We can't talk about cavity methods live in public.

We're going to talk about it off air because it has come to the end of the show, which means it's probably time for our final word. And, Doug, it's been a while since you said one. I think it'll be fun if you wrap this episode up with some words of wisdom. Guys, thank you for listening. I prematurely pressed the button. Well, we'll just politely say thank you for listening. And by all means, scope out Josh Nibito's website. Yeah, that's good.

Scope out nicknames.com and of course, learnslightahand.com How'd they say? Winter, winter. 20% off. Come learn some magic. Alright, the final word coming from Doug. Here we go. I thought that was the final word. I was plugging my thing and learn sleightofhand.com. It's holiday sale, winter wonder. Go save some money and learn some tricks. You don't have to spend money. I got free stuff. Come find me. LSOH.org. It's easy. That's it. It's a plug. Get me off of here.

Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys. Hey!