Performing Tips #162

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Oh yes. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 162 of the Magic Guys. To my left, we have Nick Kay. Welcome to the show, friends. Oh yeah. And Doug Conn is away being a master magician at a convention. I think he's mid-drive right now. Now, so today you've got the crew that know what to do when daddy's not here.

When daddy's away, the kids will play. Let's play, friends. And who do we have here to play with us? It looks like we've got a few of our friends. Scott Link, the Christian magician, Matthias. We've got Ed. My goodness, Tim, the whole crew of whimsical wizards are here.

I like that whimsical wizards this is great everyone's been having combos without us before we got here so I love I love what's going on and look you know we're friends you know Nick and I are just good friends when we don't even plan it and we wear the exact same outfit you know my god we're like twinsies we should go to Taylor Swift together yeah would you go I had tickets to Taylor Swift I have them and I lost them in a breakup it was kind of like a consolation prize

it was like this ain't working but fear or not pack your shit and here is a gift two tickets to taylor swift you can go with someone who's not me because i don't want to be around you this isn't goodbye this is i can't stand you, This is, we will never, never, never get back together. Wow. You literally gave her a breakup concert ticket. Yeah. Which was a nice compilation.

Wow. Isn't that kind of ironic though? Like most of her songs are about relationships and the breakup she goes through and you don't go to it because you had a breakup.

Out like i said man if i ever start a band again it's gonna be like all the taylor swift songs but the other side from the guy's perspective of what went down because she slanders every two she's broken up with i'm gonna call john mayer i'm gonna be like what really went down and he's gonna be like she leaves the toilet seat up and i'm like that's weird what else does she do it's like she pooped in the bed and

i'm like what that doesn't make sense no we we need to hear the truth and And, you know, like that's why she'd never dare date Eminem, because Eminem would write the Hellman rebuttal. Yeah. Although she's now with a very handsome, talented football NFL player, right? That's right. Yeah. That was massive news. Not to magicians, because we don't watch football or TV, but that was a big deal. Yeah. Did you play any sports growing up? Were you like a basketball kid?

You seem like a basketball guy. I mean, with your height and stamina, like you would be a perfect basketball player, like an amazing center or a point guard. I'm, I'm, I'm so impressed that, you know, those terms. Cause I don't point guard center. I don't know that I, so I think I'm six foot. No, you're taller than me. You're taller than me. Aren't you? I'm six two. You're you're. I don't think I'm more than six two, but I'm, I'm like around there. Right.

I'm like around there, but I'm, I'm like that now. Now, but growing up in high school, like I didn't have none of that height. I was like, I was the short kid. So yeah, no, no good at basketball skills. No good at rugby skills. I did gymnastics all through high school. So that was, which is just a solo sport, which is, that's, that's what I was doing. Also, I could go on AGT, you know, in 2019 and do a backflip.

Yeah. I was actually telling Josh during the week, how many times in the past month I've been performing and someone says to me, do a backflip. And I'm like, that's my friend, Josh. That is his thing. That is not mine. That's funny. Cause I don't, I'm, I'm never at gigs and get asked to do a backflip or like once, but yeah, that doesn't really happen to me. So it's funny that, Maybe all my, all my followers are in Melbourne. Yeah.

We're all big fans of you, Josh. We're all big fans. And we're all fans of magic. And today's magic topic is going to be about performing tips. Tell the kids about it, Josh. Yes. Well, look, you can buy all of the downloads and all the gimmicks you want. But at the end of the day, like there's two parts to doing magic, right?

Like one is you have to learn the skill. But then the second thing is you have to learn how to act like a goddamn human when you're trying to execute that skill in a social situation and performing. And it's that stuff that we don't really learn much about in books and things like that. And that's when all of the stuff happens that you don't account for, that you only really learn from performing and just from getting that stage time.

So today, what we thought we'd do is we'd go back and forth and give some performance tips of just things you might not even think of, or just like things that you should start thinking about if you want to perform. And that's, you know, from two seasoned corporate guys, that's what we're going to share with today. Okay. Absolutely. Now, with one of the things that I get asked the most is like, like from the very beginning, how do you even approach a group?

So I thought I would share some of the things that I shared, not only from my lecture, and which I also share with all the magicians who are on our books at Omega Entertainment. Let's start with tip number one, which is to approach a group.

Are we oh i think i i or you froze for a second so we are ready yes let's go we're excited all of the things let's do it was that too much okay that's great how to approach a group now this is the way i do it now i just want to be straight up open that like i'm going to share my theories on it nothing is gospel i'm sure that other people have means of approaching groups someone told me me that like i do it the way burnout like

ben earl does where i just walk around with a drink and pretend i'm part of a party and wait for someone to tell me oh what do you do for a living and it's like that could take that could take several minutes if not tens of minutes before someone cares enough to say hey what do you do well i kind of do magic do you want something and if you're only at a corporate gig for an hour that is not gonna work so here is how i approach groups i simply approach

groups and i say that i'm either there for half the venue or the client and I will approach them and say, good evening, folks. How are we all? Wonderful. My name is Nick Kay and it is my job to entertain you fine people. Is now a good time for magic or am I interrupting conversation?

That is the first thing I say. And the reason I say that is that at these corporate events, every now and again, people are invited, possible new clientele, even existing customers that the CEO or whoever might be in that company who's hiring you is trying to get into the room in order to do business with. Now, if they have some momentum going in which they're about to lose a deal, you do not want to be responsible for ruining that.

A let's say sorry we're just in the middle and can we come back and if that happens you simply so not a problem friends whenever you're ready for it you simply give me a wave i'll come back and entertain you find people have a lovely evening and you walk away it might just mean that they're not into magic some people and there's a very small majority of these people we don't know what's wrong with them it hasn't been identified but they don't like magic and that's okay but allow

people to say no knowing that you're not experiencing any rejection for all of that because it's one of the things that we fear the most when approaching people that we're going to get rejected for our magic and what we want to do so allow them to say no and just move on because it's going to one you're going to entertain people who want to see it because they've asked for it right and two you just don't have to deal with

the rejection that you're not going to see the magic and it also means that if someone says did you see the magician they'll go no i didn't know who was here and it's like well what are we paying him for sometimes that that that might happen. But you totally negate all of that by being able to say, yes, he came to us, but I was in the middle of chatting to brand new client A, and I didn't have a chance to see what he did for the time he was here. So that's one of the things you want to do.

Now, if somebody says, yeah, now's a great time. That's lovely. Here's what I say next. I choose someone in the group, typically someone who exudes any sort of alpha energy or someone who is going to be a distraction, and I try to pull them apart from that, right? Now, you can choose people for whatever merit you want to choose, but whoever you choose, I say this.

We're putting you in charge. What do you want to do? We can do card magic, coin magic, magic with borrowed objects like your rings and mobile phones, or we can do my award-winning stuff. What do you want to see? And then they choose it. Now, the fact they've asked to see what magic they want to see means that they're all in agreeance with what's happening there, and no one's pushing back. And they're all going, okay, great. And now they have their attention, and you allow them to choose.

So what's cool about that is that you're showing to people that you have a repertoire, and that you have more than one thing to do. Now, you don't have to use my script. Some of my friends will say different things like, do you want to see something really cool or something really crazy? And they go, I want to see something crazy. I go, cool, let's do it. I have another friend who will say, do you want to do something psychological or something visual?

And they'll go, psychological. And then he'll do mentalism as opposed to magic. So there's a few ways you can approach it. Find your own flavor and ask what you want to see. It could just be, do you want to see cards, coins, or something random? And you can do it like that. But the good thing when I've done this is that it's got me booked again. again, because there's been times where I've been performing and I've always saved like my best trick for, for the CEO.

And that CEO will say, Oh no, I've already seen it. Thank you.

And they go away thinking that I'm just this one trick pony showing one trick or group. But then I've been rebooked for events and I finished the event and go, Hey, I want to thank you for having me. It was an absolute pleasure entertaining your guests. And they say, what are you doing November? And I go, hopefully working for you. And they say, great, because I saw your coin stuff and and your card stuff, but I want to see your award-winning stuff and the other stuff.

I go, wonderful. I look forward to seeing you in November. Let me know the date as soon as you can, and I'll put a light pencil in my calendar. They go, great. We'll see you in November. So it's one of the things that allows you to show that you have a larger scale repertoire as opposed to just one thing. And it also means that you're more inclined to be invited back to that table or back to that group to keep performing. And then whatever they choose is what you perform, and away you go.

So that's a nice way to open to a group, and you cover a lot of basis. I predicated all this information based off the Max Maven book, Prism. And in that book, he explains when you approach a group or an audience in general, you need to cover who are you, what are you doing, and why are you worth my time? So when you approach a group and say, I'm Nick, I'm your magician, why am I worth your time? For me, it's because I say I'm award-winning. So it covers all of those expectations. I like it.

Do you use that same opening line when you're doing your residencies? I do sometimes with my residencies, but every now and again, I see opportunities that I want to take advantage of in which I choose the routine that's going to unfold as a result, because I see an opportunity for putting something under someone's watch, for example. You know, I'm like, I've got this routine, I've got to do this. So that's one of the things I try to lean into. too.

But if I have an opportunity to allow people to have that control, they love it. They like to feel that special. I like to feel like they they're in charge for a moment. Let them feel like this is a privilege they've paid for by being in that venue and just afford them that and makes them feel special.

I would love to in the future, since, you know, we're getting all multimedia on the podcast, it'd be cool to see one of your introductions like on video, like some undercover cover footage of you approaching a group and seeing that dynamic i think that that would be cool for me and for the for the crew although you know i could be right you guys put in the comments if that's something you'd like to like to see well it's nice it's

nice that you say that just because i'm actually considering doing a type of training course which i was going to share with the magicians on our books on how to approach people and so forth so that was kind of one of the things that you can say so the reason i bring that up is that if you're working for a client you you can introduce yourself. A nice way to break the ice is if you know who the CEO is, you can go to that group and say on behalf of the CEO, hi friends, David said that I must come

and show you some magic. Is now a good time? Oh, David sent you here? Yeah, David sent us here. Thank you, David. I know that you sent the magician over. That was really cool of you. We loved it. It was such a cool performance. That's one of the things you can do. So just, if you can represent yourself, that's great.

But if you represent the venue you work for, or the person hiring you, it just makes you seem a lot more valuable and it makes the client seem a lot more special that someone had sent you there. I like it. This is all good stuff. Tim's saying, yep, he wants to see the undercover footage of you approaching people like a ninja. Excellent. Yeah. Do I talk about my approach or no? We'll just go to different advice. Well, I think that wraps up tip number one. But I think tip number two,

I would love to hear what you have to offer, Josh. Let's move on to tip number two. All right. Tip number two. So I should have had a sound ready for that. But this one, I'm not sure how much of a tip it is. It's just something that happened that is the first time it's happened in my parlor show that ended up being positive. And I filmed it as I film all my shows. So I wanted to share it with you guys. Now, the background is in my parlor show at the Theater of Magic, I do coin under watch.

And this one particular guy, the watch was loose, but also he was not a heckler, but he was very like trying to be involved in the show. So he kept like, so first of all, when I had to put his hand like this, by the time I walked back to the stage, he like went like this to like check if the coin was now in his hand. And I'm like, you bastard, like, just, you know, hold your horses because, you know, in his mind, maybe I did sneak the coin in his hand.

So him checking makes me think, okay, he's like, not exactly going to play to the rules, but so did that. And then after the coin is meant to have disappeared and reappeared where he is, he's like doing these big motions. And at some point the coin must've fallen out. And that's what you're about to see here. So in coin under watch, when I, when I'm performing it, I say that the coin is going to go from my hands to yours.

And when they open their hands, the coin is not meant to be there, but then I allude to where it is. And what you're about to see is what happens when he says it's not under his watch. And then I cut to about a minute later when I'm doing another phase of a coin trick and I referred back to what happened with him and we'll talk about it. All right. Let me bring it up. And here we go.

And now the way that happens is they go up the arm across the chest down to the other arm and then on to the floor, Or in this case Into the other hand and that gives us the second coin now the third one is, So that's, so that's the clip in its entirety. Essentially what happened was the coin, if you couldn't tell, it fell on the floor. So he goes, nah, it's not there. And then he goes, nah, it's here. And he points to the floor and it's like,

what do you do in that moment? And I'm, I'm sure Nick has had this happen before as well. So we're going to hear from him, but essentially like the tip here is I never take myself too seriously. So I'm kind of reacting in the moment, but now looking back at it, like I didn't really take it too seriously. So when he says it's not there, I'm just like, oh, good, good, good. And probably I would have just gone to, cause I was about to do more phases of producing coins.

So I would have probably just gone to him and produced a new coin and moved on and nothing the wiser, but because he did spot on the floor, I just made a joke that he was spectator of the year. And then later, because I'm literally saying a similar line, the way the the coins go across as it goes up the arm, across the chest, dah, dah, dah. I just throw that line in there and onto the floor.

And then they remember that and bringing light to like the mishap that happened, shows that you're in the moment and you're not trying to like be Mr. Cool and like, hope no one noticed something not going right. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk. Well, look, the coin under watch or anything under watch is quite a very, very strong piece of magic.

In fact, if you look three posts back on my Instagram, you will see me doing the very same effect with a folded playing card in which I get a Mercury card fold and I have this whole misdirect. And you can see the presentation yourself there. If you scope out Nick K Magic on Instagram, you can scope that out entirely. I've been doing this routine for a very long time. And there's certain ways you can combat this.

It's never a guarantee, you know what I mean? But there's certain ways you can combat that. So anyone attempting to do this, here are some tips on how to ensure that you can lock in what's under the watch. So when you ask the spectator to hold out both their hands, they hold them both out, palm up, right? Their left hand typically will have the watch if they're right hand dominant, okay? You can then use your right hand to sneak that particular anything underneath

their watch. And you can do that whilst asking them to take a step over so that they can be positioned and everyone can see them better. And you can also do that in the process of taking their hand that doesn't have the watch to place on top of their other hand. So that's one of the ways you combat that sort of misdirection wise. When I do it with a pack of playing cards, I'll say to them, I go, hold up both your hands, come forward a minute. How many cards in a pack?

And they go, 52. And I go, eh, something like that. And then I get someone to name a number and you will see the presentation afterwards. But I just try to get their brain to think of anything other than what's under their watch. Now, that presentation that you saw, that fell out and landed on the floor. No one noticed it, but it did fall out of his watch. And I just picked it up and put it straight back under and got away with it, right? It does happen. It does happen. It was a very hot day.

We were having a bit of a heat, very high temperatures here in Melbourne. But here's one of the things you can do to ensure that it locks underneath the watch. So the action for putting it under someone's watch is when you basically run your hand, right hand down their forearm, and it gets delivered to the watch. The next thing you want to do is make it as if you're positioning them and moving them. And what you do then is you try grip the watch and push up the arm.

Because typically, as far as a forearm goes, it's slimmer at the wrist and widens as it goes towards the elbow. So as you push back on that watch, it will tend to go back and lock in. Again, not a guarantee if they're doing any sort of great vigorous move, but there's a little pro tip on how to load under and lock in something under someone's watch. That's really smart. I've never myself even considered that, actually moving their watch up to make it tighter. That's great, man. Pro tip.

That is another pro tip from Nick K. and at the end of the day what we're saying is because this particular tip is really about, nothing's ever gone wrong until you tell them it's gone wrong so like there's always a way to fix you're performing like the the routine especially in close-up like anything bloody goes in close-up like the other day i went to do a like a routine and i'm using like a smoke pen and i realized halfway through i pulled out a normal sharpie and i'm like oh this

i can't do the routine and i just Whatever. I just talk my way out of going into the next routine. Eventually, you've done it so much, anything can happen and you're fine with it. But I guess what we're saying is just be comfortable with that uncomfortable moment and you'll be able to be present and work your way out of it.

And you know had that happened to me 10 years ago with that guy saying the coin's not there i probably would have sweat bullets you know but now i couldn't even look at me i'm like i'm like half asleep i like look like i couldn't care at all vanish nick's gone nice well speaking of sweating bullets i actually forgot to bring this over speaking of spitting bullets i've been asked quite a few times like how do you keep your head from staying dry and like and sweating

under under pressure and so forth. So moving on to our third tip, I have a little tip for you guys who worry about any sort of perspiration that might happen on your face. Should we go on to step three or tip three?

Let's do it. Welcome to tip three. So I was messaged recently actually by our good friend and sponsor, Sean Piper from Piper Magic. And he was saying, and he tried to make, he's like, I don't want to sound like a bit, but how do you stop from sweating? Like on your face and in your head, like I'm always so sweaty. Now, I know friends who will do it and keep like a towel or a hanky in their back pocket just to wipe down every now and again as they're doing their thing.

Great idea. That was covered in Maximum Entertainment book, which was written by Ken Weber, which is one of my favorite books, probably my most favorite book.

On magic and performance but i wanted to share this because i i put this on religiously and i have at least three bottles at any one time in my cabinet and this is a it's called no more sweat it is a that's kind of shiny apologies but it's called no more sweat it's called a it's a face anti-perspirant so what's great about this is that you it applies on like you would any sort roll-on deodorant for your armpit, only it's engineered to be put on your face.

It's mainly used for the treatment of acne and things of that nature. So people who have super oily skin and it tends to really, really ruin their skin. But this also doubles as an amazing thing to be putting on your face when you're performing.

Now, the good thing about this is that one, if you are someone who's sweating, or if you're even just self-conscious about it, it's just one less thing you have to stress about because stress is going to what's caused that that's sort of the the perspiration so i will shower up i'll put on a moisturizer and then i'll chill for a bit and once that moisturizer sunk in i apply this to my entire melon. All over my cheeks, forehead, my entire melon, even under my neck, like the whole melon.

And I just smear it over. I let it dry. And it effectively just minimizes the amount of perspiration you would experience that would ordinarily come on your forehead and head and so forth. So that's a nice way to deal with heat management. We've spoken about other methods of heat management, like the Arctic cooling vest, but this is a really great pro tip.

So for anyone one who wants to who worries about that yeah so what so officially what is the name of that, so it's called so i believe the brand is called no more sweat it's something you can purchase or order through here in oz it would be chemist warehouses where i order them from but i'm sure there's lots of different versions of this it's not entirely expensive at all and i would rather, spend the money to have the confidence knowing that i'm not sweating bullets

as i'm performing or if I'm feeling under pressure. And I can tell you times that like someone's tried to ruin my trick and it's like, look at him, he's nervous. And I'm like, bro, do you see me sweating? And they don't because I have this. So it just shows that you almost exude more confidence from it, the fact that you're not sweating like all buggery. It's great. That's great. I'm going to have to look into it. Right now, my sweating method is just I wear an undershirt.

And I also apply translucent powder to my face and now to my head that I have a bald head and translucent powder for the young kids out there is just a powder that you can't see, but it creates a matte layer to your skin so that if you do sweat, you can see it.

You're not going to have that shiny look when the lights hit you, especially if you're performing on stage, like you're seeing Nick right now, you won't see that hot globe look, yeah, it, it gives you that smooth look and if you're ever on stage and especially if a camera is projecting onto you onto the screen, it just keeps you calm, cool and collected. It also has a weird way of, I don't know if the powder kind of covers your pores, but it does stop you from sweating out your face.

You will start to sweat more out of like other places but i don't know how to explain it but it does sort of stop you sweating here as well and that that's just what i've experimented with but yeah yeah because in australia mate you've got to find your ways of not sweating that's for sure yeah and just while we're on the topic of sweating though one more thing i want to make mention with regards to heat management or even just sweat management is there is a

company called clines i believe it's called k-l-i-e-n-s and they have these anti-sweating things now this is kind of an embarrassing thing to admit, but they have this thing. It's called a bro, like a B-R-O, a bro. And it looks kind of like a bra. Okay. And I have about half a dozen of these. And what it is, it's very much like a bra that you'd wear on your person, but it actually goes under your armpits. And so what it's made of is this particular fabric in which you can't sweat through.

So it's good to wear this on your armpits because it's not like wearing a t-shirt where you would generate more heat to soak up your sweat you actually can be a little more comfortable but have your armpits entirely covered and any sort of perspiration that you might have is going to be stopped or blocked by these armpits um so it's really good if you perform in a shirt and you want to be on stage and be able to raise your arms without showing that you've got this wet patch,

so that's one of the cool the cool things you can do with it and also it's called a so it's called a bro a bro yeah the bro it's called yeah and is yours a do you use a push-up bro, the bitch.

I'm i'm done now that's a good one that's a real good one but um yeah no and it's it's ridiculous like it's you know like i i get i would be so embarrassed if like i had to undress in front front of a lady and be wearing this thing you know and then yeah like you you know then have her like can you can you do it with one hand i can do it with one hand you know what i mean like it would just be kind of embarrassing but they

come in three different colors you can get them in skin color white and black i have white and black ones to match my shirts do not wear a black one and wear a white shirt pro tip you are going to ruin your white shirt so that's a little hot Hot tip on sweaty, sweaty, hairy men. All right.

Pro tip number four. This tip is based around the caterers at an event. It's the one thing that has been battling with magicians for centuries is at a cocktail event. When you're entertaining a group, you're at the climax of the routine. And then you had this woman come right barging into the middle saying, would you like a spring roll? Would you like a spring roll? Would you like a spring roll?

I don't want no fucking spring roll and that's how we feel on the inside is we want to murder that person especially when they arrive with some weird foamy thing and then she's got to spend the next eight minutes describing what it's made of and then there's always some vegan is it vegan and it's like no but it have parsley i can't eat parsley it gives me the shit and then you end up in this whole like oh you're derailing the best part of my show yes and it's such a dampener on

on the on you on you with that group it stops everything and especially if it's like some real handsy thing like now everyone's standing there watching you but they're all holding stuff eating and they're like and it's just fucking crazy yeah that happens yeah when you need to engage with someone and you're like what is your name like and because they got a whole mouthful full of aderves. Yeah. Yeah, that too. So here's my tip. And this just happened.

I know I've mentioned this on the pod before, but it's worth mentioning now so that everyone just, it's just nailed in their heads. So the tip I discovered is the moment when that person interrupts and it's going to happen, but they're going to interrupt and they're going to ask everyone if they want food and then they're going to walk away.

So what I've started doing doing so that it doesn't completely halt the performance and so that there's still a way to get back into the routine is I will politely stop and let them take their food. But then, because they always ask you as well if you want some. I don't know how they can't understand the dynamic of what's going on before they walk up, but I get it. They're paid to serve their food and that's fine.

But when they get to me, so by the time I see them arrive, before they get to me, I will palm a coin. And when they ask me if I want one, I will reach up and go, oh, I'll take this one and I'll just produce a coin and make the ting off their metal tray. Ting! Like this. I'll take that one. Thank you. I'll flick it. And let me tell you what happens. The caterer freaks out. They're like, oh my God, what? Because they're so blind that a magician's there, which is fine.

They're there to do their job. So what happens is they freak out and then the group watching will react to her reacting. And then it does two things. Number one, now you've started up the magic engine again, she'll walk away and they've seen her react and then I'll keep going or I'll make a joke about how, you know, magicians and caterers have been getting along for centuries. And that's a fun thing I like to do and I'll keep going. So it lets you start the performance again.

But the other thing it does is now that person knows that you're there doing magic and you you actually do start to get interrupted less and less throughout the night. The more that those caterers have that interaction with you. And also if you're with a group and that's happened at the beginning of your performance, if someone else interrupts again, they actually kind of now are excited to see what you're going to do to that caterer when they get to you.

And then I'll back palm a card and grab a card from underneath their tray this time. And it just shows how cool, calm, and collected you are and that you're sort of ready for anything. And so it's weird. It makes them excited to see what happens when you get interrupted by a caterer. The caterers learn that there's a magician there and it keeps everything flowing after they've done that because you produce something, magic happens, you keep going.

That is like the best thing I've ever discovered because now it's fun.

You can have fun with it when they interrupt you and i think everyone should do it that's my tip that's a brilliant bit of kit you know like a lot of times you you could combat this you know before you begin sometimes there's like a briefing where all the everyone's sort of sitting around and going like okay we're serving this is what's in it and they're educating everyone as to what's going on and in that moment you go hey guys i'm you know

i'm performing this evening if you do see me doing magic to folks just kindly Finally, dodge me for a minute. I'm only going to be like three minutes at most. And then you can go back to that group and serve them some hors d'oeuvres if that's cool, you know. And they're not going to be mad about it. It's like, just go to the other, like the group right next to me. So that's a really awesome way because you don't always have those opportunities to do that.

Yeah. And they don't always listen either. Yeah. So I highly recommend trying it. I remember David Stone watching his Real Secrets of Magic. He would, when he's working a restaurant, he would get given tips from people and he would actually give those tips to the service and they would then learn to not interrupt them because otherwise they might mess up him getting tips, which will be given to them. So if you have a residency, that's kind of a fun, a fun little thing as well.

If you're in, I guess, in the U S where people are tipping you cash, but yeah, it's just, it's just, it's made the night so much different doing magic to the caterers and it's fun. All right, we're up to Nick, Nick K. Pro tip number five. With regards to your performing, when you're doing these events, especially large-scale things, things don't always go to plan, okay?

And that's going to happen. And what I mean by that is that sometimes they book a large-scale event, but rather than actually hiring someone from an agency who has all the experience in the world, has done multiple tens of dozens of hundreds of thousands of events, they'll just go, no, we're going to get Carol from Accounts to run this event.

Who has no idea what she's doing and that's going to happen okay that's going to happen and it's kind of important that you take the reins in that and show yourself as an expert okay and you can say if she might ask for something you can go oh okay that's going to work or it's not going to work okay in those scenarios and just say for my professional opinion as i've done done a lot of events i think this would be the best one but what do you want to do and if she's like i want

to make an awful decision i'm like that's great you can make an awful decision but she made that awful decision you didn't say okay i can do that i can do that you can go like i say what you're saying but i think if we did it this way and so let's say an example it's like oh you're going to do a show and i'm like cool staging lighting no stage of lighting i'm like oh cool cool. I was told they would be. I'm like, yeah, no, I decided to cancel it last minute.

And I was just like, okay, cool. I definitely need that for my show. So how about this? I don't have an event for another three hours. So rather than me doing a 20 minute spot, what if I did another hour of roving just to ensure that everyone can actually one, see the magic and hear the magic? Because I assure you, if I get up on that stage with no microphone or anything, people are going to keep talking.

They're going to have their minds blown, turn to each other and say, how do you think he you did that i think you did this and then they're going to engage in conversation it's going to erupt into a like just their own little discussions and i'm not going to be able to maintain them and i don't want to have to scream at 140 decibels to maintain their their attention so do you want to do the show do you rather i stay for a bit longer and we continue with roving and then she might go carol in this

instance i think that i think you're you're right we should probably just do that considering that there's no lighting or no this and no that it's like yeah i think we We should do that. That's, that's the best thing you could do. Put it in their hands and do what you can.

It's kind of like when I went to the Sydney Opera House and we talked about how bad my stage setup was, like I had the combo with the client in advance, letting them know, like that is actually the worst setup humanly possible to a magician, just so you know. And they're like, and we decided to spend the extra money on alcohol instead of a screen that projects what you're doing. And I'm like, okay, just so you know, like that is going to majorly affect their experience.

And so as long as you make them aware of that and they're not like surprised, like what the hell that, you know, why didn't everyone watch you and go crazy? Yeah. I call this chapter in my, my lecture notes, take responsibility, pass along liability. So you take responsibility for giving them the best show possible, but they are liable for making that choice. They made the choice, whether it was right or wrong, they made it. And if it was the wrong one, you then say, I said, so I told you so.

And who doesn't love saying that? Yeah, that's I, we, we love that. All right. This is the first one. Jay, my buddy, Jay, he's a fellow Brisbane magician. Is there a donation button? Just been looking for it. That that's very kind of you, my friend. Yes. It's a West. Did I just freeze for like 20 minutes there for a minute? Yeah. But not too long. So, yeah, you were saying there is.

No one has to donate money ever because, you know, we're bosses and we do gigs, but there is a donation button on our merch website, themagicguyshow.com, if you feel so obliged. But you really don't have to, but there is one. I think the last person to donate to us was our friends from Juice Gala Magic. They donated $50. Can you believe it? So they get a massive harp from us. Pretty awesome. We love that. Yeah. So yeah, giving them a big, I told you so. Yeah. Very cool.

And you just got to stand your ground sometime because like we're always worried about, in the beginning, you're worried about causing any conflict or maybe you won't get booked again if you like, you know, act like a bit of a prima donna or whatever, but really you just know what you need. And so telling them that is just super important sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. That's a great tip. That is a great tip. Should we continue on to the next one? What's your tip?

All right. Let me play the... Awesome. All right. By the way, thank you, Tim. He said, these are great guys. Thank you, man. Awesome.

Next tip I have is, this is just a little one. I've shared this with plenty of magicians and it is, is if you're performing at a gala dinner or some kind of thing where there's speeches being given, even when they do their welcome speech, they are going to tell everyone, this is the welcome speech. So like everyone's just arrived. They got their pre drinks and cocktails and stuff, arrival drinks. And then there's someone giving a speech to welcome everyone.

I've learned that during that welcome speech, they want to show off what there is to do at the event. And one of those things is you. So they will say, enjoy the band we have playing here tonight. Go and take a photo at the photo booth. And we have a magician roaming around. Make sure you see him. Now that used to happen so many times that I would just stand there and like see that happen. But then I decided to make a moment of it.

And it's as simple as I grabbed some flash paper, knowing that that moment's going to happen. Okay. And as soon as they say, and there's a magician somewhere, I just light that bad boy, throw it in the air and you get that synonymous, like, whoa, from the audience and the person on stage is like, yeah, that's the guy. But it creates like a little moment because everyone's like,

whoa. And then the client's happy that that happened because now it like, seems like they're giving a better speech on stage. I've shared that with like every Brisbane magician that I've done gigs with. And now I've seen them start doing it as well. And I love that. And I remember gigging with Jason Gray, our fellow magician on the Gold Coast. And I was like, bro, do you have any flash paper on you? And he's like, yeah, why?

I can get some after the speeches. I'm like, no, no, no, we need it now. And I'm like, just wait, they're going to mention us. And when they do, let's just throw some fire in the air.

He's like, okay, is that really going to happen? I'm like, just wait. And then two minutes later, they go, and we have our magicians here, Josh and Jason. Where are they? play and then we'd go wait i was like wow and now for the rest of the night they already know where the magicians and they're like waiting to groups are waiting to see us so that is my tip.

That is a great a great pro tip i actively will like it's the moment where you sit there'll be someone next to me i'm like oh wait it's features and i will just grab flash in my left hand And I just wait. I just wait. And I'm just like, yep, just waiting. Here we go. So good. Yeah. I will say off the back of your point is I really dislike when they want to make an announcement that there's a magician at a roving event. But the gig was supposed to have 70 people and there's 10.

That's when I dislike they're like there's a magician here and I'm like no because you because you're there for an hour and it's going to just be 10 people stuck on you at this one table but at least if there's 10 people there might be three over there seven there or like and you can break them up you know what I mean and because you're going to do a whole and it's it's upsetting because what they should have done is book the parlor show where you can give them a proper

stage performance and this happens a lot at these events more so like birthday parties because you know So Sarah invited like 70 people, but like seven people like her. Yeah. We got to pause the podcast for a second. Jay, you are too kind, my friend. Jay just jumped on our website and he just donated 20 wizard dollars to us, to the pod. That is, you're too kind, man. It's your first time on the pod. God, if you fellow listeners, you freaking moochers here.

This is the first time he's been on this podcast and he's just donated straight away. You guys have watched 162 episodes and not a goddamn thing. Shout out. Jay McCoy, we appreciate you. Thank you very much. We're going to use that money to buy magic beans. It's going to be great. Magic beans, here we come. Now, onward to tip. Yep. Jeez. Tip number seven. Ooh, yeah. Oh, that's the wrong button, but we'll take it. We'll try again. Lead me in again. Now on to tip number seven.

When going to a gig, keep these three things in mind. Be easy to work with, be talented, be on time.

I'm going to say it again. Be easy to work with, be talented, be on time. If you are all three of these things, you will have an amazing career and every gig will be an absolute success. Success if you are only two of those things you can still make a living you will be okay but.

You if you're all three you will be unstoppable if you're one of those things stop doing magic get the hell out of my house that's amazing because you can be talented and easy to work with and late and they will tolerate it but i mean they will tolerate it but if someone else comes along with more punctuality guess what i would prefer to work with someone i know is going going to be there they're kind of a three out of five but they're always here so you

would prefer to work with that somebody you know what i mean that's like the sort of diva thing it's like they're very talented they're on time but there's such a pain in the ass to work with it's always this like the stage isn't high enough now you've got to bring another stage out and it's like well i can't rebuild the stage everyone's already here like well i can't go out then it's like what do you mean you can't go out there how much height is it it needs to be two

inches higher i'm like i'm I'm not going to raise it two inches, you know, like stand on a chair, you know? So that's the type of thing that can be the customer experience and the client experience as well. So if you are all three of these things, you will have an amazing career. Scotty just added in there. Number four, also be clothed. That's, that's important. That's worth mentioning. Yeah. Unless you're part of the Naked Magicians, in which case that's a big no-no. Yeah. Which that is true.

That's a great tip. Like you can be as talented as you want, but if you're a dick, it's not going to get you that far. It just, you know, there is some magicians out there that aren't that talented, right? We know them. We're not going to mention them, but we know who they are. And they're so lovely. They're so lovely. You know? They're so lovely. lovely and you will hire the shit out of them because of that. And you will go to their fringe festival shows because they're just so lovely.

Here's how, you know, if a magician is not that good, when you ask someone, if they know that magician and they say, oh yeah, I know him. He's such a nice guy. That means not that good. Am I wrong? Cause that is, no one says that about like Chris Angel, for example, or David Blaine. Have you seen David Blaine? Yeah.

Crazy shit. it blah blah blah they never go yeah he's such a nice guy it's like yeah yeah i bet you he is lovely though you know i bet you he's nice because i don't think he would just do anything to make it to be bad like it takes an effort to be a dick and he doesn't do that he just you know imagine drink yeah yeah i would still say yes i can't imagine i'm gonna ask garrett thomas i'm gonna ask garrett thomas gonna say garrett what's he like because

i i guarantee he's gonna be lovely He has to be. I bet he's lovely and I bet he's just like really weird and quirky because he's, you know, trying to create such high level art with pushing his, like, you know, his body's been through a lot. So he's probably like always thinking about the next hundred skydives he's about to do or I got to hold my breath for another 10 minutes tonight or I got to jump down a 20 story drop, you know?

Yeah. I can't believe he was doing those sorts of things. you know like that is that is a whole different discussion to have we should maybe we should do like the let's explore the crazy brain of david blaine that's a great rhyme oh i like it the brain of david blaine. This summer. I love how in the, one of the specials he did, Ozzy Wind is backstage with him and he's going to do the bullet catch.

And in rehearsals, the bullet cat, the, the, the mouth guard he's meant to catch the bullet with breaks. And he's like, okay, we just got to, uh, we just got to glue it up and fix it and dah, dah, dah. And Ozzy Wind's like, in my, if before a show, like a card gimmick of mine breaks, I will not do that trick. let alone the gimmick of something that's going to stop you from dying. You're just going to fix it and press on.

We're going to get some gorilla grips, some gaffer tape. It'll be all right. Nah, it's grass. Yeah. That's the title right there. Thank you, Thomas. The Brain of Blaine. That's going to be the podcast episode when we do it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. All right. Is it my turn? Yeah, we can squeeze in a couple more tips, I think. Okay. Mine's just a quick one. I love doing Rubik's Cube magic now, And I will do it now in roving gigs at a private booking event, but I'm not doing it at every table.

I'll use it as like showing a bit of texture in my event so that like maybe one, one, maybe two groups I'll do it. And at least people looking over will see me with it and realize it's kind of like what back to what Nick was saying. You want people to know you have more stuff you can do. So there's like four things I'll do at an event, which only that one group will see.

And it's very visual so when people look over they'll see me doing something they didn't see and so like the subtext is there's stuff he does i didn't see but with a ruby's cube it takes you know it's like such a chunky thing and i always used to find it awkward to carry it on me because if you stick it in your jacket pocket it's just a massive thing then i realized you can if you have a splash bottle gimmick on you which is like a holder on your belt it does sit in that

pretty And then recently I now have these awesome suit pants, which are. Elastic. So it, so the pants are always sort of look like they're tailored to your legs, but, and they're, and they're a bit lighter, but the good thing is the pockets are also elastic. So in your back pocket, you can actually comfortably stick a Roops cube in there. And that's cool too. But my tip is forget all that stuff.

What I do is I'll get to the event. Now I buy my cubes in bulk because I'll in a stage show, I'll give one away anyway. So I'll take the cube, I'll put it in my stack and I'll sit it on one of the cocktail tables and that's where it'll stay. So I'm not carrying it around with me, but guaranteed the group that walks up to it is going to mess with it or not. And that's how I'll get to it. At some point in the event, I'm going to see that cube again.

And when I get to it now, it's a little bit more organic because it's already there. It's not like I'm like, Hey, look at this thing that no one else has at this event.

And especially if they're there trying to mix it and then i come up and join the conversation and they're like oh can you solve one because they like genuinely a lot of the time don't know that i brought that they just think that how events have like giant jenga and all those kind of things that maybe they did bring it so it kind of like as an extra element of organicness if you You can call it that with a cube. So that's what I'll do. I'll sit it on one of the tables. I'll leave it.

And then at some point I'll get to it. I'll do magic with it. Bang. And then I'll take it with me and I might leave it on another table or I'll put it back in my case. And that's kind of like how I deal with that. And that way you're not carrying it on you. And it like sparks a conversation. I'll literally just walk up and be like, oh, so who's the cuber of the group? And then that's like the opening question that, that gets the combo started and you take it and you, you blow their minds.

Boy, that's my tip. We have time for one more tip. I think what's the number is it? Nine, seven, nine. No, we do quickly as well. We have a, our friend Matthew, who is also known as the Christian magician in here. He did send in a speak pipe, which we love getting a speak pipes to join in on the conversation. So let's, let's, uh, I put in our discord, like who has a tip of their own. And I think this is more of a comedic thing here, but we're going to listen

to it anyway. I'm going to look at Nick for the volume. Okay. So my tip is to not keep dog treats in your bag, but if you do and you are out, don't underestimate a dog's sense of smell. If you know, you know.

Anyways, my real tip is if you are out performing in, let's just say, 78 degree weather, and it's in the bare sun because they just dropped down the tree that you were performing next to, Two, keep a cover over your bag because if the sun is beating down on your bag, more specifically your linking rings, it's not going to feel very good mid-performance when you have to put the rings on your arm. Yeah, just a little tip. Keep your rings cool.

That is a really obscure, but I love that tip. Keep your rings cool. That's a pro tip, man. man, like sitting out in the sun, like baking in that sort of situation, like a coin or anything else that might happen like that. You know, yeah, that is a, that's a great tip.

You know, like you got to be sort of weary of your environment, I guess, off the back of that, you know, sometimes you're performing at a table, there's food, there's drink, you know, just take a second to identify that when you hand something out, somebody might put it straight in the table into this wet patch that the, that their ring, the ring of their glass, you know, know the condensation had just settled and then you got destroyed cards all of a sudden so.

Like i guess to take away from that as a whole is be weary of your environment you know you don't want to spread cards across the table if it's covered in sherbert yeah and yeah your cards will heat up they'll get warped wax any kind of like you know like card to ceiling wax will get very very soft in heat yeah things like that like sometimes yeah i'll go to grab the wax and it's gone cause I'll keep it on my belt or something.

And it's just gotten so hot. It's just gone all like soft and just like flopped right off. And yeah, so he, yeah, he can, can be a bastard. That was a great tip. Thank you for, and also for those who didn't know the reference about the dog and the dog treats, he shared a story with us how he used to keep dog treats because in that area where he busts, people would have dogs, but then one dog realized there's a whole bag of treats in that bag, stormed his bag.

Your stuff went everywhere so that's the also a good tip maybe you don't keep dog treats. In your bag because they'll uh definitely sniff it out yeah i think we have time for one more tip to wrap up this episode josh what do you say i say that's a good idea whose whose turn is it my my turn my turn okay okay thank god round out this tip with it quite possibly being one of the the most important ones. And that is two points I want to make. Look good, smell good.

I can't tell you how many times I've been performing amongst a whole group of magicians, whether it be for a large scale event or for a gala. And there are people who haven't taken the courtesy or had the professionalism to either like iron their shirt. So they come out with this entirely wrinkly number. And I can appreciate that when you travel, this becomes a thing. I respect that entirely. But, you know, if there's an opportunity to do that, I have a traveling steam iron. I have two of them.

I also have a- And they're very affordable too, to get a steamer. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you're traveling, get to the room and iron your stuff and then take a nap. You know, like when you're doing that, like I always iron my stuff and make sure that I'm really ready to rock. There's certain fabrics that don't crease as much. All of my suits are made of mohair. They have to be made of mohair. I have some suits that are not, and I will not travel with those.

Aesthetically, they don't come in that mohair print. so i have to like they always have to be that so you can scrunch them up and undo it i can appreciate that linen shirts i do wear linen shirts but thankfully i always make sure the colors are super starched so that they don't look all crappy and wavy i starch my shirts i do it myself or if not i have my dry cleaner do it but super important stuff because you want to look as as possible if you are going to be a

crinkly shirt type of guy wear a vest vests don't crinkle as much and you can roll them up so that they don't get creatures in them when you're traveling as well so you literally just roll them into almost a cigar type number and that that's going to work really well for you and then outside of that is like smell good because i can't tell you how many times people have gone and just been punching cigarettes before they go on stage and they have breath that smells

like the inside of someone's butthole i'm like you are a close-up magician. And you are punching darts before you go on, and you're asking people to literally be a foot away from your face, and you want to smell like that, just take a second and think about it, man. Now, also, don't smell so full on that when you walk into the room, it's like, the hell's that? Because you've OD'd the amount of antiperspirant or cologne that you're wearing.

You want to wear cologne to the point that they could smell you if they were hugging you.

That's as far as the reach you want to have with your stank okay you don't want to have it so that yeah like when people come i've had people i'm like bro you're a bit close and it's like sorry you just smell so nice you know and i'm like oh thank you it's izumiaki you know yeah you can do that but i never want to smell to the point where like if i'm five meters away you're like i can smell the magician is here like i never want to smell like that i try

to be as odorless as possible I steam my shirts and I steam my suit after every performance to ensure that all odors, everything, because sometimes you're performing in functions where people are smoking or cigar bars or who knows whatever it is. You could just be around the wood oven pizza that was there. And then all of a sudden you smell like a fireplace. You don't want to do that. You want to look good. You want to smell good because people are going to be in proximity.

And so So any negative connotation with regards to how you look or smell is going to just negate and be a distraction to what they should be enjoying and experiencing. I think that that sums it up. Yeah. You don't want anything else than the magic to be distracting them or like give any attention to. So dress better than the guests that are going to be there. Wear some shiny shoes. Choose, smell good, be a good person. And cut your fingernails. Yeah. Clean your fingernails. Cut your fingernails.

Yeah. And then blow their freaking minds with some great magic. Don't have them say he was such a nice guy. Have them say he did the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Wow. That's so many tips. Keep flossing your kid as well. Floss is super important. So you don't have any crap in your teeth.

And also if your shirt tears or your suit tears or anything happens you can actually use the floss to sew up any sort of situations as well so that's another pro tip i've done it i've been there it's a pro tip trust all right we've we've lost our mind now guys thanks for watching i think all of those any of those tips could be used as the final words so we're going to see you next week we'll see you in the discord as well ciao 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.