When Tricks Go Wrong: Surviving Stage Mishaps #218

Oh no, my button's not pressing. Guys, wait! Don't start the live yet!

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 218 of the Magic Guys. I'm your boy, Josh Norvito, and to my left, I've got... Your girl, no, your other boy, Mr. Nick K, Professional Mindblower. Welcome to the show, friends. And how fitting is our opening in today's context, which we'll press on into very, very shortly? 100% and we'll point a few things out.

You know, we're a day early today and the reason for that is travel schedules conflicted with the pod. We didn't want to do what we did a few weeks back, which was just to skip that week because we realized how many people look forward to listening to our ep. So we're like, you know what? God damn it. We're going to do it a day early. And yeah, the other thing is I had my switchboard of sounds switched to a different category. So it did not play off Stinger, but that's okay because, you know,

in magic, if anything, we learned to go with the flow in improv. So here we are. And the third thing I'll say is Nick said, I'm a girl. no, I'm a guy. Well, you know, let's see in five years. So how are you doing today, Nick?

Doing well, man. And like I said, in the spirit of what's happening today, you know, this is a live show and we are live performers, which we do for a living and things like this are going to happen, which is why we thought we would make a list upon things that like have happened to us or could happen to us so that we could actually help you guys through any sort of scenario that might be thrown on you as we're sort of performing.

But first we want to address a speakpipe which comes through because we love when you guys send us speakpipes. Is that one lined up and ready to go, Josh? 100%. speakpipe.com forward slash themagicguys. Give us your questions.

Let us know what you're up to. And of course, if you're new to listening to this podcast, this whole shtick is about professional magicians just sharing our advice, the weird stuff that happens to us so it doesn't happen to you, and then interviewing fun guests and building a community around magicians who can't speak properly, but do magic really well. So today's SpeakPipe comes from Jameson S., Let's see what our buddy is up to today.

And I just realized I didn't connect the Bluetooth yet to the system. Let me give you a minute to do that. And then while you're doing that, I'll shout out our friends in the chat. We have Scotty Link, our good friend, Scotty P. And of course, Tim Askin, them questions.

Again, we are live and we do have a chat, which means that any questions you have throughout the show, you can reach out to us because not only do we always have these sort of Q&As, is we also interview very cool people every now and again if you are a first-time listener. So by all means, scope out the previous 200-odd episodes we have. We're actually trying to line up some really cool guys and girls, of course, to interview in the near future.

And we'll be sure to let you guys know when that's all happening. So Josh, are we ready to roll now? Let's try take two. Jameson S. Hey, Magic Guys. Long-time listener. First-time speak piper here. I wanted to pick your magical brains about the idea of betting in effects. A lot of my favorite effects use a bet or a wager as a conceit, but I've noticed four problematic things coming up in my performances, and I'd like your thoughts on them.

Number one, any trick where you offer your spectator a fantastic prize, and the trick is only the magician wins?

I feel like that makes our spectator feel bad and we're supposed to make them feel good number two there are tricks like R. Paul Wilson's challenge coin where in the teaching he actually suggests you make a small wager for something real with your spectator for stakes I love that effect but is it ethical to make a wager with a spectator you know you're gonna win number three any effect where the magician is always going to have the winning hand or the winning ticket.

I feel like there are people who just hate to lose. And even though they've seen magic, they just don't like that they've lost, even in a fake conceit. And four, one where you make the spectator win the bet, I feel like they feel talked down to or babied. I'm very interested in your responses on that. I've never seen what you guys look like, but I think you're all extremely handsome, especially Doug.

Ah, beautiful. Jameson, how much does Jameson sound like John Armstrong, by the way? Yeah. His delivery and voice and cadence reminds me a lot like John Armstrong. Just want to put that out there, which is a great thing because he's a very successful magician himself. Yeah, great speaking voice, firstly. Nick, take it away. What are your thoughts, man? So there's four things we touched upon. It was basically like the good versus bad, you know, like is it good, is it bad?

Let's sort of explore upon that. Now, anyone who's read Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz, adding a wager to a routine is a very good way to get your audience invested. I think that's very important to sort of scope that out. I don't know which chapters that's in. I don't know it from the back of my hand, but if you do have that as a resource, please go through that section of the book that talks about wagers.

The good and bad notion is interesting. Like we interviewed an amazing teller not too long ago by the name of Nicholas J. Johnson, affectionately known as Australia's honest con man. He does scams. And so you are going to be set up to lose all the time. And I'm not the biggest fan of sucker routines, but there's ways that I like to handle it that I think of might be of value to you.

So it might not always be a wager with regards to doing something, but it should be something in which they give you a little something in promise for a big something. Okay. And what I mean by that That is, for example, when I do my ring flight, I will say, oh, I need to borrow something. That ring, does that come off easily? Great. I need to borrow a ring. It doesn't have to be like an expensive one. I tell you what, if anything happens to it, I'll give you the keys to my car.

So in that moment, there's this beautiful callback and this thing where it's like, this is a $7 ring that I got from a market that cost me nothing. But there's not that there's a wager, but there's something at risk here in which that very small risk, massive rewards. That's one nice way to negate having a situation in which you have this good

and bad sort of scenario. Yeah. Another thing, a second point I want to make is that, and I've seen this done before, where if you're going to be performing this, depending on what capacity, I've seen this performed in a parlor setting. It could be done in a roving setting, but you do a routine in which you physically give them a fistful of chips. Let's say that you're doing a routine and it's five phases. You just go, we're going to play a game. Here's your five chips.

And every time we play, you win. and each one of those chips at the end of this game, like I'll pay you out two bucks a chip, which means you can stand to make 10 bucks. Would you like that? So you can actually have the chips representative of something and then ask them to place a wager. But what's happening is you're giving them the money to wage and you're giving them the physical chips to wage.

So that is another way to combat that because it's very difficult to need someone to put hard money on the table if they're going to be reluctant. But if you give them the cash and say, if you lose, you get to keep it, you're taking all the risk. And when you take all the risk, it allows an opportunity for your spectators to have more fun. And I think that that is the key thing about being in a sucker routine. It's like you're already ahead, which means they already feel like they've won.

Let's touch upon that real quick. What do you think, Josh?

I'm trying to reflect if and when I do any of those types of routines you know i mean it is i don't think there's anything wrong with it it just has to fit i think the real question is does it fit into the context of your character or are you just throwing in a random betting routine because it's a different trick to the one you just did before and you have to do something different so in nicholas j johnson's case it's so perfect because that is his character he's

the honest con man so it makes sense so the first thing i would ask is like does it make sense that your character is making a real wager with the audience or you know reeling them in to a thing they don't win or you help them win right like when i'm roving i openly say. If I bring out cards, I go, let me show you, this is not to fool you, but this is to show you how I would help you win if we were playing cards together.

So I'm trying to say like, I'm not here to make you feel stupid and trick you. Let me just show you how I'd help you win. So there's like a positive to it.

And so everything that I then do is showing them how as a team, we could use these skills i don't ever make wages for money but if i think of stuff like bank night or like darren brown opened one of his shows one of his through line effects is in one of his shows i remember do you remember he had like the two chests and one of them had money one didn't and he's like i'm gonna keep making you change your mind and stuff well he mentioned in an

interview that like maybe two out of like the hundreds of times I did the show, like the audience guessed right. Which had the $10,000 in the chest and they, he gave it to them. Like he had, he had to, because he looked like a fool if he then said, oh, actually this is a trick and it just didn't work properly. And so you don't actually get, no, he gave them the money. So follow through with it, I guess is another thing, but, um, that's my thoughts.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I just think like there has to be surprise to it. Like they can't always feel like they're going to win or not win. And this has to be a good reason for it. That's all I kind of feel like. Yeah. But off the back of that, I think it's great that if you're going to place a wager, that you take the risk and allow them to have this freedom to enjoy it. And you can, and it could be something as simple as, as this,

I do this really dumb effect, right? I think it's, I think it's called the traveling mules.

I'm not really sure, but you basically, you can just show the deck like this and say like you finger through the deck and you go just think of any playing card you like and you put two jokers in face up like like this right and i explained smiling the smiling mule smiling mules that's what it's called and i explained that like when you say the card i'll put it in between these two jokers in less than a second and they go okay you ready you go three two one go and they go four hearts are done and

then i showed that as a joker on the top of the deck and a joker on the bottom of my deck and all the cards are in the middle and it's like haha. Now you can make that a wager by building it up and adding just a little bit of tension by saying something to the effect of like, I'll put your card in between those two jokers. I've never gotten this wrong. Never. In fact, I'm so sure I know what your card's going to be and I'll put it in between there that if I get it wrong, I'll buy the next round.

I'll buy the next round of drinks. All of a sudden, everyone's like, yeah. And they're like, let's see this. And they cannot wait. They're like, this is going to be awesome if it works and it's going to be even better if it fails. So that's one of the ways I like to sort of do that. Now, the third thing we're sort of talking about as far as wages go, you said sucker. Well, effectively a sucker routine. I don't particularly enjoy sucker routines.

Sometimes they work, sometimes they're great, but one where they're going to be constantly failing, it's okay. I guess you can kind of make maybe almost an ambitious card routine, a sucker routine, but it's not like they're losing. They just don't know how it's done.

Yeah i think i think for adults like a sucker routine is only required when you have that heckler that is being so annoying so picky so watchy so mouthy that they're actually going to be fooled by the sucker routine because of the way they're acting like card to mouth or card to forehead whatever like or paper balls over the head like that's when it plays into it well but it sounds like jamison knows what he's doing but but we appreciate the question because is very thought-provoking and

yeah it's a good question and we should make a note of it to ask doug that question next week too because yeah absolutely it's a good one yeah because the last thing that he mentions is like making them win is it pandering is it the type of thing where you know is it talking down to them i don't think it is if you make them win it's just you showing this book that you have and so for example i'll do a multiple card select and i in the third phase of it,

I say to the person, it's not hard. You can do this. And like, no, I can't. And I go, no, no, you can. You just got to believe because you got the magic in you. And they're like, really? And I'm like, seriously, hold out one finger. And they hold out a finger. And I go, that's a good finger. The other guy was a dick. And then I spread to the pack and I just do a classic force.

He hits it and it erupts and it gets the biggest applause out of my, all the four phases that I do because I'm celebrating that person.

So it's the type of thing where like it's it's good to make people win because you think i'm like you're getting good at this and you celebrate that person so i don't i don't think it talks people down or panders them and i'm interesting in what scenario that would be pandering or what scenario that would be talking them down i don't know i can't think of a scenario in which that would be. I just got some dogs barking, so I'm just muting my mic for a second.

But why don't you lead us into today's saucy ep? Indeed. Well, again, Jemisin, thank you so much for sending those questions through. And to everyone who sends through a SpeakPipes, we love being of service to you guys and helping you guys out as best we can.

Now, given the nature of us obviously wanting to help you guys and to educate you guys as much as possible from our perspectives as professional magicians, I thought it would be very funny to make an entirely big list of some true and some false situations in which that you might be facing as a live match like we have in this show where things do go wrong. The opening sequence was a perfect example where things can happen to you and how to deal with them.

So we basically called this section a whole new idea that we have, a new show in which we called What Would You Do?

And we figured that it might be a fun way to go back and forth asking each other questions what would you do in a scenario, and how you would handle it and hope that could be of service to you starting with the first question Josh you ready for this I'm ready let's lock in what would you do, if you're in the middle of your best trick and someone loudly says oh I know this I know how this works I know how you do this and we've all been there I

feel like I've been there a lot in roving just because they're trying to, get some kind of attention in the group. Okay, my knee-jerk reaction is, it just so depends, like, what the effect is. Like, you can usually get a gauge on if they're wrong. Like, if they're just gonna say something stupid, like, it's, you know, a mechanical deck or the cube...

There's a button on the cue, but like you can kind of tell sometimes when it, something, sometimes it's going to be funnier if you get them to say what the method is, you know? Yeah. Otherwise, if it's like a really crucial moment and I don't want them saying their piece to, to ruin the magic moment for the audience. So like a magic moment is about to happen and they yell at, I know how this works. I might just quickly say something like, so do I, shut up. and then let the

audience laugh and then do the magic moment. Like you might just like quickly dismiss it. And I guess not so much, I know how this works, but sometimes if anything, I might hear someone like figure out or at least in their head, they figured out the ending of the routine. So you might hear them say like, oh, I know where it is or I just figured out what's about to happen or whatever.

And that might happen with like, Coin under watch, for example, I've noticed, I've learned like which side of the hand or where the audience is will give me a better chance of no one noticing the coin under the guy's watch. But sometimes you might every now and then spot someone seeing it. It's never the person holding on to the cards, but you might hear them say, oh, I know where it is. And then I'll just look at them and say, yeah, but he doesn't yet. So hold on five seconds.

And then boom, and it happens and then we move on. So yeah, it's other two things. One, I just, you always kind of address it. So I either address it and say, yeah, but just, you know, wait 20 seconds and everyone else will too. Or I really do drive home and go, oh yeah, well then show us, like give them the problem. All right, you know how it works. Please do it.

They're my two like yeah utilities so yeah i've i take it a few different ways a lot of times like it's like i know you don't make everyone's quiet quiet quiet what's your name bud it's like i'm i'm gavin and i'm like gavin gavin got something to say everyone listen and gavin will go all right you are you you you put the and there's a length of chicken wire and you there's feathers and you have invisible gloves and and you just and he's like just digging a hole and you're going is is

that i'm like are you asking me you're telling me he's like i'm telling and i always say i go and like they'll give you a method and they sort of have this tone like is that it and i go bro you're asking me you're telling me and he goes i'm telling you and i'm like what are you telling me for i know how it's done and then and then he goes oh yeah and ordinarily they shut up after that why are you telling me for i know how it's done like i don't need him to tell me how it's done i know how it's

done dumbass right and then if he's asking me i go you know i can't tell you stupid. I'm going to kick me out of the magic club. I'm like, just simmer down. All right. And then I get into the routine. That's one fun way tonight. And it's, it's a, it's a very staged sort of scenario, but I walk them through that garden path of like, they just walk into my trap and I just, you know, they walk into the pit and I just hammer them from above.

That's a really, really fun thing to do. And a lot of times, sometimes if they don't, if they keep going or more than once, if I do it more than once, I'll go, stop, stop guys, hang on wait gavin gavin the know-it-all okay because everyone loves a know-it-all gavin please tell everyone how it was done like and i'll just give him the floor again and let him say some more dumb shit like i just i'm like that's great and i'll and he would be

something ridiculous like you're wearing gloves from nasa and when you squeeze the coin it goes from one hand to the other and you're like nothing gets past gavin guys he's absolutely brilliant give him a round of applause he nailed it jesus christ gavin and then you'll and then you'll get to a point where after like this say the third phase of a coins across you'll go gavin. Nothing. All right. We've stumped Gavin, everyone. Look at that. I win. So I'll make him part of the show, man.

I'll do it. But that's the way I do it with my personality and I have the cojones to do that. So those are some of the ways that I handle it. You guys are welcome to play with those ideas too, but I think it's a really fun way to play with it. Again, you can't always hide things. If you can't hide it, highlight it. Yeah.

Maybe another useful tip is if someone in the group of people you're doing roving magic for keeps trying to throw out that they know how it works or them guessing the ending or saying, I saw you do such and such. A useful line is to turn to them and say, so is your plan to narrate the whole show? Just so I know, are you going to narrate every single thing I do? Or are we letting the audience enjoy some of it as well?

And then let them answer and then they'll realize oh okay i'll just stop being a dick so that can be a useful line to like highlight the fact that they just keep interrupting yeah is your plan are you are you going to narrate the entire performance tonight just i just want to know and then they'll quieten down it is very useful tip when when required yeah oh and one thing oh if oh if it is kid if it is kid and they're being dicks like a lot of times i'll just go why

is no one correct in this behavior. Whose child is this? And I'll be like, you want to correct this behavior or what? You know, like I'll just straight up like, yeah. I'm like, do you want to know? All right, fine. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just look at what they want to do then, shall we? You know what I mean? You know what? Yeah, kids are a whole nother bag of.

Kids i guess we need a yeah we should get some we should get a professional kids magician on here that would properly be able to identify how to these questions could all be asked again but from a kids show perspective i have a better idea let's move forward and anything to do with kids. It'll be kids slash drunks because they're basically the same people absolutely done absolutely both call out both shit their pants yeah all right number two all right number two All right.

Now I can see number two, but I want to switch it up and ask you something that has happened to me still in this scenario. So the question is right before you go on stage, there's a, you're missing an important part of your show, like prop wise, what do you do? So there are two scenarios I've had that I want to ask Nick.

So question number one, you are doing a bottle production routine okay okay but mid routine the bottle falls out onto the floor it doesn't break but it falls out so like you've pulled out the silk and as you put out the silk and you've started your patter the bottle falls out onto the floor what do you what do you do what do i okay that wouldn't happen to me only because of the way i produce a bottle but if it were to happen to me,

I would probably just put the bottle aside and go into the next routine immediately, but use the silk in that routine. I would just have to jazz something through that. So for example, if I was going to do a bottle production and then do a coin thing.

I would like put the bottle down, but then use the silk to produce the coin or something like that but I would have to find a way to use that or I would probably like take the silk out then the bottle would come I would just probably wipe the bottle down and then put it aside like I would literally just do something as simple as that you know what I mean like if I wasn't able to produce it magically I would just like yeah like that would be possibly the two things off the top of my

head what I would do this just happened to you yes yes this happened early in my career when I I was doing a Make-A-Wish Foundation night, like charity dinner, so I could just get some stage time doing a stage show unpaid. I made the mistake. This was the first time I ever learned not to put, because what I was doing was I was getting a wine bottle. I would use a thin one and I would fill it up with water and I would put some blue dye into the water and it would make it look like a fun drink.

So it would make it look blue, but you could see through it. It was like luminescent, I made the mistake for the first time to use chilled water because at the bar, they had like an actual proper cold water tap. So they pumped cold water into it, which made condensation around it when it was in my holder in my jacket and therefore, and it being a slim bottle. So me, you know, whipping around on stage fell out. So I had my silk out. I had my coin.

I'm doing, I've done like two phases of this coin routine. Boom bottle falls out and that's supposed to be like the big finale of that act that piece.

And so what I did do is thank god I didn't freak out being so new to stage magic it dropped on the floor and I just picked it up and said ah that's just for when I get nervous and I set it on the table and then kept going with the routine but knowing that now I had no ending so all I could do was make the coin disappear from the silk and then luckily make-a-wish foundation is all about kids so there was you know a sea of kids sitting on the floor in this banquet room so i

just reached behind one of the kids ears and the ending was it plucked from behind the kid's ear and thank god this kid freaked out hardcore and it made it an ending but it could have just been terrible so Well, that's pretty good. But with that knowledge now, like upon reflection, what do you wish you had done something different? I mean, other than obviously avoiding the bottle doing its thing. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, look, yeah, I think I do.

Going on stage at the Theatre of Magic, there was one time where the bottle did fall out as I was like running on stage, like walking up to the stage and it fell out. But I realized like probably not that many people realized what it was. So it fell down. I grabbed it. And as I just spun and did a 360, I reloaded it and then kept walking on stage. Did my show and in the routine, I produced the bottle and it got the exact same reaction.

Wow. It always does. And it didn't matter that I just shown a bottle falling out of my jacket. So I almost would have just said, oh, this is for when I get nervous and put it back in my jacket. It's probably what I would have done now. Okay. So that when they see it again, they still don't know how the hell it got there. If anything. Yeah. All right. And then the second scenario, which happened in the same show, by the way, you plan to do silk to egg in your show. Okay. Okay.

And when you reach into your pocket, so you're, you're doing a routine before

silk to egg right now. Okay. You're 10 minutes into your 40 minute show because the bottle fell out, your arm accidentally broke the egg that's in your pocket that you were going to use in the show in five more minutes so when you reach in your pocket to grab a sharpie for the trick you're doing before silk to egg you feel a hand a pocket full of yolk and a million things run through your head now, what do you do man you still have you still have 30 minutes of show to do yep and okay so,

i guess you're missing the final phase of your egg routine correct. Yes you haven't started that routine so you can skip it obviously you have to skip it now yeah but you've just realized now that your jacket is compromised because you have a whole pocket full of yoke that eventually is going to seek through and be noticeable oh crap yeah.

This happened to me in that same show jesus man that's nuts okay so what would i do if that were to leak through my, and I wear black for this reason that if you're going to have egg come through, it wouldn't be as noticeable. But if I was going to wear a burgundy suit or green suit or one of my blue suits, oh, that would be a situation. So I would probably have to ditch my jacket and just continue the routines without it, I think, you know, and just skip over that entirely and fall back.

Like if I have one pack of playing cards fall into something else, like replace it that would be option number one but yeah obviously it's it's it's not, I say this as a side note, it's not the easiest thing to answer when you don't know the full context of a show and what starts and what ends. But I will say that sometimes when things don't work, it just means you're missing a phase. So for example, I have routines that rely on electronics and the electronic is the kicker of the routine.

There's still many phases prior that kick you in the head and blow your mind, but that last phase is what sets you into orbit. and sometimes they don't work very rarely. And if they don't work, you still have an effect. I purposely structure my things that way. So as far as the egg goes, I don't know how many phases your routine is, but I'm going to ask you now, like, could you have done everything up into the phase that you break the egg?

Could you have done everything up into that point and then just put the egg away? You could have done that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just have no real egg. That's all. Yeah. But, so yeah, what I did do was, like you're saying, I quickly realized, okay, the jacket, it's going to become a problem. So I took it off and I also just took out anything that I'm going to need for the show as well and put it into my case so I could just work from my case instead.

I remember it affecting the way I was going to do some of the routines because, you know, we're so used to pocket management just reaching in to grab this and grab that.

I had to skip over I just skipped the entire egg routine And had to do the whole show Yeah, just in my button-up dress shirt and pants And it did not help with the nerves or sweating I just instantly broke into a sweat I was like, oh my god There's 30 minutes of show still to do here And I can't wear a jacket now Or do that routine But hence, needless to say I no longer work with eggs. And if I did, for some reason, the egg stays in the freaking briefcase.

Okay. It does not go into your pocket where your arms are swinging around or someone might come up to hug you or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, remarkably, we actually, in this one scenario, literally answered like the next five questions of what would happen if you had something break or fail and you had 20 minutes left in your routine.

So I'm going to jump straight to number seven which i wrote down and let's start with this one because this is this is kind of happening well kind of we're not quite so here's the thing what would you do if you were booked to do a close-up magic show at a party and then you discover your ex is there. Oh, and then what would you do if they started heckling? And they started heckling? Yeah. What the actual, that's, that's, that's twice as bad. I mean, what would I do? I'm trying to think.

God, it would be, your ex is there.

Well, I guess, you know, as a performer being, you know, as a performer being a professional, i would say hello you know just like just very surface level oh i hope you're doing well great oh you're here great great and then i would just you know try and just do my gig but if they're also heckling that's a really tough one because obviously you have so much backlog of burns you could throw at them but like that's not going to lead to anywhere good like the obvious line

would be like well you can see why we don't date anymore my god so good there'd be so much comedy if you bumped it i'd once did a show where i like i did a show it was like 110 seater three of my exes were in the in the audience three of them whoa yeah nick gets nick gets around ladies and gentlemen i was like what's the hell all three at once i'm like what are they doing here that's rough yeah and did they heckle no no no no no but um that's that's the thing i feel like they,

wouldn't heckle because they're already feeling awkward that you know you're there or if they've come to see your show it's because they you know they just want to see what you're up to and.

Who you're dating now and all that weird stuff that an ex might do, yeah they are heckling that's you just kick him out I guess well here's the thing like it's going to be very evident that you can address I think what you would do is I would address the elephant in the room that'd be mad like we dated, that's okay let's get it out in the clear we did date didn't work out she's lovely i'm you know and you could just go like it just wasn't whatever and then if she's being a

dick to you could just be like yeah and everyone's like yeah that makes you wonder how we didn't work out huh like you can just bounce off that and i once said the line where i was just like oh for god she's just mad because i've seen her naked that's her problem like i don't know where she went let up like she's just i actually said that one time at a show and then everyone was like that's true and it's funny so you couldn't really push back on it but yeah look

it does happen but i always think just treat and i stand by this like the same person you are for someone who isn't your ex you should treat them with the same kindness right and just super polite because if their true colors are to be mean to you and to be awful that's the reason why they are your ex so i just say like hold your flag up high stay true to yourself be kind you never know what people are going through and i would rather walk away from a situation where it's just like.

I'm really sorry that your ex was such a, such a bitch. And it's just like, yeah, and look, I mean, that's why we didn't work out, but I'm sorry if she ruined your day, but never be the reason why I ruined their party because at a private function, like you're there for whoever's hired you. So that's my advice on that one.

Yeah. I feel like, and especially with magicians, you know, that's not going to be a problem they run into often, you know, running into another person they've dated, let alone one. Am I right? Magicians. All right, we'll move on. That's just a little dig that, you know, we don't get many girls. Unless you're Nick K.

All right. Number eight. Your microphone dies mid-show and you're in a large echoey room. What do you do? This happens. This always happens. When you were in a band. Oi! I didn't prepare any shots. I've only got this. That'll take. That'll work. Okay. It does happen. Headset microphones, we'll cark it. Remarkably, never when I bring my own. I always bring my backup one. It's a Sennheiser EW100.

I love it because it runs purely on batteries, which means you don't ever have to worry about getting it test and tagged. I don't know, do they do test and tags in the US? Surely they must, but maybe. Basically, there's this thing that we do called test and tagging just to ensure that none of the stuff that you have is going to glitch out or be faulty and ruin like the entire or take out an entire grid sort of thing.

So we do these little test and tag things to make sure that all your stuff is compliant. So I use those, which is great. And also there's the road goes, whatever else. But look, my gear has never let me down. Love it. But there's been times where it's like, no, no, no, we have mics here. And I'm like, okay, cool. So if it's the in-house stuff, they've already taken it, tuned it, done whatever it's supposed to do. The most recent example I could think of was I was doing a talk show thing in

Brunswick. And there was probably about 200, 300 people in the room. And big thing. And so the mic just cocked it mid, I had no fallback, so I couldn't tell. Thankfully, because they had a band on stage as well. I just walked over to the microphone and just performed in front of the mic and it, you just, you pivot people, you pivot. If you, if you, if there's no band microphone, seldom is there ever going to be a, what do you call it? A lectern walk over to the lectern. Okay.

I know some people use that. Remember those things that Dave Lord makes like a hook that goes around your neck and you put the handheld microphone here. Well, you look at what Josh Nibito is showing for the listeners of the pod. It's interesting. It's imagine a question mark hook type thing that you put around your neck. And then the tip of the question mark hangs down the center of your chest.

And then from there pops up a microphone clip in which you can actually clip a handheld microphone, wired or unwired, which points directly at your face and you can address your audience. 100%. This is a lifesaver or to have something like this. The benefit of this is once the microphone is locked in, this can be swiveled out.

So if you need to ask the spectator something and they have to answer the question, you just lean forward, you move it forward, they can answer the question and you bring it back. Or if you have to say something to the audience, to the person on stage that you don't want the audience to hear, or you're just trying to assure them like, oh, don't be nervous, you'll be okay, whatever. You can just turn this to the side, point it away, and then talk to the spectator, come back.

This goes with me to every show, even though, you know, we specify we need a headset, all that good stuff. My show writer always says I need a thin flesh colored wireless headset mic and one wireless handheld microphone. And that's because, yeah, sometimes they have shitty mics or just the cable. It's always like the little connector piece where the headset meets the battery pack. It's like dodgy.

So if it breaks, this comes out. boom we keep doing the show sometimes in showman because there's five of us or four of us on stage one of our mics at some point one day somehow will stuff up so we always have one of these like side stage so one of us will notice their microphone stuffing up we'll come out with a handheld on this and put around around their neck and this fits under your jacket so it's only this black part that's popping out it looks a bit ugly right

like it does but it saves it saves the show so like yeah i've just learned to always keep that with me what do you get it what do you get it josh that's a great question i know you can contact dave lord directly and i think he has a website for buying these but i think maybe piper magic also might list a couple of these as well on his site on behalf of him. But if you just type in microphone holder or microphone lanyard,

there are other variations. But this has been a tried and true good alternative always for me. I have seen a makeshift one like that where if you are someone who does rope magic, you just literally tie off the rope, put a couple of knots in it, and then you can just hang a white rope off your rope. For yourself and then oh yeah it's tied to there and you can just sort of pick it up and drop it to your chest and talk into it like this that is another proper makeshift way of doing it which.

I like i i don't know what customer experience that would be but i think it's a lot better than not having a microphone at all and i hope that when if somebody were to see that that would be like guys are pro we're in safe hands this is awesome you know what i mean yeah yeah i'm trying to think at a pinch like yeah if you get like if you're really really stuck like if you get a wire coat hanger and you get like a shoelace like you can make a microphone holder out of that by using the

metal of the wire to create like a circle that will hold the microphone and you just tie the shoelace to either end that goes around your neck make it the right length yeah aesthetically it looks a bit dodged but it is much better than not doing a show yeah always be prepared my friends i think so that's the motto your choice buddy i think i just said that last question but i can ask the next one as well oh i got it i'd love

to okay okay so i'm gonna skip to some more ethical dilemmas because i think that's the type of thing where as opposed to prop management what would you do let's talk about some ethical situations so So when you are performing on a bill with multiple magicians, it might be at a gala, it might be something of that nature.

You will come into these sorts of scenarios. And so I've experienced these in the past and wrote a few down. So I thought I would fire off with this one. What would you do if a fellow magician performs your signature routine at a gig that you're both booked for? Okay. What would you do? And there's been, let's say, for example, you both do a bill to impossible location, right?

And you both want to perform, even though they're slightly different, one goes to a lemon, one goes to a ball of yarn, all of yarn, it's the same effect in a sense yeah what do you do in that scenario that's a tricky one man i know at the assembly convention we just had the amazing nigel had to check in with every performer who was going on before him because you know depending on how much stuff people do will dictate whether he can do his routine and yes

someone else was doing a build to impossible location so he had to take out his version of it someone was doing like a book test kind of thing so he's like all right i can't do my version of that yeah so let me just think yeah i mean look i have a story about nick doing his set right before me and i'm watching nick and so i do like a sharpie routine, and i see nick doing his own version of a sharpie routine right the lids vanishing the pens vanishing I'm like, okay, I won't do that in my show.

Then I saw Nick do a multiple card find with four spectators cards. I was like, okay, question whether I do a multiple select now. And then you also did your version of Box Clever by James Brown, card under box. I'm like, okay, we'll not do that tonight. And Nigel's looking at me going, do you need some of my stuff to do your set in a second? You also did like some muscle passes with a coin. I'm like, okay, no coin magic.

And these are not all things I was going to do in my set, but it's a lot of stuff that I do. Exactly. And here's what I did. It doesn't matter. I love doing lots of magic and I just made a note, okay, not going to do that. Some things were like different enough that I could still do it. Or I just highlighted the fact that something I just did, Nick also does really well. So I was like, you know, with the coin... Yeah, unless you have, you know, unless you're like Nick and I who can make

our coins levitate, you're out of luck. So this is what you do, blah, blah, blah. I just highlight the fact that, you know, Nick can also do this power. But yeah, you definitely got to check in that you're not all doing Rubik's Cubes or you're not all doing book tests or you're, yeah. So normally in real life scenario, I just make sure I have that conversation with the performer.

Like what are just the give me the you know the title like what are the props you're using and i'll just not do that that's all and uh yeah but yeah if they do it you gotta pivot.

That's pivot that's it yeah so i mean same thing happened when we were doing a very large scale event at crown casino i think it was like a thousand people in this very large banquet and it was four or five of us roaming and it's like okay what routines are we going to do you know And it's, so the couple of ways we handled it in this scenario was you focus on these tables, these tables, these tables don't cross over.

Okay. Then that way you can do whatever you want. So if we're not going to be crossing over, not a problem, but if we are going to end up crossing paths in this roving set, I won't do what you do. I'm going to do triumph, this, that. Okay, great. I won't do triumph. I'll do this, this, this, you know, that's a nice way to get around those sort of scenarios.

What about tell them the constantino thing like you're all doing roving magic and constantino is going to do the stage show yeah uh yes i was booked for a private event along constantino who is australia is probably leading one of you know the grand illusionists and and the annoying thing was they wanted me to dress in character and i agreed so i dressed like the riddler annoyingly, which had no pockets or anything and i thought okay that's fine i just need

a pack of cards and a fistful of coins. I got this. Constantino's agent comes over to me and says, don't do card tricks because it's doing card tricks. And I was like, all right, fine. Like, fine, fine. I did the whole gig, three hours with just three coins. That was it. I think that's so unreasonable to ask on the night, oh, by the way, for this three hours of roving, don't use cards.

Like that has to be a prerequisite before agreeing to the booking so that you can at least plan the stuff that's not cards.

And also like that's crazy yeah i look i did it because i knew i could do it and also the client's son had a rubik's cube with him and so he would follow me around and i would be give me give me a cube kid and i would like just do the whole cube routine you know jazzing i was jazzing hard through all of that yeah and it was just so weird because even though this was a private event that was booked he had like a camera crew filming him doing stuff at this private event you know and he was doing

stuff like stage stuff like you know that that routine where it's like oh i've got a jug and watch i'm gonna break the jug this guy was breaking glass at this private event you know which was which was a high end i wouldn't even stay just in case but look it's yeah like it does happen pivot and there's also another option which a friend of mine did all they will remain nameless but the scenario was they're doing a bill in something i'm doing a bill in something.

And neither one of them wanted to wave on it and he just went screw him i'm gonna do it anyway. Because he went first i'm guessing yeah i think that the the lesser of the talents went first and the better of the talents went second and so he just did it regardless and richie did yeah Yeah. I mean, to be honest, if you were still to do card magic during that Cosentino event, like what's the likelihood anyone would actually notice?

Like, it sounds like it was a big room if you're roving for three hours. It was, it was a lot of people there. There's a lot of money in the room, but I just think the fact that my reactions were phenomenal and everyone was losing their minds. And I think that a comment might've gotten back to them being like, his stuff is better than his. I think that's what I think might've happened because there was a, that was that notion where it was just like, you're so much better than that guy.

Like it was said to me that look, Right, yeah. Let's not make this a hearsay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because we might hope that he comes on the show one day. All right. Oh, I didn't see this one. That's funny. Your assistant cues the wrong music. Hardcore dubstep instead of your dramatic soundtrack comes on. What do you do? Roll with it, baby. Drunk tech. Drunk tech, yes. There was a game that we play in the Magic Sports.

This is based on a real-life situation involving Raymond Crowe, an amazing talent known for his shadow routines that he's done. He's known all over the world for this routine. He was performing back in the day where they had cassette tapes, not CDs. And in the cassette tape, they did a rehearsal, and he played the song on the cassette tape. And then rather than rewinding it for when the show actually started, the tech had pressed play and had gone into track number two of that cassette.

He just did the routine regardless and rolled with it that's awesome every now and then. Yeah your sound cues will just not work properly or you'll hit the wrong thing oh yeah and yeah as long as you just don't freak out too much it's okay like a million times like i've hit the cue for my sound and it's not hit and not come on so i just i'm in a bit of a pickle But yeah, as long as you relax, like the audience won't freak out too much, eh? Yep.

I got to ask you this one. Sure. Your pants rip mid-show and you're on stage and it's loud. What do you do, Nick? You highlight it, buddy. If you can't hide it, highlight it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you do the torn and restored pants. You get a length full of gaffer tape and you just put it straight in your gooch like this in front of everyone. Yeah. I thankfully have never had that happen. And I, I check my pants quite regularly for this reason that it won't split.

And if the pants look a bit tired, I always like have a second pair. Like I bought an extra vest yesterday, just in case, because I only had one. I had two ones looking really tired and needs to be like retired. So I decided to go buy another one. That was a $260 vest, but I was just like, I don't even need it. I don't even need it, but I had it there just in case it tore or something.

You know what i mean so yeah but prevention is key in this scenario has this happened to you where you've ripped the pants you know the escaping suit jacket the suit jacket escape by anthony linden so it's a very if you don't know it's a very physical routine if you don't know it guys it's you literally have you're wearing a suit you have your handcuffs on and you were trying to remove your your jacket while being handcuffed because obviously you

need that gap in between your hands to do that so yeah for some reason my belt broke while the curtains were up oh and so the where the belt buckle joins the belt that actually snapped so i could still get through the routine but now my pants weren't being supported by my belt and the belt buckle it looked a bit weird luckily it was the last thing in the show but it's the only thing that comes to mind that actually broke in my clothing mid-stage.

That was a bit of a case. But because I do backflips in my show on stage, it is a thing I need to be concerned about.

Pants splitting because you're bending your legs quite a lot and then there's a lot of impact when you land yeah so luckily i wear stretchy pants that look like suit pants but are made of there's a lot of elastic in them so you can literally do the splits in these pants they're that good so yeah i just made a choice to switch to that to prevent any split pants yeah but if it did happen if my pants did split,

I would just hope to God I was filming that show because it will make a great piece of content. I honestly think that if you did do it, that would be so funny that you would try and emulate it every show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point because it's just funny. It's never not funny. Someone splitting their pants.

Okay. Here's a tough one. Here's a tough one okay okay and this happened to me not too long ago it was handballed to me this gig it was so what would you do if you were hired to perform at a party but you find out it's for a group that you disagree with like you strongly disagree with for political and ethical reasons, i'm not saying that like it wasn't extreme like my head jumps to like a nazi group or yeah something exactly the kkk want to book you for an event what do

you do you know like do you not, let's say that you were a I don't know maybe you were against animal testing and so you don't want to perform for a particular makeup brand or something like that you know what I mean so yeah okay look if I first of all if you're in a position where you can afford to turn away gigs good for you.

My fiance being in the horse world is very against horse racing like not against it where she'll go protest but she's not, she she's not supportive of horse racing because of how horses are treated and how they you know they just get shot if they if they break a leg and the stuff they put through stuff they're given to enhance their adrenaline to make the run faster all that stuff but then i every year i'll do a gig for for like harness racing australia or

whatever and it's like doing roving magic for a company that's like a sponsor of the race course i'm not gonna not do it i'm just not supportive of it in my head but i'm still there doing the gig i guess the closest i can equivalent this to is is hens nights not that i'm against hens nights of course but for the first like good portion of my career i just wasn't comfortable with doing a hens gig because i didn't want to while having a girlfriend and go into an environment where

there are 20 thirsty women watching me do magic and wanting, you know, wanting to flirt and be playful and feel you up and all that kind of stuff in a fun, joking way. That was a conscious decision I made, which was I just would not agree to do any. And I would just gracefully say, look, that's not part of my services I offer, but let me recommend someone who does. These days, what I've realized is hens parties never have a budget.

So if you just send them your full roving corporate fee, they will decline it themselves. And if they do pay it, I will gracefully do it. But I have not yet had to do one because they've never had the budget. Yeah. You know, I want to say something off the back of what our good friend Gutbuster Mike said, where he says, get the money, nobody agrees with everything. Let me second the two different scenarios. So I was handballed a gig by actually Nick Johnson. And he just said,

these guys are a bunch of rich assholes. I don't want to deal with them. Go do the gig. And I said, sure. Right. And I thought, I don't know, maybe it just doesn't like their temperament or whatever it might be. I thought nothing of it. And then I get to the gig and I'm going to share this because it disgusted me. Right. And, and I want to be very clear. Like I have, I, I have no racial issues with anyone. I would never, my best friend is Muslim.

It doesn't bother me one bit. But when this guy came to me and said, when you do your show, if you want to make fun of the Muzis, go for it. And I said, what's a Muzi? And he went, oh, the Muslims, if you want to make fun of them, go for it. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm good. Thank you. And I performed the set, but I had no idea that this, this private group of very, very wealthy people were like, oh, we thought you were going to make fun of a bunch of muzzy.

And I was just like, who the, who, who does that? Right. That was so messed up. But I tell you what, I love that I took their money. Okay.

Like when straight up, man, like these people right like if they're gonna have this sort of notion like it's so funny i remember this this lady saying to me like i don't want their money like and i was just like why wouldn't you take money from bad people as opposed to taking it from the good people that you're surrounding take it from the bad perspective to have that straight up man you're taking the bad people's money yeah robin hood

so to speak robin hood take the money from the rich give it to yourself we're poor you know what i mean but like i that's what i kind of think it's like if if you were against the group let's say that like i don't know man like he just said like okay, it was it was a horse group or something like that and you'd be like we want you to just do an hour of roving you go great the price is 20 grand because i hate what you do and they go you say that it's 20 grand because i hate what

you do no problem here's 22 grand. And you're doing it with a smile and you're doing it and you're going, good, I'll take a 20 grand, you know, and I'll do something good with that money. That is one way to look at it. I don't really, and this could be, this could be very dividing for those out there. You know what I mean? But there's two ways you can look at it.

You know, you'd be the change that you want to see. Like when I approached these people, I had no idea that they were like racist for lack of a better word, but you know, I was there and I was already performing and it was like, oh my goodness. And I just thought like, no, I don't have to go down to their level. I can still be my bright light in that environment, you know? And again, take their money, man. Take it. Like, take it from the bad.

Yeah. I think, look, and that caps us at an hour for today's podcast.

And I think if we have learned anything today, oh, by the way, before we end, I will not be here next week, but Doug Kahn will be. So get ready for some Nick and Doug special debates On whatever our next topic is And what day are we doing that on, Josh?

And that is going to be So today was a day earlier than usual But next week it's going to be one day later than usual So it'll be a Wednesday in Australia Or a Tuesday in the US So look forward to that I'll still be listening But I'll be listening as a viewer, Chimming in And I think the last final word, I think, for today, beautifully put by Nick, is always take their money. 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.