How to Prepare for a Magic Show - Part 1

I sense the need for a short series of articles dealing with "How to Prepare for a Magic Show." Beginners especially will hopefully benefit from the tips presented.

The young magician just starting out will no doubt feel the compulsion to string some tricks together and present them to an audience. He/she will need to know how to prepare for a Magic Show. First of all, let's look at the tricks you have in your repertoire.
Do you have enough tricks? Do you have variety? Will they suit your audience? 1. It's a good question.
How many tricks should you have in a Magic Show? There's no hard and fast rule for this.It depends on a number of factors, eg: the length you prefer for your show, whether you speak or have music playing, the pace of your performance, etc. As a general rule, you can work on three minutes for each trick. This is an ideal time frame if you have 'patter' (ie: speech) to accompany the tricks.

Much longer than three minutes may test the patience of your audience.
In the case of 'non-patter' you will finish the trick sooner than three minutes. (Don't try to stretch the trick too thinly, or again the audience may become bored and their minds wander.
) Having patter allows you much more freedom.

You can joke, misdirect and otherwise pad a trick.

This is harder to do without patter, so you'd need to cram more substance into your act, and so fill out the spaces.

For your first show, aim for 15-20 minutes duration.
This way, 6 or 7 tricks at three minutes each should be enough.

2.
Continuing with our tips on how to prepare for a Magic Show, it's a good idea to provide variety in your presentation.
That is to say, don't have all card tricks and nothing else, for example. Of course, if you're planning to be a specialist in close-up card magic, then this point would not apply.

Generally though, it's good practice to give your audience some variety. Give thought, too, to the working of your tricks. Try not to repeat. You may have a trick that relies on your use of the Changing Bag for its working.

If you have a second trick which involves a change, use a Drawer Box or similar. In this way, the audience won't suspect that the Changing Bag is all that important.
That's what I mean by 'variety'. Give them different things to look at.

It helps to keep them guessing.

3. When thinking of how to prepare for a Magic Show, choose tricks which will be appropriate for your expected audience. An obvious example would be "Swallowing a Sword" for a group of kindergarten children.

Similarly, you wouldn't do a match-box trick for a group of adults in a Town Hall.
Avoid, or amend, tricks requiring a helper, if the audience members are all disabled. In other words, look ahead and choose your program to suit and please your expected audience. If you found this article helpful, watch for the next instalment giving further advice on How to Prepare for a Magic Show.