Well, first day back in a month,WOOOOO boy, I was rusty. I ends up with only 120 for a good 4 hours of performing. I coulda made more. Sleeveless, Stephen Sloan, is a professional street performer who watched my show and critqued it and gave me a LOT of good advice that I will share with you guys cause I think it's beneficial to everyone.
1) Dont perform a trick for a child first in your show. I used to use Spongeballs with kids, and it was good, but people thought I was performing for kids only, and not taking me seriously as a street perormer. So that's now in the middle of my show.
2) NO NO NO jokes putting myself down. He liked a few and they fit, but I had to cut a lot. Being teenagers and kids, we already have a lot going against us. People underestimate (and why shouldn't they?) our abilities as performers because of our age, so I have to work against without even saying anything. They NEED to see confidence.
2 1/2). Confidence!!!! You KNOW they are going to stop and watch you, you KNOW they are going to laugh and enjoy themselves, and you KNOW they will pay. Go out and know what the hell you are doing. This means SCRIPT YOUR SHOW!!! Scripting is one of the most important things you can do and I honestly think I'm one of the few kid performers who scripts his show. I'd like to think I'm wrong, but SCRIPTING your show is what you need to do.
3) SLOW DOWN AND TIGHTEN UP PHYSICALLY!!!!!!! When performing you need to slow down immensely, almost when it's even uncomfortable to do it. A minute on stage is a hour to the audience most of the time. Tightening up physically means that you can't move around as much. Moving around is distracting and the audience can't follow you, be anchored at your spot and work with the wand as an extension of your arm and as a pointer to gesture. Everything we watch is through a tv screen, computer screen, iPod screen. It's all in a little box not doing a lot of moving. That's what you need to do, limit yourself in gestures and moving. You can move around and interact, but make sure it has a reason!
4) HAT LINE BEFORE BIG REVELATION! I personally end my show with Gazzo's Tossed Out Deck (I highly recommend by the way) and I used to reveal all the cards amazingly and all, but my hatline was awkward after the big finish. So I moved it to right before I revealed the last person's card, and who woulda guessed, my hats were getting bigger and bigger. So the placement of the hatline is VERY important for how much money you make.
That's most of everything (the rest was personal stuff) that I learns today, and it WORKS! I hope you guys learned from this! It did wonders for me. So my first day back was 120 for a couple of hours. I'll be using this thread all September while I perform. Talk to you guys soon
) JUST KIDDING, DON'T HURT ME.
