How Should I...?

Jun 25, 2008
74
0
Ok, so I am a young (13 to be exact) magician, who would like to get into street magic. :p But I don't know how I should approach the person(s) that I would like to perform to. Like opening words and such. So if anyone here would be kind enough to give me a few tips and hints it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Daniel
 
Feb 27, 2008
2,342
1
33
Grand prairie TX
Agreeing with creeper,make sure you have a healthy sized VARIETY of material.
Thats the first step you have to take.Then you can take advice for approaching and performing.
 
Sep 2, 2007
1,186
16
42
London
There is a lot that can be said on this subject, and what works for others won't necessarily work for you. In order for you to develop your own approach, you need to be aware of exactly what needs to be achieved. To my mind, your approach should establish three things: attention, rapport and control (or what I've just decided to call "the approach ARC"), and it should do this within about five seconds.

Attention is easy to get but harder to keep. You could get attention by doing something crazy or flashy, but that doesn't necessarily lead to good rapport, as it can be intimidating, which means you'll lose your audience quite quickly. The ideal situation is to get attention without magic, or a mention of magic, so people are engaging with you as a person, rather than just with your tricks.

Rapport is something that whole books have been written about, and you can go really deep into pacing and matching and mirroring and all that, but essentially, all you need to do is smile, make eye contact (but don't stare) and hold a normal friendly conversation. People like friendly people, so that's really all you need to be. Don't worry about putting on a character to begin with, as it will come across fake and inhibit rapport. Allow your performance persona to develop naturally as you gain more experience.

Control comes with confidence. Not arrogance or confrontation, but a sense that you know what you're doing. You can take control of any conversation with questions, because when you ask a question people have to take a moment to think of an answer. While they're doing that, a follow-up question or an instruction will immediately make you the dominant one in that conversation.

If you're performing on the street you should ideally pick out your prospective audience from a distance. Then, rather than marching straight up to them, which can be threatening, act as if you're going to walk past them then, at the last minute, turn and catch their eye as if you've just had the idea to talk to them. Smile walk towards them. The line I use is along the lines of "Hi, how you doing? Has anyone shown you any magic yet today? No? That's no problem I can sort that out for you right now...I'm Tom by the way, what's your name?"

As you can see, it's basically a series of questions, although at no point have I asked whether they want to see any magic. I've just led them towards that result. The "Hi, how you doing?" is just a nice friendly opening, to which social convention demands a friendly response. The quick, slightly confusing, follow up "Has anyone shown you any magic yet today?" contains the implication, with the "yet", that it's inevitable, they will see some magic at some point. Then "That's no problem..." is a response that implies they've actually requested to see something. At this point they could potentially raise an objection, so I cut that off with "I'm Tom by the way, what's your name?" It's another friendly question, which, when accompanied by a handshake, seals the deal that some magic is now going to be performed.

Oh, and the other thing I should say is, your first few performances with be absolute garbage...no disrespect, but it's the same for everyone. You will be rejected, you will screw up tricks, you will get blank looks rather than gasps of amazement. You just have to stick with it and keep performing as much as you can and it will become second nature.

Hope some of that was helpful.
 
well after you feel confident in the material. just go up to someone and ask.
be like Hi , (introduce yourself) and say i was hopeing i could borrow some of your time? im a slight of hand artist, or a magician, or what ever you want to call it and i was wondering if you would like to see a trick?
its free! lol
something like that.
or go up to them be lik.e
Hello! hi my name is ..... Oh you look confused, dont worry im not selling anything. i was wondering if you would like to see a free magic trick today?

just introduce yourself. maybe a small joke to break the ice.
just be yourself, hopefully that is good enough to have someone stop.
and sense you are 13, people may be more prone to watch you.
dont see 13 as a bad thing.
if some 13 year old kid came up to me and asked to show me a trick .i would be like. sure why not. lol
 
Sep 1, 2007
479
1
Word count is fail ):

Anyways, the way I learn is go watch a bunch of DVDs you may own, nearly every DVD has an opening sequence maybe 15-20 minutes long of them on the streets.

When I think of it, Daniel Garcia comes to mind, it shows him walking up to people a lot and asking "Hello sir could you help me with something?" something along those lines. Be very polite, funny, outgoing. Or try to lol.

WATCH DANIEL GARCIA! or other magicians that are confident and you can watch the whole street videos.
 
Jul 26, 2009
39
0
Canada
Ok, so I am a young (13 to be exact) magician, who would like to get into street magic. :p But I don't know how I should approach the person(s) that I would like to perform to. Like opening words and such. So if anyone here would be kind enough to give me a few tips and hints it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Daniel

Say something like "Hey, I'm Daniel and I'm a magician, do you mind if I get you to help me out with something I've been workin on?" Never say "Wanna see a magic trick" like I did when I started, it doesn't work...
 
Use TeeDees explanation.
But I don't like the whole magic thing.
I like to say I have a card trick to show you.
Let me pull out my book. (Deck)
And I tell them of how decks were invented as the artist secret book, as books of secrets were frowned upon and destroyed at the time. Then you spark interest.
 
May 31, 2008
1,914
0
Well, usually I say something like this, "Hi, I'm a magician, could you help me with something? Ok thanks, it will only take a minute or two. What's your name? Hi my name's David nice to meet you. I have a...

Just be a nice dude and you should be fine.
 
Sep 20, 2008
136
0
EGYPT
hey man let me give u some advice dont do street magic thats just akward go to like a cafe or sumthn and start doin some magic to friends and then tell ppl to come watch thats much better and if you really want to do street magic tell the ppl hi im doin a project for school do you mind helpin me out hope that helps

aly
 
Sep 2, 2007
1,186
16
42
London
I've got a bit of an objection to the "Would you help me...?" approach. You've just walked up to a random stranger and asked for a favour. To my mind, that doesn't establish authority or control. I prefer to think of the situation as me doing them a favour...my silent script is that I'm just about to show them something amazing that they'll remember for the rest of their lives. Therefore, they should feel privileged that I chose them to perform for. Of course, I don't say this out loud, but if you genuinely believe that in yourself, that will come across and people will be intrigued.
 
Never ask a mark any question that they can answer no to, otherwise you leave yourself no room to move in. If you MUST ask a question make sure its open ended. Open ended questions start with who,what,how,where, and why. They are also questions that cant be answered with just no. The mark is forced to think and formulate an answer.

frankly i dont ask anything from my audience... I just tell them (politely) and they listen.
 
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