How do I make the spectator care?

[Philipp S.(4)]

Hi folks,

lately I've been wondering how do I make spectator care? More importantly, how do I show the spectator that he matters to me? Do you have ideas for some ways of achieving this that would fit to a younger person, like myself, and can be done in a restaurant. I want to involve the spectator. It doesn't matter what kind of effect it is but I would really like an effect where, if I give something away, I don't have to buy expensive refills (or refills at all.) I was thinking about a center tear/billet trick but the problem is that I am not a mentalist yet and if so it will take me some time. What would you think are some other ways of achieving this? I saw Oz Pearlman do a routine where he reads the name of the child of someone and then has a picture with the time the kid was born in his wallet. Great trick but you need dem refills. Do you have any great ideas?
Cheers
Philipp

 

[formula]

With regards to making people care, it's a lot like making a girl like you. Be very casual, fun and if they don't seem interested then move on to other people who are clearly appreciate you more. Magic is 50% trick and 50% personality/performance, maybe even less trick than that.

 

[slicksleights]

Don't ask yourself the question how to make people carem you should be asking why should they care? Your taking up peoples time at the end of the day so you have to give them something to care about to warrant you taking their time from them. So in terms of tricks think about how you can present them in a way to make them relevant for a audience try and think of a message or a story that people can relate to, this will help draw them in and make them care about you and what you are doing, this is where scripting plays a massive part in magic. Be creative in the way you present your magic and make it personal to you, try and stay away from the generic way people perform the tricks you are doing. This is why learning from books is better than watching a DVD, because you are forced to think about presentation rather than watching someone on a DVD and being tempted to present the trick how you watched them do it. This will help make people understand who you are as a performer and help them warm to you. In terms of developing performance skills that help people connect with you this will come with time and with character development. As formula said try and make the people you perform to feel special, like this moment you are having with them is a first time for you as is it for them and you are experiencing this together. Get them involved ask questions have conversations with them, in other words take interest in them, people love this in everyday life as well as in magic.

I come from an acting background, I studied theatre in High School and University and I would highly recommend learning skills that actors use to perform, the skills I learnt I use in my magic all the time and they serve me very well with making connections with my audience.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

In general the easiest way to get someone to care is to make it about themselves because we are a selfish species. Make sure your performances are relative to their lives and believable. If you're very young and start talking about all your trips to India that's going to sound fake and people won't care. If all you do is card tricks and flourishes, people probably won't care.

Coin bends are a good trick to do if you like to hand things out but not lose out much yourself. There's an initial investment, but then you basically get refills by doing the trick. Making it relate, though, is difficult.

In my last show I gave away a blank piece of paper because of a routine I was doing. Pretty much everyone wanted to keep it - even though it was literally a folded up, blank piece of paper - but the routine I used gave it meaning.

 

[Randy]

The sandwich theory. If you do a bill Switch/change with your own money, then give that to the people you performed for (even if it was just a dollar.) they will be more prone to like you and therefore care about YOU more than your magic.

The trick is to get them to like YOU. Your magic is an excuse for them to meet you.

 

[Austin24]

You asked for tricks where you can leave them with something. An ACR have the selected card signed give it to them afterwards? ring heist by Marcus Eddie is another effect where you can give them something, a modified version of blank night by John Archer would be a great opportunity. business card effects if that's your thing. pressure can be modified to where you leave them with a phone case there is a signed coin in balloon effect called breach on E that leaves them with the coin in the balloon. As for making them care, like they said make the effect relatable to their lives and make the effect about them not your magic. sometimes they just won't care. and that's ok. just move on and don't let it get to you.