5 Ways You're Boring Your Audience to Tears

Sep 1, 2007
3,786
15
Performing is one of those things that everybody thinks they can do, and they're usually wrong. It's a set of skills, and like any other skill, you need to invest time to learn it and become better at it. Most of you believe you're already doing this with OCD levels of practicing your sleight of hand, but the truth is that you're only doing a fraction of the work really involved. Here are 5 ways your performances suck and you need to stop doing them immediately:

5. No Eye Contact

Eye contact is one of the most critical parts of any conversation, perhaps even moreso than the words that you say. Too little eye contact and it appears that you don't actually care what the person you're talking to has to say. Too much eye contact and you look like a friggin' creeper.

The majority of magicians do the former. You guys seems to think your hands are the most fascinating things on the planet, then wonder why the specs keep burning your hands. Everyone's heard that famous experiment of the guy who stared at a point in space on a crowded city street and got other people to stare at it too. Same thing. You stare at your hands, that's where everyone's going to look. They're clearly more interesting than anything that's coming out of your mouth. More on that later.

Much is made in magic circles about being able to get away with anything by making a sleight invisible. But they can't catch what they're not looking at. Truly invisible sleight of hand takes place in the off beats when no one is looking. Obsessing over making your pass invisible from every conceivable angle just means that you're talking but no one's listening because they're too busy staring at your hands.

More than that, making eye contact with your audience tells them that you actually want to communicate with them, that you're not a vending machine: insert change, receive magic trick. The show is not all about you and what you can do. It's about what you have to offer. Everyone is asking, "What's in it for me?" And it's really hard to answer that question when you're too oblivious to even look them in the eye. Which brings me to my next point...


4. Bad Audience Participation

Mystery entertainment is a mutual agreement between the performer and audience. They want to participate, even if in a small capacity. Not only do a lot of magicians not let the audience participate enough, some of you won't even acknowledge their existence unless you get a tough spec or a heckler. Those magicians inevitably go online whining about how no one respects them and wondering what zingers they can use to shut these people up.

You don't have to get every single audience member involved for practical reasons, but at least listen to them when they something, for the love of Christ. When you do get a volunteer for something, ask them their name, be friendly, give them the spotlight while they're there. Make them look good in front of their friends.

To be a performer you have to be an egotist to some degree. No humble person gets off on applause. But that doesn't everything has to be about you. Sometimes let it be about them. If the show is nothing but you and how talented you are, you're not a performer. You're a braggart.


3. Relying on One Prop

Back in the days of Vaudeville, magicians would build a reputation around a particular specialization. Cards, coins, silks, ropes, etc. But somewhere along the way that fell by the wayside and I don't believe it's coming back any time soon. I won't say never, because never is a very long time. In the here and now however you cannot be a one-trick pony unless you go into the realm of being a mentalist or celebrity psychic.

So you can imagine how annoying it gets to see so many of you guys who only ever do card tricks. Cards, cards, cards, cards, cards, so many bloody card tricks! We have magicians who do nothing but card tricks and think that this is a selling point for their act. Heads up, guys! There's about a million other magicians out there who also specialize in cards. You're nowhere near as unique as you think you are.

If you rely too heavily on one prop, then you've missed the point of the prop entirely. These things are supposed to be incidental to your magic, not the end goal in and of themselves. You sell the act on personality first, paraphernalia a distant second at best. You're not your props, you're a person. That what people want to see.

On a slight tangential note, I still sometimes hear the attitude that company-specific custom decks are a no-no for serious performers because people should credit you with the magic and not the props. I get where they're coming from, but if you can be upstaged by an inanimate object, it might be time to start asking, "I wonder if it's me?" If the King of Clubs has more personality than you, custom or standard deck design isn't going to make much of a difference. If you're performing the Fantastic Orange Tree and the tree is less wooden than you, then the tree is not the problem.

Speaking of...


2. No Variety

Commonly held magic performance theory is that there are approximately 9 different categories of effects, though the exact number is under debate. The most common list of 9 I hear in no particular order is:

1. Productions
2. Vanishes
3. Restorations
4. Predictions
5. Teleportations
6. Transformations
7. Penetrations
8. Levitations
9. Escapes

Again, this list is under heavy debate, and no I really don't care what your version is because it's beside the point. The point is that in reality we have a very distinct and limited framework of types of effects to create. This is made problematic by the fact that I see way too many of the same types of effects over and over again done with little variation or personality. A single ace production is fine. Two is a novelty. Three or more and I really just want to find some excuse to eject myself from the conversation.

Worse yet, magicians don't really seem to understand the concept of differences in scale vs. differences in kind. The thing I hear most often in questions about routining is some variant on, "How do I blow their minds?" Always with the subtext of escalating the routine to be more and more impossible as it goes along until you've "blown their minds" into a catatonic state. This is escalating the scale of your effects without actually introducing any real variety into the mix.

Exercising differences in kind however is subtler and more intricate. I may start another thread on the subject in the near future but for now let's settle on saying that it means offering different types of effects that have a different feel to the audience. The cheapest way to do this is to follow a production with, for example, a levitation. Not always the best way to do it though, because the example I gave doesn't have a whole lot of context. This is where the scripting comes in. You need to provide the framing device that makes one effect different from the next in something other than just the mechanics.

What's cool to magician is not necessarily going to be cool to a spectator. If you do the same thing over and over again, you're going to bore them very quickly, and if you ratchet up the impossibility, you're just screwing yourself for later when you're expected to continue ramping up the scale.


1. Say-Do-See

This is the big one. This is the stock script that all professionals despise and amateurs cling to like a lifeline. It is the apex of awkward scripting. The assassin of immersion. The crown jewel of crap. It is the act of telling the audience in real time everything that you are doing and at best asking a rhetorical question right before the reveal. Repeat after me:

There is nothing more boring than telling everyone what you are going to do and then doing it.

Magicians who do this habitually are the most boring performers of all. They can cure insomnia just by walking into a room. They look in a mirror and the mirror changes the channel. House pets no longer recognize their existence.

Writing is not an easy skill to pick up, and the only way to get better at it is to keep doing it and see what people respond to. But that doesn't excuse taking the lazy way out with a say-do-see presentation. There's no drama, personality or wit in this sort of presentation. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger's DVD commentaries without the weird, boyish heart. All you do is give people a blow-by-blow of what your hands are doing. And you wonder why they're burning your hands.

Don't ever do this. It's not interesting. It's not funny. It's not compelling. Just don't do it. Are we clear? Cool.
 
Aug 9, 2013
35
0
Great read! I completely agree with the things listed here. When I was younger I used to have a problem with "Say-Do-See". My problem was mainly because I never planned patter before hand.
 

c.t

Apr 17, 2013
125
0
Australia
If you've just gotten into magic (or havent been performing enough to work this stuff out on your own) this is for you.
 
Sep 1, 2007
1,395
8
37
Belgrade, Serbia
I would "sticky" this thread.
Also when it comes to presentation, what is like a nail on a blackboard is when a performer has a lot of "uhhh's and ummm's" in his speech. That is why you need to know what to say and when to say it, exactly.
 

Luis Vega

Elite Member
Mar 19, 2008
1,838
278
38
Leon, Guanajuato Mexico
luisvega.com.mx
Magicians who do this habitually are the most boring performers of all. They can cure insomnia just by walking into a room. They look in a mirror and the mirror changes the channel. House pets no longer recognize their existence.

Jajajajaaja!! Nice one!!


Great read btw... I am happy to say that I don?t do any of those things anymore... I used to be a say-do-see...
 

RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
1. Say-Do-See

This is the big one. This is the stock script that all professionals despise and amateurs cling to like a lifeline. It is the apex of awkward scripting. The assassin of immersion. The crown jewel of crap. It is the act of telling the audience in real time everything that you are doing and at best asking a rhetorical question right before the reveal. Repeat after me:

There is nothing more boring than telling everyone what you are going to do and then doing it.

Magicians who do this habitually are the most boring performers of all. They can cure insomnia just by walking into a room. They look in a mirror and the mirror changes the channel. House pets no longer recognize their existence.

Writing is not an easy skill to pick up, and the only way to get better at it is to keep doing it and see what people respond to. But that doesn't excuse taking the lazy way out with a say-do-see presentation. There's no drama, personality or wit in this sort of presentation. It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger's DVD commentaries without the weird, boyish heart. All you do is give people a blow-by-blow of what your hands are doing. And you wonder why they're burning your hands.

Don't ever do this. It's not interesting. It's not funny. It's not compelling. Just don't do it. Are we clear? Cool.

I've heard this somewhere before....
 
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