Magic Gig In Queens

Aug 31, 2007
1,960
1
34
Long Island/New York
This past Sunday I had a gig to perform walk around magic in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY. It was for lighting the Unisphere in pink and blue for Autism Awareness Month.

I just want to talk about some of the problems that happened when I attended.

I was told that it was going to be held indoors because the weather was freezing. So I had prepared for an indoor event where I'd walk around wearing my sports coat, which had all my apparatus in the right places for me to perform.

When I arrived, I saw tents being set up and tables being put out. So apparently they decided to move it back outdoors. Let me remind you that it was still freezing. I was getting worried because it's so hard for me to handle cards in cold weather. I have very bad circulation in my hands as it is, so performing bare handed out in the cold would be killer. Luckily I packed 2 sweatshirts in my car. I put the first one on, and it didn't do much for me. So then I put on a zip up one on top of it and it was enough to keep me warm, but my hands were still pretty cold.

I had brought so much material other than cards, but my sweatshirt wouldn't allow me to pull off most of those tricks. So I decided to just use a deck of cards the whole time since it was better than nothing.

I planned on being there for 2 hours doing magic. My friend came with me to video tape the reactions of people I performed for. I got a lot of good footage, but unfortunately the place where we performed was right next to Lagwardia Airport. So just about in every video you can hear a loud plane flying above.

In one video that I haven't posted for obvious reasons, I was performing for Firemen. They really enjoyed my first couple of tricks, but when i was doing my last trick 5 speed by Chris Kenner, They received a call on their radio about a fire so they had to leave before the finale.

After performing for the firemen, I went up to a group of about 20 bikers. One guy saw me with the cards and he looked like he wanted to see something, so I asked him if he'd like to see some magic. "Magic, No, No Magic!".
All his friends looked at us, and I tell my friend who's video taping, "Nah this guy doesn't like magic, he's angry about not hitting Megamillions or something". . . All of his biker friends just start laughing at him, and we just walk off to the next group.

Within the hour of performing, it starts to rain. Nothing too major at first, but then it just turned bad. So unfortunately we had to pack it up and go home a little bit early.
So for what the event was, with everything that went wrong, I feel that I did a good job. Honestly I know guys that just would have just left when they realized it was an outside event.

Has things of this nature ever happened to anyone else? There must be a few horror stories out there about gigs you've done in the past.

Anyways, I thought I'd share with you guys some videos that we took that day. Once again, this was my friends first time handling a camera. Oh and be free to bash my performance skills as much as possible! I don't mind, it will actually help in the long run. Thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ko7...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NUPjMWqk0h8NTQDlPF8pToU=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hvS...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NUPjMWqk0h8NTQDlPF8pToU=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-eC...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NaddoDXYajx9bXFCdv9PrEE=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHDE...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NbTKHtcQ894m43aFuqrbx1s=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6ZE...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NaddoDXYajx9bXFCdv9PrEE=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BsT...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NUPjMWqk0h8NTQDlPF8pToU=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us4o...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NU0sQnB2nJlJJTem_de_Klg=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLei...DvjVQa1PpcFNaDZpAYJ99NQEoidzrbu-Zrxu8kEMeZOM=
 

RickEverhart

forum moderator / t11
Elite Member
Sep 14, 2008
3,637
471
46
Louisville, OH
Loved watching these videos and the reactions. Thanks for sharing. This is how you get good. Out performing for real people in live situations. Anything and Everything will happen. Weather can be a difficult issue. If it is freezing cold or even drizzling a bit, your cards will not work well nor will your fingers. If the weather is scorching hot out and the humidity is bad....this makes the cards sticky hard to handle as well. Always carry a few decks / sharpies with you to a gig.I believe you did the best you could have with what you had dealt to you.

In hind sight...I know you would have been cold but had someone paid you and there was a contract involved you definitely would have had to suck it up and wear a sports coat and not the hoody. It probably wasn't a big deal at this event but it would have even demanded more respect from your spectators. Clearly they enjoyed your performances. Well done!

Your camera man obviously was a bit shaky at times, but being it was his first time and camera settings are a bi*** to figure out when just starting to film. Different ISO's, aperture settings all come into play. Most of the video looked fine except the one with the heavy guy and his daughter (2nd to last video) which was a bit out of focus. It may have been all of the white sky in the back ground throwing off a setting if he was shooting in auto mode...hard to say. The other thing with the Canon DSLRs T3 / T3i is once you have everything in focus, you need to keep it like that, when you zoom in and out on things the camera has to readjust and thus the blurring you will get. Even mine does that for the split second that you zoomed in or out. If you can find the aperture settings you should get to somewhere around 4.0 or 4.5 if yours has it.
 
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