A few weeks ago I passed an audition to street perform at a major tourist attraction in Hollywood, CA. City Walk at Universal Studios. Street performing, or busking as it's often known by is in many ways a much harder performance art as compared to other forms of magic such as closeup or even stage.
The challenge presented by street magic is how do you capture the attention of an audience that is busy doing their own thing, and hold it long enough to allow you to do yours? Not only do you have to be good, you need to be entertaining, and many times you need to do those both really fast or you'll lose your audience. Unlike the guerrilla style ambush approach preferred by teens and David Blaine the purpose of busking isn't to entertain or amaze (though those are certainly byproducts) but instead the purpose is to make money. If you are busking, then you're doing your job and if you don't get paid for it you don't eat. While I honestly believe the former mentioned approach to street magic damages the professional art, I'll save that bit for a different essay all together. For now I want to focus on some of the things I've learned in just the few weeks I've been working for myself.
As I said busking is like a job. I've got bills to pay, and I'm really kind of addicted to this stuff called "food" so when I go into the Walk I try to keep that in the forefront of my mind. "I'm doing my job, and as such I need to be paid for this." One of the ways I've found that helps keep things in perspective, and me focused on the task at hand, is to set a goal each day I go out. Having a goal helps me visualize what I'm shooting for. Since I already work a "normal" day job, and I put normal in quotation marks because what I do at Universal Studios when I'm not doing magic is anything but normal, I use that as the base to form my goal on. My daily goal is to meet or exceed in my five hours of doing magic what I normally would make had I be working my usual job that day.
At the end of the day I also count up my tips, and then divide them by the hours I worked. To make sure that I am making effective use of my time I also track how much money I'm making on the hour that way. My goal here is to never make less on the hour than I would working my usual day job. If I come up on a situation (and thankfully I haven't yet ...knock on wood) that either I am not meeting my daily goals, or my hourly tips are dropping below my usual hourly wage at work then my day has been wasted and I'm better off going home and reviewing what's not working and how to improve the act to be more profitable. Yes I can see how this do or die mentality can be a bit over dramatically for a street performing gig, but if that's what it takes to motivate you to succeed then it's not a bad idea to be doing it.
Busking is about getting a crowd to watch you, without a crowd your chances to get any money out of them is slim to none. I tried a few things, whip cracking, balloon swallowing, and surprisingly enough the one that works for me the best (go figure) is standing still shuffling a deck of cards! People just associate cards with magic, and flock to me. Once I have the interest of one or two people I do a few simple card tricks to get warmed up and then let the law of numbers take over. The law of numbers (to me at least) means that if one or more people are interested in doing something then more will do so as well out of curiosity or desire to not be the one left out. In short, get two people to watch you for five minutes, and you'll attract twenty more for doing nothing more than what you already were.
Being an atmosphere element at the City Walk I am blessed (and cursed) by not having a dedicated spot to perform in. It's a blessing because I can follow the crowd of people from one end of the walk to the other depending on what part of the day it is, and whats going on in the area but it's a curse because not having a dedicated spot means I can't have a table or utilize larger stunts or illusions that I could otherwise take full advantage of. In short, if I can't fit it into my pockets or brief case, I can't use it.
As a strolling atmosphere element I've noticed that there are three types of approaches I can use to draw people into my act.
Let me say that I have had some success using all three methods, so they have all gone into my "bag of tricks" as it were, to be used as needed but I've certainly developed my own preferences too.
Trying to go to them, start conversation and do magic works really well until you get to a hat line. The minute I explained that I work on tips is the minute they shut me off and either walk away or begrudgingly give me a dollar. This is great for if I notice people are watching me for a good time, and are to timid to come to me, but generally I find that I can make more money using one of the other approaches below.
Barking at people to start a show works about as well as the people who sell cell phones in the local mall when they yell or harass you to come into their booth and buy their crap. Most people tune me out and walk on. However it is good to note that once I have a small show going, Barking to increase the audience size works insanely well. Not an opening technique, but certainly one worth knowing how to utilize.
The Look Interesting approach is for me the most successful, and profitable approach I use. I don't feel like a used car salesman trying to hock something someone may not want onto them, and since it's their idea to watch, most of the time my tips yield a higher pay out per hat. After all it was THEIR idea to engage me, so psychologically they're already more likely to be expecting to tip eventually.
The length of the show was something that I've played around extensively with. At first I started out with this ambition to do perfect 25 minute show sets, with meaning, theming, a theatrical opening, middle, and end only to find out that I was working way to hard for it. People didn't care if I did a ten minute show or a thirty minute one, I got paid about the same regardless. So since I can do more ten minute shows in an hour than I can a thirty minute one, and more shows means more hat lines therefor more opportunity to make money, I chose the later. After all it is about making money isn't it? So I started doing quick ten to fifteen minute grind shows. With a short reset time, and high mobility (being that my show packs down into my pockets and brief case) I've got a very effective tool to get money from the audience as quickly and frequently as possible.
(To Be Continued...)
The challenge presented by street magic is how do you capture the attention of an audience that is busy doing their own thing, and hold it long enough to allow you to do yours? Not only do you have to be good, you need to be entertaining, and many times you need to do those both really fast or you'll lose your audience. Unlike the guerrilla style ambush approach preferred by teens and David Blaine the purpose of busking isn't to entertain or amaze (though those are certainly byproducts) but instead the purpose is to make money. If you are busking, then you're doing your job and if you don't get paid for it you don't eat. While I honestly believe the former mentioned approach to street magic damages the professional art, I'll save that bit for a different essay all together. For now I want to focus on some of the things I've learned in just the few weeks I've been working for myself.
As I said busking is like a job. I've got bills to pay, and I'm really kind of addicted to this stuff called "food" so when I go into the Walk I try to keep that in the forefront of my mind. "I'm doing my job, and as such I need to be paid for this." One of the ways I've found that helps keep things in perspective, and me focused on the task at hand, is to set a goal each day I go out. Having a goal helps me visualize what I'm shooting for. Since I already work a "normal" day job, and I put normal in quotation marks because what I do at Universal Studios when I'm not doing magic is anything but normal, I use that as the base to form my goal on. My daily goal is to meet or exceed in my five hours of doing magic what I normally would make had I be working my usual job that day.
At the end of the day I also count up my tips, and then divide them by the hours I worked. To make sure that I am making effective use of my time I also track how much money I'm making on the hour that way. My goal here is to never make less on the hour than I would working my usual day job. If I come up on a situation (and thankfully I haven't yet ...knock on wood) that either I am not meeting my daily goals, or my hourly tips are dropping below my usual hourly wage at work then my day has been wasted and I'm better off going home and reviewing what's not working and how to improve the act to be more profitable. Yes I can see how this do or die mentality can be a bit over dramatically for a street performing gig, but if that's what it takes to motivate you to succeed then it's not a bad idea to be doing it.
Busking is about getting a crowd to watch you, without a crowd your chances to get any money out of them is slim to none. I tried a few things, whip cracking, balloon swallowing, and surprisingly enough the one that works for me the best (go figure) is standing still shuffling a deck of cards! People just associate cards with magic, and flock to me. Once I have the interest of one or two people I do a few simple card tricks to get warmed up and then let the law of numbers take over. The law of numbers (to me at least) means that if one or more people are interested in doing something then more will do so as well out of curiosity or desire to not be the one left out. In short, get two people to watch you for five minutes, and you'll attract twenty more for doing nothing more than what you already were.
Being an atmosphere element at the City Walk I am blessed (and cursed) by not having a dedicated spot to perform in. It's a blessing because I can follow the crowd of people from one end of the walk to the other depending on what part of the day it is, and whats going on in the area but it's a curse because not having a dedicated spot means I can't have a table or utilize larger stunts or illusions that I could otherwise take full advantage of. In short, if I can't fit it into my pockets or brief case, I can't use it.
As a strolling atmosphere element I've noticed that there are three types of approaches I can use to draw people into my act.
- Go To Them: I approach a group of people, introduce myself, and start doing magic.
- Barking: I stand still and vocally advertise what I am doing "Barking", hoping to draw interest.
- Look Interesting: I stand still, and do something interesting letting the idea to engage the magic be theirs.
Let me say that I have had some success using all three methods, so they have all gone into my "bag of tricks" as it were, to be used as needed but I've certainly developed my own preferences too.
Trying to go to them, start conversation and do magic works really well until you get to a hat line. The minute I explained that I work on tips is the minute they shut me off and either walk away or begrudgingly give me a dollar. This is great for if I notice people are watching me for a good time, and are to timid to come to me, but generally I find that I can make more money using one of the other approaches below.
Barking at people to start a show works about as well as the people who sell cell phones in the local mall when they yell or harass you to come into their booth and buy their crap. Most people tune me out and walk on. However it is good to note that once I have a small show going, Barking to increase the audience size works insanely well. Not an opening technique, but certainly one worth knowing how to utilize.
The Look Interesting approach is for me the most successful, and profitable approach I use. I don't feel like a used car salesman trying to hock something someone may not want onto them, and since it's their idea to watch, most of the time my tips yield a higher pay out per hat. After all it was THEIR idea to engage me, so psychologically they're already more likely to be expecting to tip eventually.
The length of the show was something that I've played around extensively with. At first I started out with this ambition to do perfect 25 minute show sets, with meaning, theming, a theatrical opening, middle, and end only to find out that I was working way to hard for it. People didn't care if I did a ten minute show or a thirty minute one, I got paid about the same regardless. So since I can do more ten minute shows in an hour than I can a thirty minute one, and more shows means more hat lines therefor more opportunity to make money, I chose the later. After all it is about making money isn't it? So I started doing quick ten to fifteen minute grind shows. With a short reset time, and high mobility (being that my show packs down into my pockets and brief case) I've got a very effective tool to get money from the audience as quickly and frequently as possible.
(To Be Continued...)
