Estonian Close Up

I really liked your performance. I agree that the patter could use a little work, but it did not prevent me from enjoying your magic. I also agree that maybe the two bottle productions would be better if they were switched. I personally love doing the splash bottle because it is a very powerful unexpected finish to a very simple coin trick. I usually do a more extensive coin routine before the bottle to build it up. Then I can "teach" them how I do the coin tricks. I don't know how much time you had to perform, but it would have also been cool to see more of the cards. Nicely done.

Perhaps of you switched these two productions, you may get better reactions. Although it may not follow your patter, I would prefer you changed your patter for a generally stronger routine. Work on your fluidity, employing more character, lightening the atmosphere, making your audience enjoy the show and be part of it, and strengthening your routine. I may be wrong and the lack of reaction may just be because your audience was a bunch of self centred douchey magicians who don't like applauding other magicians who seem to be doing well. But generally for a performance, not that bad at all.

Alright. To be honest, I didn't really like it. You have the technical skill, its quite evident, but I just didn't feel like the audience watching had fun. To me (maybe im wrong), your performance felt very mechanical. Every move, every line, every joke, seemed like it was practiced a million times. So much that it becomes a habit to notice everything you do. You did each sleight, each movement, one by one to the point where its almost like you are following instructions in your mind. Work on making it more fluid. Relax and just try to make the atmosphere fun. Even with the jokes and gags, I felt a lot of tension within the air. The parts that were meant to be funny felt awkward to laugh due to the general silence and the way you made your audience feel. When you didn't tell a joke, it was just you describing something, which could bore the audience due to the lack of engagement. I would also generally prefer if your entire routine had some link throughout. Yes it was all general table hopping/ ****tail, but I would enjoy it as a part of audience more if there was a general connection. When I design a routine, I try to make it so that if I replaced any of the effects with something else, everything would feel a lot different. In this case, if I switched out Splash Bottle with a rose production or even just a color changing silk, I think the routine would still feel the same in general. FInally, I felt your ending was not strong. It is a good effect, but why end with that. I felt this is what lost you the most "points". I am sure if you ended with something stronger, you may have made 2nd or 1st place. Basically you started with the production of a bottle, which is amazing due to its size, to a color changing deck, which is still quite shocking, to producing a solid bubble, which I feel is a let down as it is very small. Compared to a bottle, a solid bubble looks kind of weak. it is concealable in your hand and you had already produced something of more impossibillity.

I liked it... however I don´t understand why in some of the productions people didn´t react..mmm..like the bubble bottle production...