How varying magic methods improves your act’s success - Basic Magic Lesson 3 - Mystery Entertainer Emanuel Chester

The other week the show Scam School presented a mentalism act based on ripped paper. Basically, you bring a sheet of paper to a bar, rip it into equal pieces, and have a couple of participants write down a sentence without you looking, after which you divine who wrote what.

Impressive?

Yes... if you are dealing with sober people that pay attention to your act.

What if you aren’t?

What if your audience consists of drunk folk? Elderly folk with memory problems? Children with attention spans of a gnat? How can your act still succeed?

By adding something extra. Like coloured markers or paired decals.

Rather than letting children come up with something to write down, let them choose from paired decals: they stick the one copy on their paper, and keep the other as a gift. Of course you ask them to hide the copy they hid. Then, after you divined which decal was chosen by which child, you ask them to present their copy of the decal, proving your success.

And rather than letting people with memory problems (due to inabriation or mental limitation, for instance) remember who wrote what, instead of having them write anything, let them draw a picture with one of the coloured markers. Obviously each colour must differ from the others. Let them hide the marker under the table or behind their body. After divining which drawing was made by who, have the, present their markers, proving your success.

It is essential that you understand your audience: are they going to be willing and able to pay attention to your act? Or are they easily distracted? A little preparation will go a long way to make an act look impromptu.

Assignments

1. Get to know your audience
Applying variations to your expected audience only works if you know who will be in your audience. Take a moment to think about the people for whom you have performed. Take a moment to consider for whom you will be performing. Then make a spreadsheet and start categorising based on the following questions:

• Where will you be performing? In a pub, in the streets, in a mall, in a living room, in a restaurant, in a school?
  
• What distractions will be available during your performance? Drinking, dinner, shopping, a carnival, clowns, a circus, sales people?
  
• For what age groups do you expect to be performing? Toddlers, preteens, teens, adolescents, young parents, career junkies, midlife-crisis folk, grandparents?
  
• What did your audience do before seeing your show? How likely is it they will be discussing that rather than paying attention?
  
• What will your audience be doing after seeing your show? How likely is it they will be discussing that rather than paying attention?

2. Pick a simple trick and apply it to each situation
Sit down for a spell and start thinking about how you could change the simple trick to meet the challenges of each of the categories you wrote down in the spreadsheet. Add a new column to your spreadsheet and use a few words to describe each variation. Afterwards, evaluate:

• Do some variations apply to several situations?
  
• Do some variations apply to specific situations, only?
  
• Can you vary the specific variations so they become more general?

3. Test
We can theorise about our work and methods all we want, but unless you put it to the test, you won’t know for sure whether a variation is going to work, or needs more work. Using the same spreadsheet, mark which variation of your act you have tested and how successful you were. Yes, this is highly subjective, but since you are the one evaluating all your performances, that is OK. Make sure to test each variation several times.