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Agent86 Regular user 154 Posts |
I recall about 5 years ago performing for an apartment complex e's annual Christmas party. My uncle who ran the event booked me the show and I wanted to really impress him and the "big wigs" of the complex (for future bookings, higher fees, etc.) Being only 17 at the time I had plenty of time to practice and master my effects in what I considered oober perfection. The day of the show comes, I arrive extra early to set up my rig and show. The show starts normal, a crowd of about 130-140 people. Moving through quite nicely, I begin my fourth effect (I believe it was the Vanishing Bandanna.) Then almost as a sign from above, a ghastly scream explodes like a volcano from the center of the crowd and this seemingly fine women is bellowing that she broke her ankle! How on earth could this women have broken her ankle sitting down in a chair in the middle of an enormous crowd of people? I'm thinking some weird ankle, chair leg combination. Or maybe she was sparing me because she thought I was bombing.
Not even joking, an ambulance arrives. EMT's rush out and crash into the room like she was shot. They ran straight through my stage which was floor level and pretty much ended the show. By the time they were gone and "ankle lady" was rushed to the hospital, 80% of the crowd had vanished. Apparently my finale effect was the vanishing audience. Needless to say, I was not booked by those big wigs later on. Can anyone top this? lol. |
RJE Inner circle 1848 Posts |
This thread should be lot of fun!! I'm sure a lot of us have stories to tell.
Here's one from early on in my career, sometime around 1985. I was booked to do show for an elementary school, K to 6. It was winter and there was a fair amount of snow on the ground. The show was in the early afternoon and the entire school came down to the gym to watch. Most of the kids were in sock feet having left their winter boots outside their classroom doors. Well, I would start my show off by producing some doves including one from a dove pan. I had just purchased some red smoke powder and decided to load up a big wad of f*a*h p*p*r with it to give a really 'nice' effect. I lit the load and the red smoke billowed forth. As I magically waved my hand through the cloud, feeling quite good about how it looked, the fire alarm goes off! The smoke had triggered the alarm above the stage. Everyone knew it was my smoke that had set if off, but the rules (maybe the law) states that the school had to evacuate through the nearest exits until the fire department responded and gave the all clear to go back in. So, out everyone goes into the snow, some in their socks, none with coats. Man, did I feel bad! Anyway, the fire department is there pretty quick and we're all back inside and it is decided that the show must go on. The kids are fine, no frost bite or lasting harm to anyone. My next effect is a cut and restored rope routine with very sharp scissors. I am already shaken by the fire alarm thing and carelessly snipped into the end of my finger causing it to bleed profusely. I had to wrap it with toilet paper and tape to staunch the blood and finished the show. Now, that being bad enough, all I wanted to do was to forget it happened and make sure, that I would not make either of those mistakes again. Forgetting would have to wait a bit though. The city paper had had a reporter at the show and their story read, "Magician makes school disappear! Well, not really, but he did force all the students out into the cold when a trick went wrong." Fortunately, the whole thing is just a memory now and it had no negative effect on my career. It has reached the stage where I can look back and laugh. So, that's my show from he**. All the best, Rob |
Agent86 Regular user 154 Posts |
Wow... I think you got me on that one Rob. At least we can use these misfortunes to gain some knowledge and look back hole heartedly and laugh our a**es off.
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magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
Oh man where to even start. I have so many fun stories that have happened over the 20 years I have been performing. hehe Well one such story I tell all the time was something that reminded me never ever to try and work with another magician friend and try and combine your intro act with his intro act at the same time. hehehe I still have the video of what I am about to tell. I should send it into funniest home videos.
A friend gets booked to perform at the Container Corporation of American holiday show. He does not have enough material so asks me if I can do a combined show with him. I said sure not a problem. hehehe We tried to combine his intro in with ours and that was a mistake. Then we get there and the person tells us we have to go on in 5 mins as he apologizes. being young at the time and trying to accommodate I say sure. I race backstage as my brother (also a magician) is helping me try and load the doves and rabbits for the musical intro. The music starts and the first thing my brother does is a simple dove pan production.. only problem is that he lifts the lid and realizes I forgot to load the bird in the secret area. Well I come on gracefully to take the lid off as he is seen on stage trying to kill time. He basically is seen showing the pan empty in every single way possible. It was a riot. shows it empty, then takes out silk and dusts it. then goes into audience and shows it, has a kid knock on the bottom of it. hehehe Meanwhile I was so rattled at the time (being young and all) that I did not want to walk back on stage. So all you see on the video is this magical hand come out from the middle of the backdrop with the lid. The audience starts laughing their heads off. The our friend goes on to just do the tea kettle trick where silks are placed in and water is changed to that color. Well he forgets to load the water for the kettle and so a 6 minute effect lasts 30 seconds as he basically shows the kettle, realizes he forgot to fill it and pulls out 6 silks. the audience starts laughing even harder. My brother comes on (totally not ready) to do our next sequence in our dove act. Well we have a Chalet sound activated Balloon to dove. I did not have time enough to load it the right way. Anyone who has this effect knows what I am referring to. Well I only had enough time to move the compartment over, set it and placed the dove on top. my thinking was I could just lift up that area and place him in and lock it again. No problem hehehe. Well the dove is now sitting on the spring activated part (you all know what I mean). My brother is on stage doing a silk number and I turn to get something as my butt hits the button that turns on the sound activation. I did not realize this. now any large sound is going to trigger the balloon to dove. Well my brother does a nice silk fountain type effect and the audience starts to clap. well the sound was loud enough to trigger the balloon to dove and as I turn to try and find where the heck the dove went, all I see is this poor dove being catapulted across the stage. My brother is seen on the video looking up as this bird flys right over top of him. hehehe oh man. The audience is roaring of laughter right now and in tears as my brother comes on and I go back out. Now I am so rattled by what happed, and the fact that my brother was going to kill me, that I tried to do the linking rings without the k** ring. hehehe I didn't realize this until I did my count and tried to do a crash link and to my amazement it just was never going to happen. I improvised and it was hilarious but I was upset. My brother comes back on and all he has to do to save grace is perform a flip fly dove bag vanish. He produces the dove the dove goes in the bag and what can possible go wrong you ask. Well as my brother rips the bag open everything is fine. the dove is gone and silk appears. However, my brother grabs the wrong end and the next thing you see is the dove on the stage walking around. the audience is in tears at this point. just when we think this intro can not possible get worse it does. You see at the end of the intro we were to do a door frame illusion to produce Santa. Well the Santa we trained the hour before to do the illusion said he had to leave. I was like, "what your leaving now what the heck". he goes,"Oh they didn't tell you another Santa will be taking my place and he is right over there." We sneak this guy in as the intro is going on and this poor guy is drunk off his gourd. Now my two friends are out there performing the door frame feeling that this is their saving grace. They have no idea that poor Santa behind the curtain is drunk and I basically had to prop him up and was standing and pushing him into position the entire illusion. when he was supposed to step through the paper for his production I didn't;t know what to do. The guy was not listening and did not move. The only thing I knew was to give him a little shove. well the audience basically sees Santa falling through the door frame and doing a flip on the stage. the other magician and my brother were in total shock and the audience goes NUTS!!! True story! We were all so upset cause this was supposed to be an awesome intro for the show. Well after the show we had so many people come up to us afterwards saying they had never seen a comedy magic act like that before in their lives and they thought it was the best comedy magic act they had ever seen. hehehe if only they knew. Well that is my story and it was painful to tell again but I always have the video to watch and get laughs from. it had to be the funniest 9 minutes of my life. Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Brian Lehr Inner circle Edmonton, Canada 1605 Posts |
My war story happened just yesterday!
I'm performing at a daycare (show in school gym, with all kids sitting on the floor). There were about 50 kids, two of whom I had to interrupt the show and speak to twice. The last part of the show was with my puppet, Benny the Bunny (see avatar). He usually has a little conversation with one of girls in the front row. He completes his little conversation by giving the girl a kiss (with her permission), but then proceeds to kiss all the boys and girls in the front row. The kids are all surprised, and screaming with delight (as it usual for all my shows). Everything was going as planned, until one of the boys I earlier had spoken to (sitting in the back row) decides to stand up and start screaming and running to the back of the gym (not a fearful scream, but the kind that says "You're not going to get me!"). At that point, his other misbehaving friend jumps up and joins him. As I start to try and get their attention (I did have a mic on), everyone started screaming out loud, and half of the group begins to jump up and start running around the gym. This was my first time at this particular center, and I have never seen such a thing happen before. The director gets up and starts chasing the kids (none of the other teachers helped). I just stood there dumbfounded! Actually I was completely shocked by this behavior! Eventually we managed to get things back under control and wrap things up (thankfully this happened when there was only about two minutes left to the show). When talking to the director and teachers afterwards, they were thrilled with the show (they had a bad experience with another magician about a year ago. Hmmm...). And they are looking forward to having me back in the new year. Maybe it's time to increase my fees for certain daycares. ;-) Brian |
magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
Oh man Brian. I feel for you dude. That has got to stink. But as they say s*** happens... sometimes to too many of us hehe. I am just glad it went ok for you and they liked what you did.
Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Agent86 Regular user 154 Posts |
Yea Brian, that's too bad. It's happened to me a couple of times as well. One or two kids with a little too much sugar in them rile up the whole crowd. I know it all to well my friend, considering 75% of my shows are for kids.
It's a tough job but someone's got to do it aye . |
magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
No matter how prepared you are or how much of a veteran you are performing for children, you just never do know. Anyone who performs for children just relaize that anything can and will happen. It is just how you reatc to the situation when it occurs that makes you a profesisonal. You can not possibly ever be ready for every situation, but you can always be a gentlemen and always act as professionally as you can. That is what makes you remembered and keeps the clients coming back to you time and again. Great thread guys.
Kyle PS: Agent86: Welcome to the Café my friend. You will absolutely love it here. As you have found out it really is magicians helping magicians. if I can be of any help to you, please just let me know. My pleasure. welcome aboard. =)
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Futureal Inner circle 1695 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-12-23 19:49, magic4u02 wrote: Kyle you HAVE to put this video online for us to watch! |
Agent86 Regular user 154 Posts |
Thanks a lot Kyle. I look forward to being part of this. It really is incredible.
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kimmo Inner circle Sheffield 1193 Posts |
About 10 years ago I was booked to perform at a 40th birthday party at a golf club. It was my third show for adults so I was pretty nervous, but my first experiences had been positive so I was confident that everything would be ok.
On arriving I found a room packed with people and a disco pumping out loud music. A lady handed me my fee in an envelope and showed me to a spot on the dance floor where I was to perform. People were dancing round me so I asked if the disco could be turned off so I could start. The music cut out and was followed by a huge groan from the crowd and a chorus of boos. I was horrified to find out that the dance floor was so packed that the front row of the audience were standing literally inches away from me. Those who had seats at tables around the edge couldn't see and the ones right at the front were just staring at me with murdurous looks on their faces for daring to interrupt their fun! If this situation presented itself to me today I would simply give back the fee and walk, but I soldiered on. The nerves kicked in and I began to shake and forget my lines. I borrowed a twenty pound note for bill in lemon, performed a switch and then began to burn the duplicate in a small metal pan. My shaky hand had slipped a little with the lighter fuel and the fireball was enormous, causing quite a stir. When the flames died down I picked up the pan to move it away but forgot to put on my heat proof glove! I screamed and flung the red hot pan into the crowd, ashes flying everywhere!! The audience were cursing me as I scrabbled around trying to retrieve it. The crowd remained hostile and I became increasingly more inarticulate as things got worse. Then I got Charlie out and suddenly people were laughing! A ray of hope!! They were warming to me!! - or so I thought. I realised they were looking behind me and turned to see the 40 year old birthday boy who had stripped stark naked and was waving his own 'wand' around!!! I looked at my watch and saw that only 30 minutes had passed. I'd been booked to do 40 but the fee was in my pocket so I said 'thankyou and goodnight', threw everything back into my box and ran straight out of the place. Driving back from the show I kept replaying the evening in my head, taking solace in the fact that I would never have to see those people again. Suddenly my blood ran cold!! I reached into my pocket and there was the lemon containing the borrowed £20 note! I realised that I now had to turn round and go back into that place to return it!! Sometimes I still wake up screaming...
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RJE Inner circle 1848 Posts |
Kimmo, at that point, I might have just kept the 20, hehehe.
Kyle, that would make a great magician's convention show you might want to consider working on. All the best, Rob |
Agent86 Regular user 154 Posts |
Kimmo, did you still keep your normal fee?
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Brian Lehr Inner circle Edmonton, Canada 1605 Posts |
Kyle, that was hilarious!
Isn't that how the the Great Ballantine got started? Are you sure you didn't miss your calling?? ;-) Brian |
magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
If I put that video online you guys would be in the hospital from laughing too hard. I could not do that to you all. The world would miss you as you each get rolled and locked up in a mental ward screaming oh my god make it stop.. make it stop. lol
I still have that tape and it is the fuinniest thing I have ever seen. I mean I was so upset so many years ago when it happend. I mean I was 15 and my bro was 18 and we are supposed to be COOl and the next Copperfield. We spent so much time trying to go for wow and COOl and we ended up with the funniest comedy act they had ever seen. I still things those folks still talk about how 20 years ago they saw this act and they wet themselves. lol The funny thing about all of this is that we could not have planned it any better. I mean one thing after the other just bombed. Every time we tried to fix the problem a bird is being catapulted across the stage or I forget to bring out the K** ring. I mean who the heck forgets to bring out the key element to the linking rings lol. It was 9 minutes of pure agony for us but man those folks thought we were the best comedy act ever. One of these days I may get the gutts up enough to dust off that tape, fix it and see if I can get it up so you can watch it. Although if I get a chance to do that I take no risk in people dying from laughter. It would make a funny convention act. Just wonder if I could ever duplicate the looks and the utter expressions on all of our faces as the events unfolded. I mean the look on my bros face when he sees the dove flying over head is so priceless. To this day I watch it just so I can laugh. Glad you all enjoyed my one of many war stories. remind me to tell you all the story of the costumed 6 foot rabbit and the 6 year old girl from HEL*. It's a doozy. lol Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Scott O. Inner circle Midwest 1143 Posts |
Kyle,
I had a great laugh reading your story. I'm still laughing as I write this just imagining Santa stumbling through the paper frame. Thanks for the share. And Kimmo, throwing the red-hot embers and pan into the audience. . . priceless. --Glad it wasn't me though . I don't have anything of that caliber, but I had some fun at a school show recently. I was supposed to be performing for the kindergarten through fourth grade. One of the routines was based on David Ginn's Snake Can routine. Very funny for this age. Somehow a group of sixth graders ended up watching the show, and I inadvertently chose one of them (a sixth grade boy) to help. He was Mr. Cool -- as all 12 - 13 year olds are. At the end of the routine I open up a can of "Jelly Beans" only to find three spring snakes inside. This kid was old enough, and had enough experience to be apprehensive. That could have spoiled the ending. Instead, when the snakes flew out, he took two huge steps backward and went sprawling on the floor. He didn't get hurt, but it got the best reaction I've received to date with this effect. The kids loved that.
Do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest, if you do not give up. Galatians 6:9
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magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
You are most welcome Scott. Santa did not just stumble through the paper.. lol ... he was so drunk I had to push him through which caused him to tumble and basically do a flip landing on his butt in front of the door frame. If I did not "help" him through the poor guy would have been leaning against the rpop for hours lol. My two friends were so shocked that the look on their face is priceless. hehehe Oh man what a show that was. I am glad that was many many years ago.
My 6 foot rabbit and the girl from Hel* story is almost as funny. lol remind me to fill you guys in on it sometime. Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Danny Hustle Inner circle Boston, MA USA 2393 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-12-24 05:36, kimmo wrote: Kimmo, Tommy Cooper made a 30 year career out of a show like this one! Oh the memories this brings back. One of my favorites was doing the bill in lemon during a street show at Marketplace center and nearly cutting the tip of my finger off opening the lemon. I bottled with the bloody hand behind my back and dripping on the ground. Ahh sweet memories! Best, Dan- "MT is one of the reasons we started this board! I’m so sick of posts being deleted without any reason given, and by unknown people at that." - Steve Brooks Sep 7, 2001 8:38pm ©1999-2014 Daniel Denney all rights reserved. |
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