|
|
Go to page [Previous] 1~2 | ||||||||||
Erdnase27 Inner circle 2505 Posts |
Good post. ive my first kidshow for a large audience today
I chose for: 1. egg bag 2. passe passe bottles(with a clown) 3. Sinterklaas hat tear(its sinterklaas a dutch variant of santaclaus) 4. Die box 5. Comedy Funnel 6. Change bag routine if I'm too short on time I perform the coloring book |
|||||||||
magicelam Veteran user Tennessee 368 Posts |
Hey Adrian, I didn't read all the other posts, but for that age, I usually do something like (and I think sponge bunnies are killer, btw):
Simple vanishing silk (tt) Vanish again into a red snowstorm (they'll laugh - kids like messes) Stoplight trick or Strat-o-sphere - kids usually seem to be able to keep up with this at that age for me... Some play with a balloon where I can't blow it up (wrong end), snap myself in the face, etc - when you hurt, they'll laugh... then I place the balloon into a pan, place the lid on, and produce a balloon doggie... the kids get excited when I tell them everyone will get a balloon after the show... and finally I do color changing plumes to music... Show is short enough and colorful enough to keep their attention... That's what works for me for this age group! -Mike
Mike
|
|||||||||
mike256 New user Washington 23 Posts |
Sounds like a great learning experience. Hays' amateur magicians hand book has a great chapter on performing for kids. I just did my first show for my sons birthday. hes 4 so all the kids were in that age group. heres what I chose
rabbit from hat (using one of my sponge rabbits) sponge rabbits. misers dream ropes through volunteer eggs from hankie thank you card multiplying dollars It went pretty well until the end of the eggs trick. instead of confetti I threw candy out of the basket. it took a good 5 minutes to get the kids rounded back up. all in all I think it went pretty well for my first show. I didn't realize but the whole restaurant came into the back party room to watch. that was a pleasant surprise. everyone had a blast and I finally got to show off the magic I have been working on. |
|||||||||
LVMagicAL Elite user 460 Posts |
A long time ago (when I had a "real" job as a general manager of a modest sized company in the mid-west), a young, eager, up-and-commer asked me what the secret to success in business was. Off the cuff I answered: "Do domething that other people can't, or don't want to do....do it well, and you'll never have to worry about money". At the time, I didn't completely understand the level of insight I had imparted.
Now that my primary income is derived from kid and family shows, and after hearing comments from some very good professional magicians about their fear and worry about performing for kids, I realize my retort to an employee years earlier was in fact quite prophetic. I didn't start out with the intention of performing for kids, but my significant other is a first grade teacher and invited me into her classroom to do a short show. I was then invited into neighboring classrooms to do shows and one of her colleagues told me after a show in her class: "You're SO MUCH FUNNIER than any other magician we've had in here.....and better than any I've seen at the kids parties I've been to....you should do this for a living!" *** her anyhow.....the nerve of encouraging me to pursue children's entertainment.... I'm just glad that there is a perception that kid-show performing is tough. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it, right?? In reality, it's not tough....it's just different than adults. It's a difference I enjoy. If you can enjoy the differene, then good for you....if not, well, send your kid-show inquiries my way......I'd be happy to oblige! |
|||||||||
Yola Sol New user Netherlands 51 Posts |
All of you must be very brave to entertain kids. Like someone posted before; they're scary. My only experience (with a younger family member):
I did a short sponge routine, but after a few vanishes/reappears she didn't seem very interested. However, she's a very shy girl, so I decided to multiply them in her hands and stop and do something non-magic if she didn't like it by then. So she opens her hands, lots of sponges fall out and she just looks at me. 'So? It's just magic.' I think the look on my face was priceless.
On the road of life, don't forget to stop and eat the roses
|
|||||||||
Bradley Roberts Elite user Las Vegas 413 Posts |
I have seen some really good magicians bomb at kids parties. It does take a special breed of magician to do them. I myself love doing them. You have to think and act like the kids sometimes to make it a great show for them. Another poster said to they like it Big, Colorful, and Funny. That is the truth. Also the younger they are the shorter the routines need to be.
Don’t give up on the little ones. It can be very rewarding and fun. I think I get more entertainment out of them then they do with me. I love what they do and say. You have to be able to roll with the punches and just have fun. If you do another kid show let us know how it went. Brad Roberts “I have been doing children and family shows for 10 years and now I am scared to death to do a show for just adults.”
B-Rad "The Kids Magician"
Brad Kids Magic Website "A child's smile is one of life's greatest blessings." |
|||||||||
jimhlou Inner circle 3698 Posts |
I love performing for kids. Keeps me young. I also do an adult show which is completely different. Both give you an ego trip, but the Kids is where it's at.
Jim |
|||||||||
jolly12 New user PEI, Canada 48 Posts |
I ended off my very first show with floating bill, everything was going as planned until one little kid stood up and yelled out.."THE I.T. IS ** *** *****, my daddy does that trick at home". I was really rattled, but pretended like I didn't hear him, and finished the trick
|
|||||||||
Tokyo Williams Regular user NYC 126 Posts |
I never cared for kiddie shows. However, about 15 years ago I was a member of a clown troupe while in high school. This meant I did a lot of kids shows, and in turn was privately hired to do a few kids b-day shows privately. Even though they all went pretty well in retrospect, at the time I remember feeling leaving every birthday show with a mixture of emotion akin to that of a man who has just had to save his life by killing a grizzly bear with his bare hands; my joy was due more to the act's end than any merits contained therein. I haven't done one in years, but things I remember working especially well were:
*TT silk vanish, or any visible vanish. * Eggs from Handkerchief. This included the usual "accidental" trip, revealing that the hat full of half a dozen eggs turned into confetti. It's cliche, but there's a reason why it lives on. The love of seemingly almost being covered with something yucky is hard-wired into all children's brains. It's why someone still makes a living manufacturing ketchup and mustard bottles full of string. *Psuedo-sucker tricks. A golden rule of kid magic is never do a sucker trick on a kid that ends with him/her being the sucker. But doing tricks where I allowed the kids to "burn" me a couple of times killed. Kids love being right, and they love even more getting to tell a grown-up they're wrong. An eventual successful attempt seems all the more impressive later. *Children love furry little critters. They don't even have to be real. I included a stuffed rabbit puppet in an old hat. He wasn't produced magically, he didn't speak, and my right hand visible disappeared into a hole in the hat; there wasn't a child there that didn't understand that this was a piece of fabric being manipulated by me. Yet, none of my previous miracles caused the squeals of delight as that stupid rabbit. After everyone had a chance to pet/shake paws with my fried, he then proceeded to produce the chosen card from inside his hat (after a few increasingly frantic wrong attempts)and takes his bow. This was my only card trick. Ultimately, the card trick took 1.45 minutes, but the rabbit bit could be stretched out near infinitely without a lapse in attention. *Billiard Balls/Sponge Balls/Sponge Whatever. A clean, simple, interactive, and short routine is a classic for a reason. *Clowning. Some of the most basic clown skits and patter routines I was using could be "normalized" to work with my persona without forcing me to be Sunshyne the Clown. While clowning and clown magic aren't for everyone, if you hire yourself out at all, you should look into picking up a book on the subject, like Ginn's work. I was surprised by how much of my clowning I deconstructed and rebuilt to work with my "straight" magic when surrounded by kids. I also noticed that playing for larger, school-type assemblies was actually easier. A gym full of schoolchildren with their teachers seem like military precision compared to the anarchy of an unsupervised birthday party in some basement rec room.
I have nothing to say
And I am saying it And that is poetry. -John Cage |
|||||||||
Review King Eternal Order 14446 Posts |
Adrian, you got out there and did the show-GREAT JOB!
Every gig is a learning experience and you learned so much. You'll be ready next time! YOU ROCK, baby!!!
"Of all words of tongue and pen,
the saddest are, "It might have been" ..........John Greenleaf Whittier |
|||||||||
mitchb2 Elite user 455 Posts |
Good story. I imagine I would be terrified. I get nervous just doing a trick for my wife.
I watched Sanders' Fiber Optics routine on YouTube. That looks like something kids would enjoy, because it keeps moving and there are many "wow" moments. |
|||||||||
Levi Bennett Inner circle 1778 Posts |
Thanks for sharing your hard-learned lesson. This will help me routine my first kid shows.
And when I bomb, I'll be sure to come tell you about it!
Performing magic unprofessionally since 2008!
|
|||||||||
mmreed Inner circle Harrisburg, PA 1432 Posts |
One other thing to consider is proper crowd and child management. There are many ways to gain immediate control over kids in an effective and responsive manner.
The book Kid Control goes into great detail about this. I offer it in my webstore http://www.magicvault.net, and I am sure many other retailers offer it. Kid Control gets into how to immediately gain control over kids gone wild. Excellent book for those doing kids shows! Also - check out Silly Billy -David Kane - hes great with kids too.
Mark Reed
Wedding and Event Entertainment |
|||||||||
MattSconce Special user 654 Posts |
Wow! That terrifies me and I wasn't even there. it sounds like you handled it well. You also learned a lot. heck, I learned a lot from you sharing that! thanks!
Other effects:
http://www.penguinmagic.com/magician/matt-sconce |
|||||||||
jnrussell Loyal user Michigan 207 Posts |
Just had a very similar experience last week... twice! I'll post details separately in the kids' forum. But I was very discouraged after the first one. Did the same show two days later for a different audience, and not much better. Realized that a long routine with multiplying golf balls, cups & balls, and rope wasn't going to cut it with a younger crowd.
|
|||||||||
metaljohn Loyal user Montreal, QC 280 Posts |
I never ever do kid's shows except for my mother's daycare's yearly Christmas party (I also dress up as Santa Clause a couple of hours later lol). It helped in those first years that my mother told me what the kids like. Things that disappear, things that change and similar easy concepts. I've had tricks that bombed and tricks that were a huge success. I also noticed that the order of tricks played a huge factor on whether the kids liked the tricks or not.
I always start with the coloring book routine and have the kids pretend to pull the colors off of their clothes and shoot them at me while I catch them with the book. Then I tell them to mimic pulling the colors away and back onto their clothes which makes the pages entirely blank. This opener, grasps their attention and makes them all participants. Next up Cups and Balls routine or Multiplying Bottles. After one of those two tricks, to make sure they're still with me, I do something with a magic bag. Have a few kids pass their hand in it to make sure it's empty. Then I call up one kid and tell him to use the wand. Of course it's a gag wand and everyone laughs. I then use D'Lites as "magic power" to make the magic happen since the wand is apparently not working properly. After this I pull out a Kleenex from my hand using a TT and tell them never to eat Kleenex. If they do they'll feel sick which is how I'm apparently feeling and I pull out a 25 foot coil from my mouth very slowly to give the impression that it's never ending. Some kids laugh their butts off while others just stare in amazement. Once done, I put it in a pan, and set it on fire. I close it up. Do the D'Lite bit again as I pull magic from the air and throw it at the pan. Out comes a couple of sponge bunnies. I close with a really cool sponge bunny routine using three or four kids because for some reason this routine kills EVERY year and is the one trick they will remember the most and tell their parents as soon as they come get picked up. In the first couple of years, I did this at the beginning or in the middle of the show (just as I would for adults) and it was always downhill from there. That's why I do it last now. Come to think of it, when I was eight years old, I was flabbergasted by a sponge ball routine that was done to me. For four years I wondered how it was done (which seemed like 20 years as a kid) until I received a magic set at 12 years old that had a sponge ball routine. Certain aspects of my routine change from year to year, but I always keep it under half and hour (25 minutes max). I also always start with the coloring book and end with the sponge bunnies (balls still strong, but they prefer bunnies). I also NEVER do card tricks of any kind because kids under 5 years of age just won't get them as they most likely will forget the card. Even if it's not a pick-a-card-I'll-find-it trick, they haven't even learned how to play a basic card game so they're pretty unfamiliar with a deck of cards despite them knowing what they are. And that's my two cents on kids shows. |
|||||||||
harris Inner circle Harris Deutsch 8812 Posts |
I love family/kid shows.
You might find as you get better and better, that you learn much more, from the poor shows than you do from the A ++++ shows. Keep learning and share what you learn with others. Harris still 2 old to know it all
Harris Deutsch aka dr laugh
drlaugh4u@gmail.com music, magic and marvelous toys http://magician.org/member/drlaugh4u |
|||||||||
mlippo Inner circle Trieste (Italy) 1227 Posts |
My experience:
I am mostly a cardician and I do some close-up. But nevertheless I wanted to start some kids shows. The very first one was for my son's seventh birthday a year ago. All the kids were the same age. I mainly did close-up card magic! I used a very low table as 'the stage' and the kids were sitting/standing in two rows, almost surrounding me. I chose simple plots, colour changing card backs, effects with drawings ('monkey eating bananas and getting fat' sorta stuff), the four room hotel with jumbo cards and so on. It lasted 20 minutes and that was enough, since their attention starts to wane after 15'. And it went well. After that I thought I could really try more seriously, but my first aim was to use things I had/knew already and to stand out from the crowd of other magicians (there are a few in my area that do kids shows) by doing different stuff besides the more usual effects (colouring book, cut and restored rope, ball & vase). In this way I can always sell myself better because I can tell parents the kids will see new things! Last week I performed for a kindergarten classroom (5 yrs-old). This is what I did. - Vase and ball routine - Monkey eating bananas (dunno the actual name of this effect, sorry) - The Jesters (packet trick seen in an Aldo Colombini's video) - Cut and restored rope - Stop Lights Trick - The classick clock passing through the table and ending up broken, but done with the drawing of an egg. In the end the egg got smashed by one of the teachers and that made the kids laugh even more! - Personally yours (another packet trick seen in an Aldo Colombini's video). He uses stars, I use ladybirds and I actually tell a story of a girl that finds fours sheets of paper and draws a ladybird. Then a magician makes them become four ladybirds. A gust of wind apparently takes away three of them, but as the girl gets sad, the magician shows here they have actually joined the first one. It went very well and today I am experimenting pretty much the same act for six yrs old, maybe just throwing in one or to more things. I'll see that when I am there. Other things I do are: Frogger (Max Maven packet trick) Dr Daley's Last Trick and Oil and Queens (by Roy Walton) both using M&M cards instead of ordinary ones. This because they are more coloured. Obviously the patter is adapted to the kids. Of course I also throw in typical kid's stuff like a coin routine, sponge balls, something with a change bag and so on ... I never perform for kids under 5 years old. I simply explain to their parents that their minds are not ready yet (but the truth is that I AM NOT READY for it!). Open to suggestions/critics Thanks mlippo |
|||||||||
Leland Inner circle St Louis 1180 Posts |
I find it interesting how these old post come back to life.
Love it!
Life of Magic!
|
|||||||||
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » New to magic? » » Did a kidshow. I got schooled! (0 Likes) | ||||||||||
Go to page [Previous] 1~2 |
[ Top of Page ] |
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved. This page was created in 0.06 seconds requiring 5 database queries. |
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic. > Privacy Statement < |