Chrystay, Steve, and LMLipman,

Thanks for the advice on the balloons. From seeing how parents react at kids’ sporting events, I can see how the parents would me more of a pain than the children when making balloons. I’m still learning towards incorporating balloons. But, I’ll make a bunch prior to the party and then I can enlist another adults to assist me in handing them while I make some. While I understand that would not be the norm for a paying gig, since this is for family, I have no problem putting in the time prior to party making the balloons. That way I get practice on making a ton ahead of time and then I’ll also get some experience making them while the kids are around. Which I'm sure is a lot different than making them in the comfort of my living room.



Michael,

I think I’ll bring my guitar amp, use that with a microphone, and do one large show. I would like to rent a better one, but I’ve have a limited budget and hopefully the amp will work decent enough. I’m excited to see how it feels to be in front of the large audience, I assume I’ll either love it or want to run. Also, thank you and LMLipman for the invite to Ring 50. I’ve thought about it before, but it’s a little bit of a drive from Annapolis. However, considering magic is becoming a bigger interest in my life, I think it would be worth the drive and I’ll try to make a meeting early in the year.



Wanlu,

I don’t think I have time to incorporate a puppet into my current show. However, I like the Rocky routines and would certainly think about adding it my future endeavors.

Thanks,
JC

Even if you can't make it out to Ring 50 early in the year, be sure to plan to attend Ring 50's MagiWhirl April 17 & 18. This is our annual big magic conference and gala public show. Among the lecturers and performers will be: Jeff McBride and Paul Green. IBM and SAM international presidents Bruce Kalver and Joan Caesar will also be there.

MagiWhirl is held at the Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, just off the Beltway, so it's easy to get to it from Annapolis or anywhere else.

There will be plenty of intimate learning and watching opportunities as well as a great dealers' room. Do yourself a favor. Don't miss this event! You can get more details and register in advance at http://magi-whirl.blogspot.com/

Ok, now that you've built all this suspense... Let us know how it went!

-Rob

Well, I did the show and lived to tell about it. Overall it went very well.

There ended up being about 60 six year-olds and about 40 adults/older kids at the party. Due to the size (and request from the host), I decided to do the show outside. The weather was nice, with the temperature being in high 70’s. Per many suggestions, I used a sound system. The “sound system” consisted of my guitar amp and a microphone. It was easy to transport via plane, cheap, and people heard most of what I said.

My routine lasted about 30 minutes and consisted of blooming bouquet, vanishing silk, coloring book, change bag trick, tissue tear into hat, professor’s nightmare, and streamers from mouth. There was a trampoline and large swing-set close to where I preformed, so I lost about 20% of the crowd to those fun activities during the show. However, the bouncy-house was shutdown, so I did not have to compete with that. All tricks got good reactions, but blooming bouquet, coloring book, and streamers from mouth got the most screams from the kids.

My only large problem was maintaining control of the kids. From what I’ve read, this is not a unique problem. First, there were three birthday kids. I had each help with different tricks, but I they all desired to be in the limelight all the time. Many other kids kept inching closing to where I was and by the time I got to professor nightmare, they were at my feet and actually grabbed the ropes. I chose to forgo my last trick and went straight to my closer since I worried the kids were becoming too pumped. It’s an interesting dilemma, I needed to maintain my working space, but also wanted to be nice to the kids who were obviously excited (so I could not just kick them back). After the show was over, I was swarmed by kids and had to literally pry them off my props.

I was a little worried that I would dampen the mood if I started out the show with a lot of rules, but in hindsight, I should have instilled a lot more ground rules. As recommended in Seriously Silly, next time I will set up an “official” area with cones/tape and inform the kids that magic will not happen if they cross into my area.

Despite crowd control, it was a good show. I had many adults come up to me and my sister afterwards to give me congratulations. I also did spongeballs for smaller groups of kids pre and post show and got wonderful reactions from that. Doing the spongeballs pre-show also helped the kids gain interest in the upcoming magic show.

As far as the balloon animals, I made sixty balloon animals the night before the party. I got the videos Bad to the Balloon I & II for Christmas and made creations from those great videos. While it took a few hours to make the balloons, I was able to watch football and drink beer while twisting, so it was not all work. I also improved my balloon making skills. We gave the balloons out as party favors when kids were leaving the party. The kids and adults were very impressed with the sculptures. After most of the kids left, I did some balloons for the remaining kids. This gave me the chance to work with about 6-8 kids around me. While I offered to make more complicated pieces, mainly what the kids wanted were dogs and puppies, so it was pretty easy to appease their balloon requests.

There was a professional photographer at the party. I need to take a look at the photos, but if there any good ones, I might post a couple. Thank you all for the many great responses to my questions. Your assistance certainly helped my show.

Thanks, J.C.

It sounds like you had a good time. This was a big event for a first timer so you did the planning and Im sure you felt pretty confident going in to it.
Mike

Now that you've taken the plunge, DON'T STOP! Do everything you can to do more shows, even if it is, again, just for immediate friends and family. The more you do, the more you learn--even after hundreds of shows. Pretty soon people will start asking you to perform for their kids and you'll have a nice sideline going.

And don't forget to come visit Mike Taggert and me at Ring 50 in Alexandria, Va. the first Wednesday of every month. We'll be happy to introduce you to several other magicians who specialize in magic for children.

Congratulations on a job well done! If only all magicians could have such a good first show. Your hard work and planning definitely paid off.

Kent