For those people who do solo stage shows for adult and family audiences, what have you found has been the best way to open your shows to get the attention of the audience and establish yourself as someone worth watching?

Up till now, I have mainly done a verbal act, but I would like to incorporate more music and "flash" into my show. Especially, at the beginning of the show.

I get the impression that using fire and animals are probably the best way to do this...but I would like to avoid fire and animals if possible.

Thanks in advance.

AM

Aussiemagic,

Unless you are appearing in venues where you must compete with other distractions to get an audience's attention, it is probably unnecessary to open with fire and/ or animals. A well timed (and prerecorded if needed) announcement followed by your entrance should be sufficient.

If you need to 'amp up' the moment, use a play-on piece of music or fanfare to register your appearance and follow it with a short but strong effect. The next level of engaging the audience could be to do that opening effect to a piece of music that supports the effect and has a definite ending that would cue applause.

Try to avoid doing an effect while you are making your entrance. You are not a circus juggler who must start juggling while walking on! Rather, make a strong entrance with music and announcement if needed, greet the audience with a short statement or even a smile and a look of acknowledgement ...and then begin your first trick.

Al Koran preached using a short (3-rings) linking ring routine to get attention. Sound and visual happenings workd well. JNeal's advice is good.

JNeal,

You've said what I'm doing. For my family show I have an off voice announce me. Then I walk on stage to a short music sequence.

Once the music has stopped and I took a very short moment to greet the audience, I'll go into my first visual quicky effect.

This workes very well for me since years. Anyway, now I'm working on some changes to make my opening routine to music a little longer.

Oliver.

There is many 'flash' (non-fire) tricks on the market. No one can tell you what trick to perform to get attention. It all depends on your personality, and who you are as person. What I like, may be not what you would like.

I can tell you it should be a trick that you love, it should be something you love to do and think it is fun to perform. It should be an effect you know inside and out, without thinking. It should be something that shows you have skill and know what you are doing in front of an audience.

It could be a production, a vanish, a transformation, a transportation, or a combination of any of these.

There are Dancing Cane, Acrobatic Golf Clubs, Spring and Feather Flowers, and Silk Magic of various effects. Sleight of hand with Coins, Cards, Thimbles and Billiard Balls. There is Tube, Box tricks, and Liquid tricks. Linking Rings, Rice Bowls, and Zombie Balls. The list could go on, but the research must be yours and yours alone.

I could tell you what I would do as an opener, but you would tell me, you do not like this or that about the trick. If a trick does not fit you, you should not do it, and especially as an opening.

Your question is the same, as if I would ask you, I have never done illusions and I want to know which illusion I should do in my act for my 1st illusion. There is no way you would know what illusion I would want to present.

Something must have happened once or several times to motivate you to ask these questions. Instead of looking for another trick, maybe you should analyse your act, it may be as simple as re-arranging the order of the material. Lets face it we all have so much magic in our closets that we could do several acts, we have put these away for personal reasons, as they were successful for the originator, so it is not the trick. We did not care for it for personal reasons because of the way feel about the effect.

Then we have tricks in the closet that we tell ourselves, someday I will do this trick, I like it, and know it will work for me. Maybe it is time to give it a try, even though it my mean a little more effort to perform.

When I began in magic, they had Magic Catalogs, it was great to turn the pages of those thick catalogs and read the description to visualize the tricks. It got the creative juices flowing and I could imagine on how it would work for me and possibly have place in a magic act.

Wmhegbli has explained perfectly what, I think, every single magician who's trying to put a show together, goes through.

You've got to go through trials and errors to find your perfect first trick to open the show.

As he said already, it could be anything. Presented with or without music, silent or talking.

Do you have a stage personna ? It could be something that shows and tells the audience, what you're about, how you feel.
It depends aswell on the global theme of your show, if you use one. All this can become quiet complex and long, but if you take the time and analyse well the audience reactions you'll see what works and what doesn't work for you, your stage personna and your show.

By the way, I've banned tricks and effects with dangerous items from my family show, since kids are present. I don't want them to get the idea that it could be "fun" to "play" with fire or anything like this.

Oliver.

Thank you for the replies! It has given me something to think about.

I want to make my act look "bigger" without using assistants, illusions, fire and doves if possible. I am therefore probably going to look more into a silk opening. I already do Dukes Dye version and silk to egg though...in my act.

Thanks again.

Think outside the box, just because you have a couple silk effect has nothing to do with using silks.

Example: Some people use a tiny card to discover a selected card, other use a tiny robot, still others use a flashlight and some just say is this your card or have it stuck on their forehead or whatever.

Guess what they are all the same trick, a discovery of a selected card. But, if you make the selection a tool and make the robot or tiny car the main object, then it is not a selected card discovery. The trick is the amazing 'thing' that finds the card.

So if you do a 'flash' silk production, then lay them aside to be used with Duke's Dye Version at the end of the act, or whenever. You have connected the silks and performed 2 different tricks.

It is all in the way you perceive the total effect.

I like using a Weller Egg to get people focused on what is happening on stage.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

I usually open and close with routines choreographed to music. In between I do the verbalized routines. I use a rabbit in one routine, and I am working on adding some doves to my act.

Fire and animals just appeal greatly to your visual sense. But so do colors (like a flowing silk). In the right hands a linking ring routine is flashy because it's shiny and because of the sound. A Miser's dream is flashy in the same way. Juggling is flashy. Card flourishes are flashy. Also, try and appeal to more than just a visual sense. If you can do something that appeals to your sense of sound and even smell, then you'll have something quite flashy that can feel big as well. A bright light in darkness is also a great way to get attention quickly and there are a lot of effects on the market that use lights.

For me / my preference: I make sure to acknowledge the audience (eye contact, bowing, etc.) followed by about 1 to 1.5 minutes of visual magic performed with upbeat music. Following this I greet the audience.....

I open with a quick music piece immediately followed by a audience participation piece.j

Robert

I use a Music Intro of very fast upbeat music,

Even the comedy clubs have an Intro of music for every act
walking on etc

My main market is corporate shows in Hotels, Restaurants and Conferences etc..

I always use a music opener,whether as mentioned its Rings done very fast & showy to great music
or a Firebowl under a cloth, or Razorblades to fast Rock Music etc.. Tim Ellis recommended
this when I spoke to him a few years back..really stuns an audience..great opener & applause-


I agree with Hegblini -great advice above
It may already be in your act or drawer but a simple reaarangement may help..

I too have rearranged my act over the years to absolute strongest audience tested material
but 1 thing I can say is you should open with music to something that suits you or your
style, then go to the Mic & start..always have comedy early on..

Look for something that will set the tone of the show and who you are. That can help narrow it down for you.

I get the attention of the audience with the tone of the music. Then I get the attention of the audience by waiting until the obligatory intro applause has stopped, music running, and I walk out to center stage. Bottom line, anticipation gets the audience attention.
I have started my show with appearing candle...walking out holding a candle.
Or, a silk production from no-where.
Study the theatrics of stage movement.

Sensory overkill! fire, animals, spring this dancing that. neon flash chemical, blow smoke in your face openings!!!! really guys? if nobodys said this, than I will be the first: how about just giving them YOU. give them the clown!

Clowning & comedy is fine and works if you have the immediate personality
as my friend Nick Nickolas does but we aren't all of his style which is brilliant to watch...
but even your shows, Nicky starts off with music then the clowning begins...

Good Points though..
Me, I wait a few minutes after music, etc. then the gags & fun begin especially for the corporate market!

I was commenting on coming out on stage and starting with the bing bang boom...

suggesting that walking out, breathing deep, and looking at the audience, give yourself to them for a brief moment...