There
have been a few topics at The Magic Cafe concerning the requirements you need to succeed at street busking. It has made me come up with the idea of something i refer to as busk skill level. In the following set of post i hope to explain what i mean by this and give some real life examples.
First
up this is nothing new. Many busker speak about what works
and not works on the street.
Firsts up
the more information and experience you
have concerning magic and performing it the better. However
there a certine things that are different about the street and
that's were the Busk Skill Level comes in.
First
example my egg bag routine worked well in close up and
small cabaret settings but on the street
it faulted. People would leave half way through.
It took a lot of work .Now what i normally did was to show the bag
empty then get a volunteer to wave there hand over the bag to
make the egg appear. Then were make the egg vanish. then it
would reaper but invisibly and after a little
joking around it would then reappear as real egg. But
i changed this. I start by showing the egg and the bag at the start.
I get a volunteer to vanish the egg, then make
it reappear invisibly. Not only have i cut the
first production but this bit is a lot faster and
direct. Now i have time to play, i do some joking around and hat
lines. Then bang hit with the pace and get the egg reproduced at the
end. I feel this is stronger as as before the egg appeared then
disappears so they know it will come back so why hang around. But the
new way i need to get to the egg vanish quickly yet there wait for it
to reappear.
Understanding
that once they saw something vanish they would wait for it to come
back sounds simple. But its amazing how much control this gives you.
And I think that the Busk Skill Level is to realise that you have
them hooked and you can relax. This is the first installment in Busk
Skill Level.
