....which would make your secondary show less strong as compared to your first.

In comparison, you are correct. But, remember, your weakest trick is not necessarily a bad trick. If you choose and present strong effects to begin with, your secondary show will also be a very strong one. Then, you continue to apply this evolutionary approach to your secondary show. It continues to improve and all of your shows get stronger and stronger.

I find this approach helds tremendously when buying new effects. Now, you are shopping with a purpose - you are looking for an effect to fill a particular void. Will the effect fit into that portion of the show? Does it have the potential to be stronger than the effect currently being used? If so, then it is worthy of consideration.

Kent

Wouldn't this mean your whole show will change over time?

Kristen,

Only my opinion here, but if finances are OK (and this is how I go about it), I would say have some effects that you plan on only have her perform outside so that if they get their wear and tear, they are not the same effects as she would perform indoors. Exceptions would be effects that aren't affected by being performed outdoors so that you can perform them outdoors and indoors.

More importantly, however, how old is this kid that your daughter is good friends with? I ask because if he is also 13 or so, I wouldn't want to put any trust that he would come through for shows your daughter can't make. Being young, he may prefer, at the last minute, to hang out with other friends or something and then ends up being a no-show. If this happens, it would reflect back to your daughter as she is the one that brought in the alternate person. I only say this for her own good as her reputation is on the line and since she seems to be so sincere about magic, I'd hate anything bad to happen to her. So, please, take this post as something positive!

Speaking of not changing your show reminds me of Dana Daniels. He is hilarious and we've seen him I don't know how many times now. We saw him multiple times when he was still at Disney and then again on his own a couple of times. Even though we know his show by heart, each time we see him, we still laugh and enjoy it as much as the first time. He is a performer we would see again and again.

He is who first got our daughter interested in magic. I will never forget when she was 3 or 4 and he pulled her up on stage with him. He told her to tap while he got ready (most kids then "freeze" up) and she just smiled and started tapping --- until he finally told her it was his show, not hers! It was hysterical. The way she interacted with him, at such a young age, she was giving him a run for his money up there! The fun part was later in the day we actually had people stop us in the park and ask her if she was part of his show and if it was staged.

The first time she saw him perform outside of Disney she took a picture of him and her on stage together and asked him to autograph it and told him that he was the one that got her interested in magic and recounted the whole story. It was really sweet too because in the middle of his performance he actually stopped pointed out our daughter and told everyone the story of how he got her interested in magic and to watch for this "young" magician in the future. It was a special moment for her -- she has truly been blessed with meeting some great performers that have encouraged her and kept her striving to better her art of magic and want to succeed in the best performance she can offer.

Dana is the prime example of a successful performer who doesn't change his show and is worth watching time and time again.

Again, thanks for all the responses!

Eventually yes. But the point is the whole thing will not change from one show to the next. It will only change one trick at a time (and not one trick every show). Test the trick out at a couple of different shows (and different types of kid shows) and see what happens.

Ben Winter

And so, if the whole show changes over time, you all of a sudden have your original 'successful' show back in it's fullness! Which was really my point because now you have a secondary show to back up your current show in the event you are brought back to the same place to perform another show!

^^^^^^^

ok, good point. I see what you mean now.

Ben Winter

Ben,
Great point. I personally spend time working on what I feel is the weakest effect in my show. This does not mean that the effect is discarded. I might change the presentation. Work in a diffrent angle or production. Once I'm satisified I go to the next effect. Its ever growing, ever changing.

Cheers,
Adam

I have read none of the responses to this topic, so forgive me if I repeat something someone else has said.

Well, as a family and home entertainer, she needs to have a show that will work both in and outdoors...or at least two shows...one that will work inside and one that will work outside. This way she can accept gigs for most any event. It would be bad to have to turn down a high paying festival gig because it was going to be held outside

Try working on the second show and keep it available and ready for the moment when she is asked to work in an outside venue. It never hurts to have a back up plan.

I know that we all would like to ALWAYS work indoors...but fact of the matter is that some people don't have large homes with room for everyone, some people like picnic parties, and some people just don't want a bunch of kids running around in their house.

You can still say that you prefer to work indoors but if the show must be done outside that you can still handle it.