Anybody got any techniques that you can share on how to get the kids atention and keep it?

Vanardi

chances are, the kids are going to pay attention. Seriously, i don't know one child that isn't interested in magic

Totally Not true.
You have to use colors to capture their visual attention. Children are naturally noisy, Yell shout get them involved as children. Never use cards that arent speciffically printed for children. Don't use anything that has too much of a story line. Use things that will allow them to "Catch" you messing up. children are NOT naturally interested in magic. If you perform a stand up act that adults will love, chances are the children will run all over you. If you want a few specifics PM me and I'll help you.

Vanardi,
If you do a good warm up prior to your actual show you will have their attention and they will be eating out of your hand.
Magician515 obviously doesn't do kid shows. That statement is far from the truth.
Kids, could care less about the magic-it's about the fun stuff along the way. If you just do magic they are going to get bored. Kids live for fun and that's what you have to strive for. Some material you can read to help you get ideas would be "The birthday party business." my fav. Then read Silly Billy's book. Great ideas on putting fun in your routine. Kids five to ten still love the fun over anything else.
Make it fun and the magic part just adds to your show.

Best thing that gets them ...use a TT and say imagine that you are putting thousands grains of salt in my hand..and I say OMG OMG HURRY UP PUT IT IN FASTER ITS GONNA SPILL!! then I say hold out your hand and I pour salt in there hand ..I did this inside to one of my mom's friend's 9 year old daughter ..she liked it..sucked I did it inside..went all over the floor..or good levitations that aren't angle sensative..

You can throw things at them periodically for absolutely no reason whatsoever... lol ...

use a mouth coil.

ben winter

Thankyou all for your help!!!

Im thinking of getting into kids shows..... I think i will now as i have been working on a few "kiddish" routines....

Thanks for your time fellow magicians.

Vanardi

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Hold you breath. Not so that they can see you are. But it makes your posture so that people will shutup and pay attention. I use it all the time, not really in magic, just walking on in costume does the trick, but outside of magic it also works. I learnt this from very good magician named David who is also a teacher.

WOW...that seemed so important he had to post it four times!

hehehe just kidding.

I always opened my show with some kind of sucker effect like the die box to get the kids hollaring and screaming, personally.

Actually, this is an extremely important post. The ability to attract and hold an audience's attention lies at the very heart of being a good entertainer. The post also implicitly recognizes that the tricks themselves aren't enough. This is absolutely true.

To attract and hold the attention of a kids show audience is extremely difficult because of their shorter attention spans. So, to keep their attention, you must inject a lot of visual eye candy, energy, audience participation and variety into your show. This does not mean a lot of big tricks one right after the other.

Eye Candy:
Visual eye candy can include what you wear or what you might have your volunteers wear. It can include the props you use when transitioning from one effect to another.

Energy Level:
Kids will also follow your lead as far as energy level goes. If you don't have an effective warm up and you come across as lethargic, you shouldn't expect much of a reaction from your audience. If you enjoy performing for kids, let that enthusiasm come out in your show - If you don't then find another line of work.

Audience Participation:
If your audience is constantly involved in your show, either with volunteers or simply by yelling and screaming, they will be more likely to pay attention. The more you can get your audience involved, the better.

Variety
Finally, focus on variety. If you listen to the same song on your stereo over and over again, it won't take long for you to loose attention. The same is true for your performance in magic. If you use the same tone of voice and pace throughout your show, the kids will become desensitized to you and look elsewhere.

But, if you have a segment of your show that includes music, another segment that includes story telling, and other segments of your show that include magic with lots of participation, you now have the necessary variety to keep their attention glued to you.

Hope that helps.