Hey everyone,
I was at a year-end party with some friends at a restaurant and it turns out the restaurant magician was there performing. He performed at our table and most were amazed, except for me. I am looking into becoming a restaurant magician myself, and I knew how to perform every single one of his tricks. Every trick that he performed was gimmicked and used almost no skill what-so-ever. Some were: card-toon, gold and siver, invisible deck, etc. He was like 45 years old and I felt that I had more skill than him. He even flashed some cards while performing the invisible deck. He only had a routine of 6-7 tricks so he ended up repeating some tricks later on. His patter was not very good at all and when people were suprised at the end of a trick, he would always use the line 'I think you've had too much to drink' and later on the joke started to get old. At the end of his performance, everybody gave him a round of applause and this girl gave him a $20 tip. As a magician myself, I felt that this guy did not deserve to be performing at one of the most popular restaurants in town, especially when he just relied on gimmicks.
What do you guys think?

Mprush

I think he got the $20 and you didn't. That says a lot.

yeah.

and on a second note, i wait tables to help pay for college, and ive been doing magic for about 5 years. every once in a while ill do things for a table. mostly impromptu coins or if i happen to have sponge balls it kills but as for using gimmicks so what, a miracle is performed to laymen and thats all that matters so what if you can back palm 10 silver dollars, while doing a DL second deal. as for better skills than him if you believe so then get a job doing magic at tables. its not that simple, and yes on our busy nights ill do walk around magic to entertain tables while they wait for their food its an agreement i have with the manager kinda takes their mind off the fact that the food is taking a while, and i make a little more cash.

lujan

If he got a $20 tip, that probably means he's entertaining. If he used gimmicks the whole time, may I ask how you know you're better than him technically? Just because you know every trick he does, does not mean he was a bad magician.

Oh noes, it's an OLD GUY doing magic! I thought we got rid of those old guys a long time ago.



QFE

He should have gotten one of the lady's phone numbers, just to push ya over the edge.

thats lotsa fun, "mam would you please sign this card, and put your number on it incase it gets lost."

Working in restaurants has very little to do with skill and everything to do with entertaining the audience. You're not working to show how good you are. You're working to make them remember the night and talk about the restaurant so that they come back. That's why it's terrible to develop and ego of being better than others before you start.

If you saw distinct flaws in his routine and you felt it was hurting his performance. As a fellow magician, you should have talked to him when it was convenient and offered him some suggestions to improve. (That is, if you think you have some good advice to pass on).

If, however you were only unimpressed because you knew the secrets and weren’t fooled. I suggest you bite your tongue and observe how the audience was responding to him. If they were entertained – he did his job. (Gimmicks verses Slight-of-hand has nothing to do with being an entertaining magician. If the Audience enjoyed it, who cares what method he used?)

If you can get anything from this, you can learn what to do and what to do to enhance your magic.

I have seen professional magician’s performance in some examples where it was actually painful to sit through their show without wincing at how corny or bad the routine was. I did keep it to myself, however and noted what I definitely would not do for my show.




“If this be Magic - Let it be an Artâ€

There's some really good advice here. I think the take home point is: technical skills are good, social skills are better.

As magicians we tend to get caught it up in the "how". We focus way to much on techinal stuff and that takes our focus off of the presentation he is giving. When we watch magicians perform, we need to pretend to be a laymen. We need to just enjoy it instead of trying to figure out how he did it (that's for after the performance ). So you probably do have better "skills" then he does. But if he got a tip like that, he obviously knows what he's doing.

I just watched a walk around magician in Canon City CO. I knew most of the tricks but who cares, my kids loved it and I had a chance to watch the angles of various tricks and learn a bit. He did the balloon swallow trick at the end and it was a huge hit. I'd like to perfect that one for myself.

Doh, I've been itching to learn that for a while. It was seriously the hit of his show? If so, guess I'm learning it this weekend.

Duh,
Most of us that catches a restaurant entertainer at work will most likely know how he did most of his tricks because we do them ourselves. It's how he 'performs' them kid. He's doing restaurants and you are not so who's doing better.

What we know doesn't mean squat. What truly matters is what the "spectators" don't know, and if they were entertained. Ultimately it is them paying the performer's check. A lot of "immature" magicians seem to get jealous because it is not them on the stage, whereas a mature professional will just sit back and enjoy the show, and view it from a layman's perspective.

This is what professionals do, they don't sit there trying to pick the act apart, thus feeding their own ego falsely that they are more knowledgeable, and know how every trick is done. This actually screams insecurity/amateur, and lack of knowledge as opposed to having it.

The spectators dont know hes using gimmicks. David Blaine, what did he use? How was his patter? How rich is he now?

He has the job, you dont, the audience enjoyed the performance, you are looking at it the wrong way.