It's nice to read all this beacause I am also going to my 1st meeting next week and am a bit nervous, but I am also really looking forward to it.

I've found the best thing to do when meeting another magician is to say, "Hi, I'm Rik." and take it from there.

Even the very best respond well to that. I remember showing Michael Ammar my leather chop cup and the one handed engage at a convention. He stopped and cocked his head to one side and was genuinely thrilled - or at least seemed to be.

One question that works for me too is, "...You working on anything lately?" Most magicians are. They would love to show you. Then You can offer to show them what you are working on.

If you meet me any time soon - I'm STILL working on a combination of Winged Silver and Gaddabout Coins. I've been working on it almost a year now and it's ALMOST good. Ask me, I'd be happy to show you.

Very useful advices.

Let me say something negative about performing for magicians, for agrument sake. I group magicians into two groups: 1)magicians I've known before and/or those I can tell they respect magic; 2)'magicians' don't belong to the first group.

I enjoy doing magic and share with the first group, but hesitate to perform for the second group. Some bad experience like: people who names moves during performance (as Jaxon wrote, even though sometimes they even named the moved wrongly), people who want to see only the 'mechanics' and tell you to skip the patters, people who ask again and again you to disclose how you do it (usually I refered them to the sources, but they kept on asking).

I think I'm more prudent in performing magic for magicians than laypersons. Luckily people I met mostly belong the first group.

Same here, I love to meet magicians to catch up but not to ask them a zillon questions about if they heard or seen this or that tricks. I guess when I was a newbie, I did fall into that trap of "hungry" for more magic mentality when I meet another magicians. I think the magicians probably felt overwhemled with my questions then. I'm more mellow now with magic and I hope I didn't alienate anyone before. If a magician wants to talk about magic, I never turn it down either. There's always a new effect, a new article in the maganizes to talk about beside the holidays.

Sometimes I think we all get swarmed by the more is better mentality. If I just had one more "killer effect".... etc etc etc. And then you come to the realization that you probably have enough magic for several shows. Not that I am advocating building a bizarre show with Sponge balls,but I think we all for the most parts have lots of magic. Learning to present it in killer ways is more important.

I had a really intersting experience at our local magic club... A young guy was really cranked up with an effect I had demo'd and then at the break wanted to know how many coins I did in a matrix.... When I told him I don't do coin magic he was shattered...

But there is just so much magic available. So if you are new, buy good quality props for well researched tricks and effects. Look for things that have application for more than one place in your routine...

And last but not least check out books like Strong Magic, Magic and Showmanship, win the Crowd. Learn to become a showman and entertainer. Just my incoherent ramblings...

As a follow up to my earlier post, I went to my first IBM meeting and had a great time. Everyone was very nice and I did force myself to perform a bit. I didn't get up in front of the entire group to perform but I found another newbie and did a couple of tricks for him. His reactions were pretty much like I thought they'd be...not terribly wow'd but as I was performing, one of the longest standing members walked up and I ended up doing Jay Sankey's Fan Mail for him. I am still working out the kinks in it but he politely complemented me on how it was a nice trick and at I did quite well at it.

All in all it was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to going next month

Don't go to a magic meeting expecting to blow the boys away. Go to have fun and to learn. If you can do your trick well and have fun with it they will appreciate it. Don't be afraid to share as you will be well repaid. And always always trat another entertainer with the respect that you would like.
Ray

I have performed for Magicians at an IBM meeting before. Just to demo something I wanted to sell. I also learned a routine from a Magician I respect. Tom Baxter. I told him I do it and he asked me to perform it for him. He said a little fast but you got it. So I have no problems performing for Magicians but would rather watch. Cheers!

This is a very limited sample size, but one thing I've noticed about hanging out with pros and guys who've been in magic a long time is that they actively seek to talk about anything other than magic.

I don't know if it's that thing where they need to show people they are more than just magic or if they genuinely feel like magic talk is burdensome, but I think sometimes they might go too far with this. Like letting conversation completely die and be staring out the window disengaged before talking magic.

And I get it, if the conversation was up to me it would be *increase speech speed x10* OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MOVE WHAT'S IT CALLED HOW ABOUT THIS ONE CAN I SEE THAT ONE MOVE AGAIN YOU DO IN YOUR SHOW WHAT STACK DO YOU USEHOWLONGDIDITTAKEOMGDOYOUTHINK...

Obviously that's unacceptable and if I'm ever amongst any of you and I do that you have permission to slap me... but maybe sometimes it goes too far in avoiding what we all love?

I doubt people hanging out on the Café are these types but I reckon you guys know some

I guess this is the difference between meeting socially at a club, and sessioning at a club. Very different things, both important. I’d definitely be in the sessioning group, but it’s great to have a strong, purely social thing going on too.