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Scott Ocheltree Veteran user 364 Posts |
Tonight's the night, and I was just wondering who else is booked to do something this evening. I will be performing at the largest independent book dealer in town. The event is happening along with their 20th anniversary celebration, and I have heard that they have pre-sold 400 copies of the book. (Don't know for sure how many of those will be picked up at midnight tonight.)
I will be performing a half hour set starting at 11:30pm. I don't do a Harry Potter show normally, so I have been a bit conflicted as to how to handle this one. As it is a promotional event for the book hosted by an authorized vendor, I have no worries regarding copyrights, etc. But I am a part-time amateur, and don't have the time and resources to develop a whole themed act. To tie things in, I have put together a list of trivia questions to ask my volunteer helpers. And have found a few of the "spells" from the books that fit some of my effects. I also am doing a newspaper clip prediction, and I have the prediction in an envelope mailed from Professor Trelawny (Hogwart's divination teacher). I am planning on explaining that many of my props are magical artifacts from Hogwarts. I will be using my large Square Circle to produce many of the props as well as a copy of book 5 exactly at midnight. This will be one of the biggest shows I have done in some time. I am really looking forward to it! |
DougTait Elite user Sebring, FL 492 Posts |
Scott: Good luck! It sounds like fun. Let us hear how things went.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing."
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Payne Inner circle Seattle 4571 Posts |
I've got the night off but will be at a large bookstore tomorrow at nine doing my Wizards Schools International show.
If it is anything like last book release there will be three or four hundred kids in the audience (the bookstore has a very nice and well-equipped stage). Good luck to everyone else out there (especially the dozen magis in the Seattle area who've landed HP gigs) who will be donning pointy hats and wizard robes for this most magical of events. Only two more books to go.
"America's Foremost Satirical Magician" -- Jeff McBride.
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Patrick T. New user Esslingen / Germany 39 Posts |
Hey!!
Good luck!! I was booked for the second Harry Potter movie. It was fun with all those kids thinking that I was as good as him. We still got about five months here in Germany before the new book is released. Patrick Thomas |
Andy Wonder Special user Auckland, New Zealand 747 Posts |
Yes, I spent two hours in a book shop today entertaining the people queing up to buy the book.
Here are some photos: http://walkermagic.com/june21.jpg
Andy Wonder, Auckland, New Zealand
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Harry Murphy Inner circle Maryland 5444 Posts |
Oh yes! I worked from 11:30 PM (2330) to 1:45 AM (0145) at the local bookstore.
I used my old doctoral robes complete with doctoral hood and mortar board hat and called myself 'Professor Dimwitty, a professor of magical arts from Hogwarts' Mainly did walk around tricks, to entertain the line. It included Sponge rabbit, the Miser’s Dream, torn and restored napkin to mouth coil (from the napkin not the mouth), the color changing wands (home made flat sticks based on the color changing knives – imagine Daryl’s routine ‘super-sized!’), etc. I did steal a number of watches and a wallet or two from parents (magical transpositions, don’t-ja know?!?) It was a fun time for all, and the time flew by!
The artist formally known as Mumblepeas!
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harris Inner circle Harris Deutsch 8812 Posts |
I just finished a program in Bonner Springs, Kansas.
Here are a few nearly normal ideas. I talk about a magician from the turn of the century with the same name as one of the J.K.Rowlings books. After some guesses we get to Harry.../ Yep Houdini which intros my nearly normal strait jacket. Along with my usual routine I made reference to the HP book by (instead of doing my usual Lethal Weapon Mel Gibson bit - running into the wall, I bang myself against the wall after a few failed attempts and say,BAD DALBY(SIC????) I also used the small primary colored silks(4) to represent the first 4 books which blended into a larger silk with all the colors. Professors Nightmare represented the books getting larger (more pages) One of the kids knew exactly how many pages. At the end Nigel sang his Take me out to the Quiditch Game to the tune of ....... Harris Deutsch Laughologist
Harris Deutsch aka dr laugh
drlaugh4u@gmail.com music, magic and marvelous toys http://magician.org/member/drlaugh4u |
Scott Ocheltree Veteran user 364 Posts |
A follow up in response to Doug's request to let people know how it went...
Good and bad... I had fun and got to perform for a very large group. I have lived in this community for over 20 years so I know lots of people. It was fun to get to perform for so many of them, and I received a lot of positive feedback. I also got to use my large, hand-carved Square circle which is too big for most of my shows. On the downside - the event was so huge that the bookstore decided to move all the organized events - trivia contest, costume contest, and magic show to the outdoor village green next to the bookstore. This meant I was performing outdoors, at night, in the wind, with really bad lighting, and an inadequate sound system. In order to use the outdoor space that late, the bookstore could not use a P.A. However a local radio station was doing a live broadcast there with a P.A. and let me use their system. Since this was a last minute arrangement we had no proper sound check and it didn't really work well. The lighting was a set of work lights that were blinding if aimed well. The other events ran long, so my perfectly timed show designed to end with the production of the book exactly at midnight had to be abandoned for an abbreviated version of the show I call "Let's See What Else I Have in This Box..." All these things made for a very stressfull performance. But on a positive note, I had a number of kids ranging in ages 6-14 come up to me to say they enjoyed the show. a couple of them were young magicians who wanted to talk about the things I had done. I made a consious effort to ask their names and to give them my undivided attention. I felt very blessed to get to be in the position of doing something I dreamed of doing at their age, and I could see in their eyes the same dreams I had had. Here's a link to a page with some photos of the event. There is one of me towards the bottom which makes it look much better than it felt. you can only see a fraction of the crowd that was there. I have a small birthday party scheduled for next week and I'm looking forward to a more controlled environment! |
NJJ Inner circle 6437 Posts |
I did walk around for one of our big local shopping centres that had 2000 pre-order books to give away.
The book went on sale at 9:00am so I had to get up 6:00, performed for four hours and did a corperate stand up show that night |
Tate Loyal user NC 211 Posts |
I performed Friday night at my local Borders Books. They divided the kids into three different "houses" from Hogwarts and rotated through three different events in a round robin. I presented a show as "Professor Tate" from the American Wizard School. Being from a different school allows me to present effects that don't have to fit in with the books. For instance, I say that we don't use owls to deliver our mail, we use rabbits. This sets up the production of my bunny at the end of the show.
For one effect that is adapted from the book, I use Axtell's Magic Drawing Board to replicate the magic paintings in Hogwarts hallways. The kids scream when the drawing's eyes first begin to move. My arrangement with the store is I work for a reduced fee, plus two copies of the book for my kids. |
p.b.jones Inner circle Milford Haven. Pembrokeshire wales U.K. 2642 Posts |
HI,
On Saturday the day the book was launched here I was performing street magic for Carmarthen council who took advantage of the launch for tourism and had a magic day in the town there must have been about 10 - 15 of us magicains all performing street magic at diferent locations throught the town we rotated positions the finali was Paul Daniels in the Evening. However as I had previously taken two bookings for a regular client one at 6pm and one at 7.45 I did not get to see Paul phillip |
Shane Wiker Inner circle Las Vegas 1199 Posts |
Lance Burton was performing in the Barnes and Noble in Las Vegas right up the street from where I live at 11:30 p.m the night before the Harry Potter books were released. I got him to sign my deck of cards. I even got to show him 2 Card Monte. After that, I won 2 tickets to see him perform in his theater in Monte Carlo. What a day.
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Rich B. Special user Philadelphia 632 Posts |
I performed 2 hours of strolling magic from 10:00PM to 12:00AM Friday night at a Borders location in Philadelphia.
I did incorporate the HP theme into some of my effects: Levitating broom (Okito doll princple) Wizard hat tear (done sparingly) Torn/Restored Harry Potter card Spelling card trick to HP's name(of course) Ambitous card with HP broom drawn on it. and my other standard effects. The place was mobbed with hundreds of kids...the countdown to the midnight book release was like New Years Eve. Lets just say I earned my money that night. Rich B. |
Brett Cantrell New user Valdosta, Georgia 71 Posts |
I performed Saturday at the Walden Books here. Dressed in my Gandalf-style hat and robes I combined an Axtell' Vincent Vulture puppet and arm illusion with one-handed walk-around magic. An assistant and I went from 9 AM to 1 PM. Glad I could catch an afternoon nap before returning to the magic shop!
Regards, Brett |
Dennis Loomis 1943 - 2013 2113 Posts |
I did a show at a book store in Oakland, CA Friday evening. Place was jammed packed and I did one stand up show from 11:25 until just after midnight. I produced a big silk banner that said "Harry Potter." The place went bananas. I did a silk dye through a paper tube (You may know this as Duke's Dye) and when the paper was unrolled it said "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
I did a routine with about two dozen slips of paper all with different Harry Potter stickers on them Different characters, broom, sorting hat, Griffindor Seal, etc. Then showed a big closed package. One kid got to select one of the stickers, and it was Hagrid holding a cage with Hedwig the White Owl. When the Package was unwrapped, it contained a big statuette of Hagrid holding the same cage with Hedwig within. The place went crazy. At Midnight, to the strains of the John Williams Score from the Second HP Movie, I showed a big production box empty. I got everyone in the store to shout the magic phrase: "Wingardium Bibliotek-a" three times. Each time it was louder. As the music swelled to a crescendo, I reached in and produced the new book... and another... and another... For the next thirty minutes the place was a madhouse. Prepurchasers trading their receipts for the book, new buyers in line at the cash registers, and people sitting on the floor everywhere reading the book. By 12:30, the store had sold over half of their initial alotment of the books, and the owner was beside herself with glee. By 12:40, all that was left was the staff, myself, my bunny and my doves. When I loaded out my props, around 12:45, I was amazed to see a group of 5 or 6 people sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store, reading the new book in the light from the store's display window! They couldn't even wait to get home. My regular fee was supplemented with a copy of the book, and promises to write some nice quotes for my web site. This show was in pretty good light, with my own P.A. system, and literally wall to wall bodies. I had a space to work in about 3' X 3'. Ain't magic grand? Dennis Loomis http://www.loomismagic.com
Itinerant Montebank
<BR>http://www.loomismagic.com |
wassabi_87 Loyal user moscow, idaho 226 Posts |
i tryed to get a job at the local hastings, but i did not get my act together soon anuff, maybe next year. i did go to a party and buy the book though
bike during the day,
do magic at night, and very early the next morning, homework. |
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