|
|
todsky Inner circle www.magicstore.ca 2354 Posts |
I was recently offered a contract to perform at a newly built tourist theme park in Shenzen, China. It's a new city just 30 miles from Hong Kong, and they just built the theme park nestled inside some beautiful green mountains, with a small lake at the base. It's a 6 month contract, six days a week but only a few hours a day of walk-around magic. Flight, room and board are included, as well as a modest $800 US each month. Anyone have any experience working in China, and particularly Shenzen? Any advice?
Todsky's Magic Shop: over 15,000 tricks, books, DVD s and Card decks. www.magicstore.ca
|
mrunge Inner circle Charleston, SC 3716 Posts |
Hi Todsky,
That's an interesting offer. I have a friend who was offered something similar. His wife is Chinese and he has been there several times. If interested, PM me and I can put you in touch with him. He should be able to help. Mark. |
diamond Regular user Serbia & Montenegro 200 Posts |
Been there done that!
I have performed in an amusment park in Taiwan in 2001 for 8 months and I have performed onboard a cruise ship M/V Star Pisces that caters mainly to the Hong Kong Residents. I know ins and outs when it comes to performing for Chinese audience. And I also have the amusement park experience in that region (and it is soooo different). Basically, Shenzen is in southern China, just out of Hong Kong. The language spoken there is Cantonese and the people from big cities in southern china are considdered to be more posh and more westernized than the people from the north. You will however be getting audience from all over China due to the fact that people from all parts of this super huge country come to Shenzen and Hong Kong for shopping, doing busines, vacation, etc. Chinese people are fond of amusement parks and you will be surprized when you discover the fact that (well that applies to amusement parks in Taiwan as well as to the Hong Kong's Ocean Park) when it comes to demographics of the visitors, most of them are not young people and families with kids. No way - they have to work a lot so they don't have time for amusement parks. Most of the visitors of the amusement parks in that part of the world are retired people and senior citizens. You will get teenagers and families or schools or so, but still old people are the ones that go to the parks most. In every amusement park you will get buses of groups of tourists every day. The strangest thing is that the buses often come to the parks' gates very early in the morning - at 7 AM they are already eagerly waiting for the gates to open, so when gates open at 8 or 9 you will get loads of smiling (old) people full of energy looking forward to having fun & adventure. This imposed a huuuuuuuuge problem for me due to the fact that most of my life I have been doing cabaret & variety show performances and my natural schedule is to go to sleep at like 5 AM or so and I never wake up before noon. But after some time I got used to performing my full scale dynamic illusion show at 9:30 (that was the first show for me in a park every single day) and I was able to run around the stage in choreographed routines and lift dancers and my assistant while still being half awake. It's amazing how those visitors are full of energy so early in the morning. They stay there all day, but afternoons are always quiet and if you are lucky enough you can take naps between the shows. When it comes to the shows - no matter whether you do big illusions like me or close up - a general rule is - they have a very specific taste for magic. Some routines that were extremely well accepted in other partws of the world, simply didn't work well for the chinese audience. Who knows why, but they simply don't react to some things that would make people in other parts of the world scream or laugh.... When it comes to your repertoire, be sure to have some extra stuff with you. The management will most probbably want to see everything that you can do and they will for no apparent reason tell you to dump some of your favorite routines and they'll ask you to perform some that you might considder not so fantastic. Chinese bosses can be very tough and they expect from you to obey and do whatever they decide. So yes, they will have their final decision on your repertoire once you're there. Make sure that you have a lot of visual effects, they like that a lot, effects involving something colorful or effects of producing something large always get a big rection. You should also have some comedy stuff on your repertoire and you should do a lot of things involving spectators. Now when it comes to that - they are extremely shy. You will remember my words - you never saw such an audience. This is due to a huge cultural differents between western and eastern culture. Lot of times there would be absolutely no applause or any reaction after some killer effect performed successfuly. This is due to the fact that they are shy and they literally never ever saw a live performer like that. The behave as if they are watching TV - talking during shows, walking in and out of the showlounge. A fellow performer was performing his stage show in those parts and suddenly someone's mobile phone rang and the man stood up and started talking and he showed to the performer to be more quiet as he could not hear the person who called him. You will see a lot of amaszing behavior and you should not react to that. You will always get people sleeping at your shows. When you are about to get an audience member to perform even the easiest task like chose a card from a deck of cards you can sometimes get like 30 people who will refuse to do that because they are shy. You will also get more hecklers than anywhere else in your life, 30% of audience members brought to stage will misbehave, and they will do their best to ruin your act. Things like I get a man on stage he choses a card and while I ask him to show the card to the audience he tears it apart and feels like a hero because he ruined the trick. I had to learn the hard way the outs when such a thing happens. Now I'm talking about the extremes and the bad ones. On the other hand side you will get a lot of great people who really enjoy what you are doing. Even if they don't show the reaction they probbably enjoy it - they are just too shy. So when performing there the language becomews a big issue. They don't speak English. I had to have a simultaneous translator for my shows there who would translate every word I say while I speak. Don't even try to learn Cantonese or Mandaring language, that's extremely hard and unless you study those languages for many years you won't be able to have even the simplest conversation. On the other hand side, if you have a silent act and perform without too many words, they will most probbably give you a chinese announcer who will speak all the time during your show and explain to people what you are doing ("Look he's taking a silk, he's putting it into his hand, a few magic moves and BANG - the silk is gone, please give him a great round of applause"). Yeah, they will applaud if they are told to, but if not many of them won't. Also try to learn at least several phrases in Cantonese and Mandarin - they love it when a foreigner says something in Cantonese and it makes them happy and it makes them kick their butts laughing due to the fact that you can never pronounce it correctly and they simply love it. Here's a little glossary of nthe phrases I used on the ship when I performed for Hong Kong audience. - San San Goulay - applause please in Cantonese in Mandarin it's San San Kuli Kuli - Tahoy tahoy - Open! Open! (when a spectator is asked to open a stack of boxes for instance) - Ting ling ling tey leng leng - Their way of saying magic words. these words make them laugh to the extreme as they were actually spoken in old times by their traditional medicine men - Mali mali ho! - Other magic words, more commonly used by magicians there but the first ones are soooooooo funny to them - Moua (Cantonese) or Meyo (Mandarin) - There's no, there's nothing (when you show something empty - Moua cyna (Cantonese) or Meyo Chen - There's no money! Money's gone! It also means "I have no money". - Yaoa (Cantonese) or Yao (Mandarin) - Have... Like Yaoa Cina (do you have money?) They can be the toughest audience you've ever had or they can be the sweetest people on earth. If they like you they might not show that if they don't - be sure they'll show that. When it comes to life in a park there, I'm pretty sure they are providing accomodation and food. Make sure accomodation is a decent one because they simply live in different system of values and their culture is totally different. When it comes to the food, it did happen to me there that it was a big issue. In a park you will most probbably be able to eat as much as you want in any of the otlets and you will have a choice between total junk food (hamburgers, plus due to the fact that they put tons of sugqar into anything the hamburgers will be totally sweet), chicken nuggets and fries and in some other outlets in the park they will most probbably have Chinese fast food. The first option (junk food) will be nice and acceptable to you for a first couple of days and then you'll start hating it. The other option - Chinese fast food could be even worse. Have in mind that that the food we eat in Chinese restaurants here in Europe or US usually has nothing to do with Chinese food that they originally eat. The taste is totally different and it looks and smells different and some of the stuff is reeally yuckyyyy. You will find that the meet is often served in sugar syrup, the seafood (which by the way they eat a lot) is also completely different both from European/American style seafood and from seafood served in chinese restaurants in the west. If you are overweight (and by your avatar photo I would say you're not) it is a great way to lose weight - sign a contract to perform in China. I'm exaggerating now, they do have lots of delicious things as well but it is most likely that they won't have those delicious things in the park. When I was in Taiwan, they finally had to bring a cook with each group of performers that would perform there (there was a Russian cook for Russian artists, Mexiacan cook for the Mariachi band and Cuban dancers and Belgian guy who cooked for the rest of American/European people who worked in the park). I have to say that your performance fee is way too low. Magicians in amusemet parks in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are getting anything from 3 000 $ a month for close up perormers up to 7-8 or 10 000 $ for performers who perform bigger stage stuff. In lots of parks there you will find many performing artists from Eastern Europe and China and unfortunately many of them perform for extremely low fees (which are still quite a fortune in their countries). The presence of those artists (who are very often technically excellent as they have famous circus schools in those countries) decreases a value of our work and that imposes quite a problem nowadays. On the other hand side Shenzen is extremely cheap for shopping and you can find a lot of good and cheap stuff there and it is literally a kingdom of cheap CDs and DVDs. When my assistant and I were in Hong Kong we often went to Shenzen to do all the shopping as everything is much cheaper than in HK. I also bought a lot of DVDs and DVD collections of magic shows (not lecture DVDs though) - I bought the WGM collection and the Greatest Magic of Las Vegas collection as well as the David Blaine collection, all of them in a super luxurious package and if memory serves me well, those 6 DVD collections were like 10$ each. I also bought Copperfield's "Illusion", Sigfried & Roy's 3D movie, a documentary on history of magic, a documentary on Houdini, many Cirque du Soleil DVD's, etc. Also you will get a chance to go to Hong Kong which is a great city and you will like it there. There are several magic shops in HK and I can give you the addresses if you want. Also, there's a great Australian juggler/magician living there in HK and he was very helpful to me when I was there. He also runs an entertainment agency there... I could go on and on speaking about living and performing in that part of the world, but I hope this helps. If you have any questions you can PM me or write me an email at nessar@eunet.yu Good luck! |
mrunge Inner circle Charleston, SC 3716 Posts |
Wow Diamond! What great information.
This is much more than my friend would ever know or could share. Todsky, I think you have found your source for info! Mark. |
todsky Inner circle www.magicstore.ca 2354 Posts |
Agreed, Mark. Wow! Diamond, you've been exceptionally helpful! If I need more info, I'll definitely be emailing you. Thank you so much!
-Todd
Todsky's Magic Shop: over 15,000 tricks, books, DVD s and Card decks. www.magicstore.ca
|
diamond Regular user Serbia & Montenegro 200 Posts |
I forgot to metion something extremely important! A way to make more money in an amusement park! A friend of mine who is an expert on amusement parks tought me this and I did it and it especially worked well for the Chinese market...
The secret is: sell some magic stuff related to you and your show after your shows or while strolling. You can sell a DVD of your show (people who will appreciate you will want to remember you and this especially applies to the nice part of the audience you will get there so they will buy your DVDs). You can also sell a DVD in which you demonstrate and teach some simple magic tricks. If you don't feel like making one there is a DVD on the market in which some simple magic tricks are explained and it is made in such way that any magician can sell it as his own (it never shows a face of the magician just hands with white gloves) - it costs some 300 bucks for the master copy and copyrights. You only send the company that sells it a couple of your photos and a logo and they even design a printable cover and labels for it, so if you travel with a laptop, you can burn the DVDs for sale yourself and you can print the covers and the labels and sell as much as you can. There is also a company in HK and another one in China specialized in making all those little props you find in most of the magic kits, and if you also provide them with a couple of your photos and make a choice of the props (and they cost pennies if you buy them per bulk) you will get a nice box with your photo on it with several simple props that you can sell after the show. What my friend tought me was to always involve 1 or 2 tricks from the magic set made this way in the very show no matter how stupid those tricks seem to us the professional magicians, many of them are still quite magical and presentable, so that when you sell the sets after the show they will have a feeling of being able to perform something that you did. You can also make some simple props for the magic set yourself, visit any local stationery store, buy a couple of decks of cards (they also cost pennies there) and you will: a) have something to do in between shows or in your free time which you will have a plenty of b) do something that will bring you some extra profit. I used to make the balancing card thing (the card that you can put on table and it will stay upright and then you put a glass on it and it "balances" on the card) and some ultra simple card tricks that I added to my magic sets (already containing several factory made tricks), and several other very simple props. Also a Russian circus artist I know made a fortune selling mini dancing canes that he made from supplies found in a local stationery store in the village near the park in Taiwan. He would sell literally hundreds of them every day. With everything (DVDs or sets) you will be able to sell them at 10 times the original cost and you will send many Now the friend of mine that has tought me this strategy has done dozens of amusement parks and he earned a fortune selling magic sets and DVDs after the show plus he got his salary which was quite good too. He owns several houses nowadays, just only from several years of doing amusement parks. The management of the park will mostly have nothing against the idea of you selling the magic sets and DVDs in the park and they will probbably charge you a small comission (and some parks won't even charge you a comission for that). You will also be able to have several sets being sold at each of the park's sales outlets - souvernir shops or toy stores, sales booths, etc. You will simply motivate the salesperson at a certain outlet by giving him/her a certain comission out of every set or DVD they manage to sell. I hope this helps as well. |
mrunge Inner circle Charleston, SC 3716 Posts |
Wow...more great ideas!
Mark. |
todsky Inner circle www.magicstore.ca 2354 Posts |
Great ideas, yes! Much obliged again! You are indeed a Diamond in the rough!
I haven't accepted the gig yet, and I'm not sure if I will because 6 days a week in Shenzen doesn't leave me much time to see the rest of China (except for nearby Hong Kong). And six months! What if I don't like it? What if they don't like it? In about a week I'll have more details about the gig. Then I'll decide.
Todsky's Magic Shop: over 15,000 tricks, books, DVD s and Card decks. www.magicstore.ca
|
Alikzam Elite user 434 Posts |
Did you take it Todsky?
|
todsky Inner circle www.magicstore.ca 2354 Posts |
Still waiting for a few more details about the gig, which I should find out in a few days.
Todsky's Magic Shop: over 15,000 tricks, books, DVD s and Card decks. www.magicstore.ca
|
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Tricky business » » Shenzen, China gig? (0 Likes) |
[ Top of Page ] |
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved. This page was created in 0.09 seconds requiring 5 database queries. |
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic. > Privacy Statement < |