Tonight at work I took some strange pleasure in pointing out and confronting rudeness at every turn. I sounded like a jerk and alienated my audience, but in the end I got their money. I was saying stuff like, "What could you possibly be thinking!? Help me out here, what reality do you operate in, where it might be appropriate for you to discuss your theories about how you think the trick is done WHILE I'M DOING IT. . . 3 FEET AWAY FROM YOU, I can hear you, I standing right here!"

But, that's the nice thing about my job. . . I can do it any way I see fit.

The crowds in general are ignorant of any common sense etiquette. Perhaps it's my job to, in a nice way, to somehow convey what my expectations are to the crowds. I've been experimenting with this, to surprising positive results. Tell'em what you want them to do and it easier for them to do that. . . even if it's as something as mundane as reacting. I **** you not! I asked them to do that tonight. . . getting very real for a moment, I told them of my frustration, night after night working for this (I give the audience a blank stare). I ask them, if they see something they like to clap, or smile, or nod, or any outward indication that I might receive as them enjoying themselves. And, guess what!? They did it! And not in a fake or overdone way, just what I asked for. I was better for me and maybe they learned something about what is expected of a audience member of a live performance.

Hell, I'm just making it up as I go, night after night. I learn a little bit about myself in each performance and I hope, as I look into the blank, vacant stares of the onlookers that I am am just as puzzled looking at them as they are of me. What a weird world.

Tom,
I do a lot of street work in the summer on the Halifax waterfront. What differs when doing magic, as opposed to say juggling or music, is that sometimes you so wow them that they are in a trance trying to figure out what just happened. This is not a bad thing. After a few seconds you have to snap them back into the show. I regularily use two different lines to elict a response and sanp them back.

1. It is ok to clap now...
2. stunned silence may be a form of appreciation is certain parts of the world, here just ain't one of them.
Both lines get them back on the same page as me and the show goes on.In both cases I get applause and we continue to rock on...

Reading Darwin Ortiz's "Strong Magic" and "Designing Miracles" may help explain the silence....

As for rudeness. That is a whole other kettle of fish... Somedays I am better with it than others.

Much as I like Darwin Ortiz, his theories are not always based upon performance, but often upon hypothesis. I gather from his writing that he does not perform as often as most of us do, or for the same kind of audiences.

Granted, there are times that stunned silence is marvelous, but that doesn't put money in the hat. Applause gets people to want to show their appreciation. So, often, it is the key word or gesture that gets them started.

The verbal sell can make the difference. It doesn't have to be as overt as "Okay, it's time to clap now," but it can be one of these things where you teach them an applause cue at the beginning of the performance, and get them started that way.

I love Cellini's advice in his first video on street performing. Get the crowd to yell, scream, & cheer for no reason at all to help you build your edge. Get them to be on your side and have the same mentality as you.

I've done this a couple of times as I'm building and it's been great. Trouble is I forget to do it sometimes, and then halfway through my show I'm wondering why everyone is so quiet.

I think giving the punters an "ok" in the beginning to be loud and responsive is what opens the "discussion" up. They begin to realise right away that they have an obligation to let me know how I'm doing and to do so with their applause and enthusiasm.

I get them to scream after my second effect. By then I've got 5-10 people around me and they can begin to establish their "mob" mentality as Gazzo describes it (or something like that...it's the part of Krowd Keeping that refers to Zen).

This isn't about rudeness. I haven't experienced much of that yet. I do have the same 3-4 teens that work at the market I'm at and have seen EVERY show I've done. They began calling out my moves as I was doing them and sometimes before. I put on my teacher/marine voice after a show and put a quick stop to that.

That's been it though. Those guys still watch me perform. They're just a bit quiter now.

OK, Good Stuff.

Chad

Works everytime. OK, most of my experience is as a musician. But a crowd is a crowd, they're people. About half the gigs I get are exactly because of this. I can get the crowd to notice the band, instead of treat us as background music; then, I can get the first girls onto the dance floor. Once they start to dance, it's all gravy, others follow.

Cheers!

Please excuse the double post,



Bingo! Actually, this is another example of how right Pavlov was People spend so much time sitting in front of a TV, or a computer to get their entertainment that they have little experience in anything else. The TV or computer never expects them to applaud, or laugh out loud - and it just keeps on giving... it's a machine.

Live entertainment is the exception these days and people are just ignorant of how to behave in that venue.

Cheers!

Tom, my horrid niece (on wifes side) is one of those people and luckily she left the area you are working a few months ago. We were at dinner and she was ranting about those 'street performers, I mean, this one did magic and I'm like 'you are just a begger why don't you go get welfare or something?'". I tried to explain to her that street performers are not beggers but she wouldn't accept it. If it helps she is a moron and pretty much a waste of human flesh.

Here's something you can tell your niece, if she will listen.

If you go to a show somewhere, let's say a concert, you pay for a ticket up front, then you see the show. If the show stinks, you are out the cost of the ticket. Sometimes this happens.

If you go to see a street performer, nobody says you have to watch him. You can walk away at any time. He does the show. Then he asks you if you think it is good enough for you to pay him.

If he is a successful street performer, he may have a really nice car, nice clothes, a nice house, and he may even have another job that he works at during the week.

He gives you his product first. Then he asks you if you think it's good enough to pay for. A beggar gives you nothing except a filthy handshake, a rancid smell and a reason to go away.

Think about this the next time you are in a position to need to borrow a quarter or even a dollar to get out of a jam.

And whatever you do, don't stand over to the side and hassle the performer. That's rude. What would you do if you were in the middle of a ocnversation with a friend and some loudmouth stuck his head in your face and told you to shut up?

Bill, I have been blessed that I am one of those performers that have the niceities you spoke of.

Do I consider myself a "welfare bum"? Harldy...

And your discription of "Street theatre" as the purest form of entertainment is so true. How many times have we felt ripped at crappy movies, concerts etc and have no recourse.

OUt on the street if we suck, the hat don't lie...

Bill, I tried, she is a monster. Spoiled beyond hope and she has no respect for working people she feels are beneath her. It should be noted she has no career herself, mommy and daddy are her bankroll.

I learned an audience warm up from a David Ginn book I checked out from the local library over ten years ago,I pretty much use it in every gig and it works wonders.

You'd better be gettin' that book back to the library Johnny...

Those fines can add up!

Tom,
I admire your patience in handling people.
I was blessed in working for Wolf Ruvinskii at one of his supper clubs in Mexico, as you know.
The people as a whole, where very polite.
Ruvinskii would not permit any kind of rudeness.

I could not do what you do.

I miss our time together.

Tom Wolf aka "Mike"

Actually Chad, I've been arrested for an overdue library book, the one about Houdini that caused controvery, I disliked the book so much I forgot about it and never returned it.

It was the very first time in all my life I'd been caught by the cops, for something as simple as an overdue book. Imagine my relief when I went to court that all the bad things I'd done in my youth had still not caught up with me.

;)

So I was kinda the joke while in court, seeing as most of them knew I was amagician I heard things like, "Bet you wish you could make this case disappear, haha!"

They got the book back, the charges were dropped and then all was right with the world.

Yes, I learned my lesson.

Like I was just tellin' Vandy:

Scoundrels...everywhere

I hope you were talking about me!

:)

I have a niece like that. My dad put her in charge of his estate when he died. We caught her stealing from the family trust. So she lost her power of attorney. She has moved to Arkansas, and will not speak to her parents any more. Big @#%^ing loss!

Uh, Bill, he's a full time pro. Admittedly, he never performs in restaurants, Ren Fairs or street corners - but he is a full time corporate magician who has had no other steady source of income for the last 30 years.

Just saying.

Andrew

I get the audience to like me.. I look for ways to connect. lecturing to them suggests you lost them in the beginning...
I think the act is not about how much you can fool people but how much you can entertain... if your act is stale or canned or mechanical after doing it so long the audience might not feel a part.

I don't tell jokes in my street work so much .. the interaction is the sole base of my entertainment... I delight share and expand on the reactions I get from the situations I create...I wouldn't need to instruct an audience how to behave as I lead them down the garden path of fun...usually with no resistance.

I think relating to the audience is the best way to undertake a street show... but maybe southern audiences are more afffable than jaded California ones.


Marty
Greenville, South Carolina

You mean like Coca Cola, Daniel, Franklin Electric, Alcan Cable, Maxwell House, Service Corporation of America (America's largest funeral services company)? Oh, wait, those are some of the ones I worked with on a regular basis.

The principles of entertaining magic apply the same way at a corporate event as they do at a Renaissance festival. It's just a different bunch of people. They want entertainment, and someone who knows how to entertain will get the repeat business.

Most of Darwin's corporate work is themed around his actual long suit, gambling work.