I've had Rocky for years....got him for that purpose, but never got down to learn how to make him part of a routine....now he collects dust.

I thing I'll dust him off and see what happens.

It worked good for me Tom. Here are 50 of the pictures a lady shot with me performing on the streets yesterday: http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e150/D......Busking/
Thanks for your support.

A good ACR will never fail to draw a crowd. Especially when I do it...it looks like I hypnotized everyone to think that they are hunted down chickens.

Even if 5 out of 30 people see how you do it, unless they make some sort of public speech, you can just keep on going.

The pictures look great! I'm glad to see you found it useful.

Best regards

Thanks Tom.

I'd say presence is important. Stand out from everyone else (Dynamike, I LOVE that suit you were wearing!) But it depends on your personality and character. THEN you can figure out what effects to perform. And yes, Fire, half/naked women, and things that go bang are guaranteed to draw a crowd!

I gotcha, Dante. I agree with you.

A young one! I work with my 13 year old grandson and it just draws a crowd! 'Course he's way better than me with the tricks, but I beat him when it comes to patter...

Jim

How about a 100 foot rope escape? The rope will be laid out in a circle on the ground...so it basically sets the stage for where the audience will stand. Even if you have 10 people to watch you, they're spread out, so the crowd appears bigger.

Bryan

Rule Number One:
The Crowd should Hear you before they see you.

This is the first step to building a crowd.

Second? Tell them what they are going to see. Everything, and make sure they know to stick around for the final trick which is/should be amazing! It makes them want to stay just for that.

I use Urban Legend to stop people cold. Just the site of the razors stops people in their tracks, and everyone sticks around to see what's going on. I've never built crowds so fast as with this effect. The applause at the end also draws even more people.

Greetings and Salutations,

How about: "Hey, come here, hold this rope. Yes, this is a social experiment, I'm trying to determine how many people can hold this rope. You, yes, you. You made eye contact, you're committed, come on over here. Hey, sir, you're looking for something to see, there's something to see right here."

It doesn't make any difference what you do to gather a crowd, as long as you're entertaining. If you can't entertain a crowd from five to 10 minutes with nothing but your winning personality, put away all your tricks, toys and gimmicks and learn how to engage people.

Just my $.02 (USD) worth. YMMV.

Joe Zeman aka
The Mage Ulysses

For me, metal bending, self levitation, vanishing silk, and hummingbird card are probably the best magic tricks that will attract crowd's attention. Basically because they are really visual and people can actually see what are happening even if they watch the trick from quite a distance (as will the case in the street settings).

These are also the tricks that I usually perform for crowd around 15-25 people, since if you show something like card tricks, the people who watch from the back of the crowd usually don't really understand what is happening, since they can't even see what you are doing or because the props are simply too small.

Felix

Dynamike, Thanks for sharing your pictures. I enjoyed looking at them.

Did you create your own routine for the linking rings or are you using someone else's routine? I am about to bring out my rings after a short break of 15 years.

Thanks again,

Steven

About 30 years ago I got my first 8 ring set. I could not understand the instructions. I would try reading a few months to a year again and again. I could not get anywhere. About 15 years from now, I finally understood how to perform it.

I can not remember if I read instructions for an 8 or 6 ring set. If it was a 6 ring set, I made up a routine for the extra two.

"World' Greatest Magic" has a good DVD concerning Linking Ring methods by six performers, Jeff McBride, Aldo Colobimi, Dan Harlan, Al Schneider, Dan Fleshman and Dai Vernon.

Chris Capehart has a great 3 Ring DVD.

Jack Miller's Linking Ring Rountine is written by Bob Novak. Introduction by Jean Hugard. It shows a ring on rope method at the end.

Thanks for the comments about the pictures, Steven.

I haven't looked through to see if this has been mentioned, but...

Any levitation, as long as it is from the right angle, will quickly draw a crowd. Do it only once, because most levitations can be figured out pretty easily.

You now have a crowd with which you can perform some street magic for!

Greg, I think the Chair Suspension is better because it covers all angles. I use it at the end of my performances.