Now I will go ahead and state that I have yet to enter the restaurant performance venue yet. I have mostly been into stand-up and stage performances but Im gaining interest in close-up magic and I would like to hit restaurants as a performing venue. But right now Im mostly performing at my school during lunch. The delima is that of if it is important to have a long story or point to the magic like a stage or stand-up performer usually does. I don't have a lot of time for a lot of patter. Feel free to disagree but I might say that magic itself is entertaining with or without patter, whats your thoughts? (Don't get me wrong, there is usually a conversation between me and the spectator but not scripted patter)

Though it's probably not the norm for a restaurant performance, I can imagine a number of effects that you could perform with little or no patter. As a general rule, however, You should probably expect to have a script of some sort for most of your effects, even if that script contains nothing more than, "Watch!"

(As you've probably already calculated, the noisier the restaurant, the less your patter.)

I think starting in the school Caféteria is a great way to go before getting into restaurants. The eating time is 10 to 20 minutes, got ot get through the long line, eat and if time permits perform a little bit. There isn't much room for patter. To keep it entertiaing I often ask the spectator some simple no brainer questions, just have a little chat while I perform. They get to know me more, experience a bit of intimacy and see some small works of magic.

The use of patter in a restuarant I find should be kept to a minimum if possible. The dinners will watch a bit of magic, eat and leave not much room for a lot of patter that a stage illusionis will do.

I regularly work in venues with lots of international tourists some of which only have very basic or no english so maybe twice a night I find myself peforming for a table with very limited or no patter (I wish I was like david stone and could peform in 3 languages. I am a very animated person so a lot of body language seema to get the message across.

On 2009-02-10 19:00, ibm_usa wrote:
The delima is that of if it is important to have a long story or point to the magic like a stage or stand-up performer usually does

when I perform close up/strolling I never ever have a long story. I try to keep my script to a minimum and entertaining and hopefully with a few laughs and hopefully feels more like a conversation than a script.

hope this helps

No you don't need a long story, unless you are completely into Eugene Burger and want to salute him. Do script out what you will be doing though, it acts as an anchor.

Okay, it might have been Burger that I got the impression to patter a lot from. I mostly have just a basic outline of what I think is important to say. Most of the words are real time as well.

You are fine, just carry on.

Okay