Some friends have suggested that I do some magic at a fresher's fair at my university to attract people to our booth (a cultural society). Fresher's fair, for those unfamiliar with the term is a opportunity for university students to find out more about various societies offering a whole range of extracurricular interests. In this sense, I suppose it is not very different to a trade show.

I'm a relatively novice magician but am quite polished with card magic (ACR, darkcard, torched n restored, biddle trick, hot shot cut etc; no manipulations) and I can do a basic spongeball routine.

Any advice on what sort of tricks to perform and how to structure a routine for this purpose whould be great. Or perhaps pointing me towards some resources. Or (god forbid) maybe even telling me that I'm plain not ready for something of this order.

If you have 3 or 4 good polished effects, you should be OK. People come and go at that type of event, so you won't need tons of material.

Go with your strengths and have fun!

You will get some real world experience which will help in the long run.

Thanks for the encouragement Neale.

I was wondering if anyone can offer what sort of effects work to draw peoples attention and pull them to out booth? How do I go about presenting the effects to them?

I've never had any experience in this area and would appreciate any advice you can give me. Should I be doing this strolling, going up to people and performing some close up magic and end by directing them to our booth or should i perform at our booth to draw a crowd and then get them to sign up?

The fair is in 2 weeks time. I'm not getting paid for this nor would I dream of asking for payment until I felt I could justify charging.

Hi Invalidity,

I perform at quite a few fairs so here's a suggestion based on my experiences.

Recently I performed at a fair when I noticed an organization that I am involved with, also had a booth at the fair. I wanted to help them out a bit by attracting attention. I stood in front of the booth not inside it. My reasons for doing so was so people would not feel like they were conned or decieved that the booth offered magic or magic lessons. I get the same feeling about the booth you will be trying to attract attention to. People may walk over and believe that this booth offers something other than cultural activities.

Not to say however, that your presence will hinder them in anyway in fact you can draw a good crowd for them. I also used the people in the booth for comedy gags and made a few comments about what a friendly group this was..(planting the seed that they are approachable). Anyway those are my thoughts.

Neale had a good suggestion regarding you only need a few gags if you do walkaround. If you are planning on staying put however, you may want to plan for a few things. Then again, you can do a few effects and put them away and take your place once again behind the booth without magic and let people approach you and stir the conversation back to the purpose of why you are there.

Best of luck to you.

I recently did a Freshman welcome carnival at a college and was there for four hours. It was quite an experience. Only drawback was that some of the same people stayed where I was and Could not repeat the same trick more than once. It kept me on my toes and helped remember all my somewhat never used or forgotten tricks. Good Luck

you could get some flash paper to draw in some people. if you don't know what this is it is bassically tissue paper type stuff that burns really fast. you could use it to produce a spongeball or deck of cards or coins, it will get peoples attention.

Be prepared! You can pick up (as in learn / not buy) a few easy tricks to do. Dive into your library and learn professor's nightmare or something. Having more than card effects will add some variety to your performances. Also if you can tie your routine into the booth by theme someway you'll do the booth some service as well. I agree with Chrystal in that you should perhaps stand just in front of the booth. Do a sympathetic card routine and finish with the selected card vanishing and appearing over at the booth.
Just a few ideas and insights. Hope they help

maybe try adding in some coin routines to mix it up a bit.

The title of this thread suggests a strolling gig, but the description and purpose - to draw attention to a booth - suggests that a trade show approach would be more relevant.

If my comments are not too late, remember the cardinal rule of trade shows: He/She Who is Loudest Wins.

The goal is to get a crowd for the booth - NOT put on a magic show. Does this make sense to you? SO - go LOUD and go BIG. Tricks that can only be seen by 4-5 people are less useful than tricks that can be seen by 20, 30k or even 100.

Get up. Have a small platform or even a step ladder so you can do things a foot or two above the crowd. This will allow you to build a crowd and the people behind the first row will be able to see.

Consider tailoring your patter to suit the activities of the booth you are promoting. Example: Roperama can be done along the lines of helping everyone to have an even chance in school, education, or life.

- Greg Owen

Wow! thanks Greg. I learned something there myself!