Hey All,

Been a long time since I've been on here... was curious to see who else is out there still using doves? Seems like a lot of people got out of it in the last 20 years...

I thought it was just me who noticed this. I use doves in EVERY show I do, including children's birthday parties.

It might be interesting to have a conversation about where the popularity of doves began. In the 70's it seemed like everyone was using doves. Who do you think was most responsible for fostering this popularity?

Channing Pollick made it a thing. He was not the first to use doves. Cantu (Abraham Cantu) was arguably the first to produce doves and predated Pollock. However, Channing made it look elegant and magical and following his Ed Sullivan TV appearance, he was heavily coppied (cloned?). The popularity has fallen off due to the change in the public's attitude toward animal acts. Bird acts seem to be going the way of cigarette manipulation acts.

I still use doves in about every show

I hire out 3 magicians, including myself, in our local area - predominantly for kids parties. All of us do the “Standard Magic Show” (no animals) and I’m the only one who does the “Premium Show” with 3 doves and a live rabbit out of a hat. Customers pay much more for the Premium Show and will even change the date/time of their party to have the animal show. All in all, doves are good for business.

For me personally, I feel better about myself doing silly kids shows when the magic is really good. Check out the promo video:

https://youtu.be/VvX2dGmGZwg