Just like find the lady, we’re going to play a game with your acts now called find the dud. If you win, you get the prize of a wonderful well structured act that is awesome. If you lose… well you get a show full of crap no one finds interesting. And the best part - I’ll even walk you through how to win and find the duds in your act.
Before we go any further, it is worth mentioning that I know a lot of the things you will be considering cutting you have spent hours and hours on. Some will even be your prize possessions. You may not wish to get rid of them, and I can really appreciate and understand that. But I assure you at the end of this process your show will be tighter, more entertaining and generally one that you will be a lot happier with. So let’s go find these duds!
Firstly, and most obviously I’d want to say that any trick that you have simply copied the example presentation given to you, or copied someone elses act with is a dud. I know I’ve probably said this a lot before but dont copy someone else’s act and expect the same success. They make the trick a success because they make it their own way. Sure use the same methods but don’t do the exact same routines. Don’t boot these ones completely though, these are often the easiest ones to reboot into something successful.
One of the things that I highly recommend you do as a performer is find a close group of friends, family, your kids etc that you trust to give you honest advice. Get them to watch the trick. It might be like with my other half that they are fed up watching magic, but they will be the best people for this. It doesn’t have to be that many people, but it should be people in your target audience. So for a kids entertainer find nieces, nephews, younger siblings, our own kids etc for this, for adults find adults and for people with no social lives find magicians (I kid of course… maybe).
And once you’ve done this you’ve created a sounding board for yourself. Take the material you’ve been working on and show it to this group. Ask for their opinions. And take them on board. Hopefully they’ll be able to spot the flaws in a routine, but also they can be the biggest barometer of a routines quality. Not just in their words but in their reactions. Watch their reactions, take a look at their expressions and how they say words. They may not want to upset you, but you’ll be able to see this in their reactions. Also with this don’t get them all together in one room and perform it just once. Perform it to people individually. That way you won’t be as likely to get groupthink or a generic response. Oh and make sure they are honest people. Sometimes you actually want to hear from people who will tell you a trick is crap. Kids are good at this, they're honest. They have no filter. That and wives (or at least mine. You can't borrow her to watch your trick though... although if anyone send me clips for feedback they will be shown to her for her honest and sometimes brutal opinion)
But back to gaining feedback. You can always video something and send it to people as well. This is great when you've got friends far away or you find it a bit cringy performing to just one person. This also gives you an advantage that you can watch the footage back for yourself and give yourself some honest feedback on your performance.
It's important to watch the act back not as you watching yourself but you watching another performer. Did you enjoy it? was it interesting? Did it flow? Make notes of all the positives and negatives. if you don’t enjoy watching it back it’s an early warning sign that something isn’t working (putting aside all cringe of you watching yourself) It's not you in the video it's just another performer.
And another fun tip when it comes to filming for you - frame the shot as you’d expect the audience to see it. So nice tight shots for closeup work, wider shots for stage. Take the time to review yourself and the routines. And be harsh. You can't be harsher than some of the audience members you’d get - especially if you perform for kids (those little monsters can be brutal!).
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This is turning into a mammoth post, but it's worth it. It's so mammoth that I finished writing that last part at the train and I'm now writing this back again at home. Sorry for the whole long post but it's gonna be worth it - I hope.
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So what next? Even if you get great feedback from your close friends, it shouldn't be the only thing you do. It's a constant process. Whenever you do a stage show the feedback doesn't stop in rehearsal. Quite often directors come back during the show run and make comments, changes etc. Now for magicians we normally take on that direction role ourselves. When you're performing and you're in the zone it's really hard to be self critical as you get far too into the show. And that's ok. Plus your own gut feeling can often be so inaccurate. We all know the experience of feeling like you're dying on stage and people love it (and vice versa). So you need people to watch the shows and give you feedback on what was good and what wasn't. So who can do that for you?
In shows there are two groups of people. The ones that watch the shows, and the ones that work on the shows. The rest of this post is about their stories. (Bonus points: name the TV show)
People who work on shows are a wonderful source of feedback. After you've done the show make sure to chat to the staff about it. They'll be political no doubt but you'd be able to gleam a lot of information on what works and what doesn't. It's how I realised how badly my straight jacket routine didn't work.
And most importantly, the audience are a great source of feedback. During the show you'll always try and look for people's reactions. You'll focus on the laughter, the applause, the poignant silent moments. Try and see when people react how you expect them to in your show. If you don't get silence when you need it something is wrong. Do people not laugh? Again that's a huge red flag. And just like with your rehearsals, performances can be recorded. The first few shows that I do of any new production are filmed so I can watch them back and listen out to the audiences reaction. Place the camera in the audience and you get some great feedback, even from just listening to it. You'll find people who laugh at the right time etc, or what is more than likely is that you'll hear when people chat in your show. This is 10 times more useful believe it or not as its a big clue that people aren't being engaged.
You could do the typical "feedback form" but you only ever get the extremes with that. When you perform, it's always a really good idea to try and find ways to interact with your audience after the show. For me, I sell merchandise. (this is another fun thing to do) but there's another motive. I could get someone else to sell it, but it gives me a reason to chat with the people who've seen my show. I can ask them what they like and what they didn't like.
I don't phrase it as bluntly as that, as people are overly polite to someone who they've just spent an hour watching on stage. Instead I focus on the positives and take a few mental notes. After a while you get to know what people's favourite routines are. And patterns will emerge. You'll notice there are tricks that people talk about a lot, and those which are barely mentioned. Those ones that are barely mentioned you should take note of, they may not be hitting as well or need adjusting.
Well hopefully the above pointers will help you focus and figure out what works in your show. It can be basically summed up as ask for feedback whenever you get the opportunity. Every step is a chance for feedback and reflection. So good luck identifying what works!
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Right it's been a long day and I'm ready to get some sleep. I'll try and do a follow up post on this about making duds work, but I've got a few fun drafts I want to get out there at somepoint too. There may be revisions to this post when I have new musings on it, but for now I hope you found it useful