I recently had a wonderful few days in Colon Michigan, the magic capital of the world. A place that is a quiet sleepy town for 51 weeks a year… then comes Abbots Magical Get Together. About 300 magicians, their spouses and families arrive and double the population of the town. The bars and restaurants, OK, make that the bar and the pizza place, are buzzing with everything from Speed Pizza Eating (won by Dynamike from Detroit), to Curly’s famous 20th Annual Close-Up Competition (won by, ahem, me).
Now regular attendees will tell you: ‘it’s not a convention, it’s a get together’, but the only difference is that what most conventions pack into a weekend takes the folks at Abbots a few more days to get through, the pace is so much more leisurely. One can sit outside the ice-cream shop and eventually meet every attendee in the course of one afternoon.
It may seem beyond belief to anyone that has not experienced it but there is more than one convention happening in this holy week of magic – you see there is more than one magic shop in Colon! Actually this sleepy little town (pop. 1200) has (cue drum roll) three magic shops! This means that alongside Abbots Get together are events organized by FAB Magic and one of those events leads to the point of this story.
Many of you know that I am a (semi retired) street entertainer and I always support the art and today was going to be a treat. You should never judge a magician by how well or badly he does at a magic convention stage show – the real world is a very different place. But today was going to be different. Bobby Maverick was going to do his street/festival show on the sidewalk in Colon, a rare chance to see a top professional who is at the top of his game in his home environment.
From this amazing show I was reminded of several secrets of performing. Several things that Bobby did that were just so darned ‘right’ that I almost put some money in his hat at the end of the show!
The first was his wonderful start. He set up a PA system and started playing music, lots of different music, mostly 30 second snatches from popular songs. As he kept switching tracks he said he was playing with a new device to switch tracks, this may have been true, but the way he did it and the way he talked about it made me like this guy, even care about him. Maverick was actually just talking to us all as individuals which made us all feel important. He cared and we mattered, and this was 10 to 15 minutes before the show was going to start. He kept us involved without doing any ‘material’ just by being a nice guy.
He was clearly working on the basis of ‘If you build it they will come’. He set out his pitch and waited with the confidence of a man who knows he is good. And they came, he had a good crowd of about 80 plus people, some standing, some sitting on the floor and some in chairs borrowed from the ice cream parlor.
Secondly – he was always so nice! There was quite simply nothing to dislike about him, he was funny without being offensive; he occasionally skirted into dangerous comedy territory which the audience loved as we knew he would never go to far; he did some great magic without making anyone feel stupid; he was the perfect gentleman with all his volunteers; he involved the children and the adults at different levels; and no one felt threatened by him (which made it 
easy to get volunteers).
But then he had ‘the moment’! That time when something happens in a show that could send it one way or the other. And as usual it was initiated by a 7 year old kid, he threw a plastic cup that was half full of ice at Bobby. This was not one of those moments that you could just ignore and hope that people hadn’t noticed, the audible gasp made that clear! I wondered what I would do if I was the man of the moment, it certainly would not have been as nice as what Mr Maverick did.
He calmly looked over at the crowd and asked if the parent of this young man was in the crowd, he used the line ‘I think it maybe time to do some parenting’. From some people this would have been a cutting line to embarrass the parents into doing something, but from Bobby who I have already established is a nice guy, someone we like, this was a polite request. AND when the Mom came forward he got the audience to give her a round of applause as ‘being a parent is such a tough job’. Admittedly it did give him a chance to let everyone know that he was a parent (good for the hat) but let’s not be picky. He used the situation to his advantage and kept the audience on his side – brilliant work!
A few moments later the Kid walked out onto the stage area and picked up the cup and the spilled ice and returned to his seat. Bobby then said to the audience that what had just happened showed character and respect and that the kid deserved a round of applause.
The result was that we liked him even more, this darned street entertainer was now teaching us to be better parents and employing positive affirmation techniques which was building a bigger and bigger tip.
His show consisted of the cups and balls and a strait jacket and chain escape, nothing out of the ordinary from a material point of view, but he added to that some awesome audience participation bits, and I do not use the word awesome very often! These little comedy moments that he built time and time again through his set are the real secret to his show. The reason people cared and the reason for the big hats.
They were little audience vignettes, short routines that could be dropped in anywhere but if used at the right moment are sheer magic. I am not going to tell you what those bits were as they would mean nothing outside of the context of the show and I don’t want to spoil it for when you see it. Suffice it to say that the result of all this stuff was that he built an audience who were involved with the show and cared about the performer, each step of the show made us feel more like his friend, even his hat speech didn’t make us feel guilty about not giving, it just made us want to enjoy the experience of sharing our money with him.
So here are the top tips for a successful show, Maverick style – be confident, be nice, respect your audience, and show them that you really care. Do this and you will go far. And don’t forget to make one of your stops at Colon Michigan during the first week of August 2012 for the 75th Annual Get Together – I will be there as MC for Curly’s Close-Up competition – It’s the prize I got for winning!
Cheers
Keith Fields
FYI Bobby runs a Busker bootcamp which is a great place to improve your skills as a performer and learn the art of street entertaining.
Click here for Bobby Maverick