“It’s not that you’re working too hard. It’s that you’re not working hard on the right things.”
My latest book, The Kids Know Best, is available for presale NOW.
If you are a seasoned kid show pro, this book can better your show and lighten your load.
If you rarely do a kid show, this book could save your butt with the Shaving Kit Magic Show.
You’ve seen the pics like this online.
A magician friend is performing a kid/family show and you see his set up …
Two pop-up banners
A third curtain backdrop!!
A packed to the max suitcase table!!
Live stock production boxes!!!
Rabbit wringers!!!!
Dagger live stock vanish!!!!!
Chair Suspension!!!!!!
Floating table!!!!!!!
Vent doll!!!!!!!!
Stratosphere tube with the last ball vanisher!!!
Spring raccoon!!!!
Dove!!!!!
Rabbit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lions, Tigers, and Bears. OH MY!!
And the show is ONLY thirty-five minutes.
I want to say to that magician:
You are working hard. Too hard. Specifically, you are working too hard on areas that do NOT deliver to your audience. You can work better and smarter.
The show won’t be just as good with fewer props.
It will be BETTER.
Yes, you can continue to bring all those props to a kid/family show.
But you could also bring…
A better script.
Developed routines.
Purposeful prop design.
Audience participation.
A message.
Proven show structure.
Bonus: quicker set up and tear down time.
But you can NOT do all those things
AND bring all those props.
Why? Because the show would be three hours long.
This is the folly of the pack big, play small dumb show↓↓↓
This is the success of the pack small & smart, play big & smart show ↓↓↓
Kid/Family shows are typically a different animal compared to other venues …
Performers that work in these markets are typically doing a lot of them. Busy school assembly performers can do 250 or more in a school year. In the summer reading program market 80 shows over two months in summer is not unheard of. Birthday parties? There are performers out there doing four or more nearly every weekend.
That’s not only a lot of shows, it’s …
…a lot of traveling to shows.
…a lot of taking the props from your car a long distance because that’s the closest parking spot you can find.
…a lot of setting up and tearing down of shows.
…a lot of setting up shows right in front of the waiting audience.
…a lot of fitting shows into places that aren’t ideal.
…a lot of multiple show and multiple location days.
That’s a lot of lots.
But these “lots” are not the only reason to
pack smart & small and play big.
What impacts your audience the most are not the props you bring.
What impacts an audience most are the skills, smarts, and experience you bring …and that has little to do with big props.
My new book The Kids Know Best will give you those skills, smarts, experience, and more.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Reasons
Kid Show Challenges
Work Hard In A Smart Way
Definitions
Realities
Asrahs, Custom Silk Boxers, and My Smokin’ Hot Wife
METHODS
Make Your Case
Gift Wrapping Presents
Gift Wrapping Presence
Your Bigger Case
Packing The Case
Do Great Magic
Smack Adults Upside The Head
Furniture
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
PRESENTATION IS WEIGHTLESS
A Word About Style
If Art Linkletter & Houdini Had A Kid
I Now Pronounce You Man & Wife
The Army Of Free Props
The Two Tracks
Duke The Kid A Fiver
“PROPS” THAT ARE ALWAYS AT THE VENUE
STILL Your Biggest Prop
The Big Props That Are Already There
SHOW STRUCTURE
Structure Is Power
SCHOOL ASSEMBLY PROGRAMS
School Assembly Show Structure
Have Shoehorn Will Insert Message – Ugh!
Ditch The School Assembly Shoehorn & Share Messages
The Power Of The Quiet Dismissal
Routines For The Pack Small Play Big Kids Magician
Sneaker Snafu
Big boxes Are Evil! Sneaker vanishes and reappears.
You Say Devano! I Say Divino!
Rising cards for kids
MY Magic Money
Signed bill to box for kids
Kard To Mouth for Kids
One deck, one marker, dozen laughs
Psychic Bunny
A near propless live bunny routine
Let’s Get Small
The 30 Minute Magic Show In A Shaving Kit Bag
Resources
34 chapters 150 pages
PRE-ORDER BONUS:
Once again, Michael “Tiberius Shatner” Misko and myself will lock ourselves inside an airtight Zoom bunker 1000 feet below the Arctic Circle, fortified with only good bourbon and great beef jerky. We will discuss all things pack small & play BIG for the family crowd. It promises to be insightful, at times hilarious, and packed with verbs and nouns of all things pack small & play big for family audiences!
Readers LOVED our discussion from The Show Is The Mother of Invention. You’ll love this one, too!
The Kids Know Best is with the vigilant proof reader now. It will go to the printer early December. Expected shipping mid December.