A Zoom Magician and Online Magic Shows?

by | Jun 25, 2020 | news | 0 comments

Zoom Magician

To be a Zoom Magician… or Not to be a Zoom Magician… that is the Question?

Hmmm…. Have you been thinking about becoming a Zoom Magician? Does performing your shows remotely online while your audience is sitting at home fill you with dread? I can imagine for many magicians the thought of performing a show like this is a nightmare. Stilted reactions, audio problems, internet bandwidth and computer issues.

 

I see on social media that the world of magicians are completely divided on this topic into those who have completely embraced this technology and are performing Zoom magic shows regularly to other magicians (some fairly prominent ones in the fraternity) that have been vocal saying these type of shows ‘suck’, to quote one in particular, and that magic is better performed live.
Whilst I agree that magic originated as a ‘live’ art, I feel we should embrace new emerging platforms and this lockdown and social distancing period is the perfect opportunity to find new stages for our art. When magicians first ever performed on television, there were magicians that would say it’s a fad and that it would never take off and that it’s bad for magic as once something is performed on Tv it can’t be performed live ever again, but without Television I wouldn’t have grown up being able to watch Mark Wilson, the David Copperfield Specials, Tommy Cooper or Paul Daniels. Television magic has proven it self to have far more positives than negatives.  I remember feeling the same as these magicians when YouTube took off in 2005. There were people that would pull the videos off my website and then upload them to YouTube without asking.  I did everything in my power to pull YouTube clips down as I didn’t want my acts out there to be seen by the masses as I felt people wouldn’t book me if they can just see my act online.  I was wrong to have this mindset, but YouTube was a new emerging platform which I didn’t embrace, I resisted. I changed my mind a few years later once I had seen the power of other magicians clips going viral and then embraced my material being out there. Since then I have had several clips go viral one has had over 15 million views and it help my career enormously, you just can’t buy that amount of advertising (well Copperfield can but I can’t!). 

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have a similar story associated with them. Recently I saw a magician post on Facebook ‘a message for those who have recently joined TikTok … grow up’, for those in the entertainment business, marketing is as important as your performance so to disregard the fastest growing platform that’s ever been invented that has about 800 million monthly active users is so short-sighted.  For those few that got in there early and embraced the new platform are all reaping the rewards in such a short space of time.

I feel we all should embrace the new ‘Zoom Magician‘ revolution and after reading the above it should not surprise you that these are my thoughts. Online Virtual Magic Shows via Zoom or Skype have been a God send for many parents who couldn’t give their children a party and the same in the corporate world too, I have been lucky enough to perform my online show for some of the biggest corporate companies in the world. They are all doing virtual meetings, seminars and online conferences and they still need entertainment to keep their delegates motivated and alert and it’s proven to be a massive success. The market has shifted literally overnight and even when things start going back to normal virtual events will be here to stay as companies see the benefits of remote training sessions. 

Zoom Magician Online Magic Show

The question magicians ask is it as good as a live show, and my answer to it depends who is performing and what they are performing.  If they are doing their standard show in their living room or garage in front of their MacBook then, no, it most likely won’t be good, however if they develop their show for the platform they are performing to the results can be powerful. I recently saw one illusionist perform his large Las Vegas style box type illusions in, what looked like his living room, this didn’t work for me, it made the performance look cheap, however, with the right routines, the right lighting, sound and with a bit of thought you can create positive memorable experiences that audiences won’t forget. I remember the late Anthony Owen saying that TV magic is a different genre of magic and we should develop for that medium, Instagram magic is the same it has it’s own set of rules so to speak that work for that platform and the same goes for a Zoom Magician. Embrace this opportunity to explore, be creative, be professional and try to give your audience a show that will elevate our art. Good luck!

 

Submit a Comment