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After watching David Blaine’s street magic specials back in the early noughties, what deck wielding teenager could resist the urge to head for their local streets and offer free impossibilities to passersby? Not me. I was there. Seventeen, inexperienced and excited. Armed with only a deck of cards and a friend with a video camera, I headed for the streets expecting overnight stardom and greatness.
When you’re out approaching people on the street, however, and you want even the most insignificant fraction of attention from people it doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re offering free wonderment or selling The Big Issue. Most people do not have time.
And when things don’t come easy, you have to back to the drawing board and figure out what your goal is. What is your goal? And how should you go about getting it?
I realized that what I was out there to do was capture magic on film in shortest amount of time possible. Getting rejected fifteen times between each performance was tedious and time wasting. So I came up with some ground rules, tips and techniques to reduce my rate of rejection.
Rule 1 - Don’t perform to the elderly or the busy. Yes, if they look like they’ve got a free bus pass or a briefcase, you really don’t want to waste your time. I found a lot of older people were scared of me and far too stressed by me being in their immediate proximity to possibly follow let alone enjoy what I was doing. And I’m not scary, honest! People in suits are probably on their lunch break and pushed for time. If they’re not eating yet, they don’t have time to watch you. Your performance could be the difference between a long and a short queue at Starbucks.
Rule 2 - Perform to students. The vast majority of students don’t have anything better to do (no offence to them). They’ve just gone to university, realized that year one is much easier than A Levels were and don’t really know what to do with all the spare time they have suddenly got. If you find some students hanging around, they’ll likely participate. I have never had a student reject me.
Rule 3 – Let the magic sell itself. Start with something short and shocking. The magic needs to happen in seconds and be unignorable. It needs to build curiosity in your target spectator. Recommendations would include a card flourish or a transformation.
Rule 4 – Don’t take rejection personally. Just don’t. Those rejecting you don’t mean it personally.
Rule 5 - Enjoy it. At first, if you have never performed to strangers before it can be difficult to relax but you really just have to plough through this stage. Keep doing it until it feels natural. And trust me, eventually you will.