Beware of Performing for Magicians

One of the pieces of wisdom that I pass along to any magician that will listen is "beware of performing for magicians"!

The reason for this is not what you may think. It has nothing to do with one magician stealing another magicians act or anything like that. It deals with the degradation of the performance. You are first and foremost an entertainer, and a magician second.

When one magician performs for another it is easy to slip into just doing "the move". This is especially true for close up magicians. If this happens on a regular basis the magician does not practice the part of the effect that makes it entertaining.

Magic is 10% and performance is 90%.

The reason that this happens is the lure of recognition. When you have worked hard to make a move or a slight invisible, the desire to have this accomplishment recognized is created. When performing for a lay audience they will never compliment you on how well you performed some slight of hand move because if you did it correctly, they will not see it. On the other hand, when performing for magicians, you might get exclamations like, "that is the cleanest pass I have ever seen"!

The problem with this kind of demonstration is that all the things that make for good entertainment have been removed. Many magicians just learn one move after another to impress other magicians. What they have sacrificed I'd the ability to perform a trick and have it entertaining.

But the sacrifice does not stop there.

To be continued...