You end your magic performance with everyone stunned by the magic and the whole place going crazy about you. Now it's time to pack up and head home. The guy that booked you congratulates you on a job well done. You feel awesome as you start for home, knowing you did a brilliant job as usual.
In that attitude... There be dragons! It's easy to take all that praise and feedback to heart.. Not a wise thing to do.
1) All alone, surrounded by people.
Being a working magician is a lonely way to earn a living. I travel from gig to show each and every day, and although I interact with hundreds of people, they are all separate from me. Even on large events with multiple magicians, I will meet them at the start while everyone sets up, then we split the room into areas for us each to work...And away we go. At the end of the night we will all met up, and fuelled by the rush and adrenaline of performing, we will joke and discussed magic as we pack up our close-up bags. Then it’s the journey home and it begins again the next day. Over time, magicians tend to work within their own little bubble, isolated from real feedback about their act or the performance they gave.
2) Listening to the feedback of spectators
It's really easy to fall into the trap of believing the praise you are given by your audience. You did a great show, and they loved it, but they have only ever seen that one performance. Their feedback is only from their limited knowledge from a single. Maybe you started taking shortcuts, cutting corners or just becoming too familiar and complacent with your routines.. They can’t pick up on that, until it’s so bad that you give an a horrible show.
Never think that because the show went well, it means you gave as good a performance as you have in the past. You need to be introspective and critical of your own performance to guard against this.
- Becoming fearless
Do you still get a little bit nervous before a gig?
Even though they have been working for years, many performers still get a scared or tense feeling before each show starts. That’s called stage fright.
It’s perfectly healthy, and unless it becomes unmanageable, and can even be one of your best friends. As you go on from each wonderful show, you can lose the fear that something may go wrong. The danger is that you can stop being introspective and lose the drive to improve your current material. If you find you no longer get stage fright, it could be an important to spend time checking that you are still giving your performance the same energy and focus on detail that you did earlier in your magic career.
Do This:
Get hold of as much video footage you can of your performances each time it’s filmed at a gig. Take time to review it and see if the energy you had when you first started performing is still the same.
Take your audiences positive feedback with a pinch of salt, keep being critical of your own performance.
Look out for you fear of performing getting less, and view that as a possible red flag. Being aware of these pitfalls of success is important to your development as a magician. You are only as good as your last performance, so make sure it’s consistently the best it can be.