Magic By Carl- promo video

Ep9 - Confessions From The Back Seat

Magical Weddings

Diary of a Wedding Magician

Well this weekend was lots of fun with three very different weddings to entertain at

Although The format of weddings are pretty similar the feel of most weddings is very different

This can relate to Number of guests,Venue,Age of guests,if children are present and also the thing that is the hardest to relate to is the type of people

I love being asked to entertain at weddings and I often joke that for a bloke I know far to much about them

With a simple calculation I have probably entertained at 800-875 over the last 23 years

I cant say that any two were the same!!!!

• This weekend saw me entertain at a really large wedding in Cheshire where I entertained through drinks reception and the wedding breakfastAs I knew a lot of the guests there was a really personal feel
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• In the evening I entertained at a reception in Warrington where I was asked to mix and mingle in the bar performing close up magic.This was an evening of fun and banter with a lot of the guests that had been at the wedding all day
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• The third wedding of the weekend was an intimate wedding with about 50 guests in a country house hotel near Sheffield where I looked after guests through drinks reception and through the meal

As you can appreciate I had the chance to spend a lot more time with guests at the third wedding as it had about a third of the guests.Three weddings all awesome but all three very different.

I was so pleased to get an e mail from the Bride and Groom from the third wedding yesterday saying the following

A very good afternoon from the Easons! Carl we wanted to say an absolutely massive thank you for yesterday you are so so talented, read the crowd brilliantly and entertained our guests perfectly! The faces of shock surprise and laughter on our guests was literally magic! We cannot recommend you enough and have had so many compliments to pass on to you. Thank you , love Mr and Mrs Eason x x x 🃏♠♣♥💝

 The most pleasing part of this as positive feedback (and a great testimonial) is that the bride felt that I read the room and her guests to maximise the effect of my wedding magic.

She understood that there was a mix of personalities and age groups and I tried to maximise the magical effects by not just producing a homogeneous set for each group of people

The bride and groom were pleased because of their guests reactions which I think speaks volumes for the approach of any wedding magician

Last year I produced a couple of video blogs one of which was on wedding magic I will put this below



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Any Questions or comments very welcome

Carl Royle
www.magicbycarl.co.uk

Dr Daley on Steroids

How Ideas Can Develop

Last night I was lucky enough to see my magical friend John Carey lecture at Bolton Magic Club

Over the last few years John has produced some wonderful books on Card Magic and a number of well acclaimed teaching videos for magicians

The lecture was very good indeed and appreciated by all those that attended

It was great to sit in the bar afterwards discussing magic theory and card effects

John reminded me that I had taken one of his ideas a few years ago and changed the presentation a little to suit my style and the audiences I perform for.

What he had never told me before was how much he actually liked the presentation and he uttered the words every magician wants to hear from their respected piers 

"I wish I had thought of that"!!!!!

John did ask that if i were to use this effect in a lecture or write it up that I title it (with full credits)

"Dr Daley On Steroids"

This will only make sense to magicians!!!

I just remembered that I filmed a presentation of the effect a while ago so please see video below and let me know what you think

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Carl Royle
www.magicbycarl.co.uk

Unique Magic

What if a client wants a unique experience?

Food For Thought!

I am quite often asked to produce bespoke magic ideas for clients

This could be to represent products at a trade show,Represent a current project,To get across and idea or new working practice

In the last twelve months my favourites have been to 

• Show how a certain product was getting smaller
• To represent a National project of the laying of cable from one end of the country to the other and how teams had to work together to make this a success
• Celebration of a companies 150 years in business

I will concentrate on the third one as it is the most recent

The Remit was to do a short after dinner presentation that highlighted the fact the company I was working for was celebration one hundred and fifty years in business

Without going into the full details of the effect I put together for them I was really pleased how it was received by all the employees 

The Effect was a fun way of presenting a mathematical effect where all random numbers added up to the year the company was formed (eventually)

The reason I believe that the presentation went down so well was down to how invested the senior members of staff were in the company ethos.When after a lot of byplay they were confronted with many random events through my show adding up to 1866 I would not be exaggerating to say there was an explosion of joy from some members of staff.

As magicians we always try to make every performance unique as theory tells us no two audiences are the same.

When an audience knows that a certain performance was designed just for them the reactions increase exponentially

There is a lot of satisfaction to be gained from producing bespoke presentations to represent people ,product or occasion.

The realisation that the presentation is just for them is a wonderful thing to behold

I would love to answer any questions or discuss ideas on bespoke magic

If you like this blog please do like and share 

Many thanks

Carl Royle

www.magicbycarl.co.uk

  

If Someone Else You Try To Be

Thoughts on Being Yourself Or A Character Of Originality 

Last night I was reading a book on magic (re Reading) by a famous mind reader called Bob Cassidy.

I really enjoy his writing and love his thoughts on performing and approach rather than just the effects.

There was a two line saying that really struck home to me with regard to a lot of magic I see people performing at the moment weather live,on the internet or on TV

If Someone Else You Try to Be

You're Condemned to Mediocrity

(the artful mentalism of Bob Cassidy,Page 134)

I am lucky to work with and know many leading professional magicians and one of the biggest traits of the ones that stand out is their natural and relaxed approach to performing

We are not all creative enough to invent our own effects but all the magicians I know that are workers find a way to make certain tricks their own by stamping their own personality

No greater example of this could be said by my friend Harry Robson and his Borrowed Ring on Shoelace 

The nearest I have been able to come to making something my own is probably my Gold Cup Con trick which takes a classic plot and re frames it (photo above of me performing this at a corporate event)

I am a big fan of classic effects so on many occasions I am performing magic that has been done by other magicians for many years.This is because finding plots that suit you is really important in enabling the natural relaxed performance I try to convey

This does not mean you have to copy other peoples presentation of said classic plots

I do believe that the magic clone culture is in large a result of magicians now learning most of their new material from DVD

I can only liken it to following a Sat Nav and not knowing how you got to your destination

I started this blog saying how I gain most of my knowledge and inspiration in magic and that is from books.

When reading you put your own interpretation on the writing and in a lot of cases subconsciously come up with something unique

Of course I still watch magic DVD and go to Magic Lectures and watch magic on TV etc etc

This all comes back to my previous blog on making magic memorable and why people will remember you and your magic

It is hard to be unique but there is nothing worse than a bad copy of anything whether it is a cover version of a song a piece of art or in my mind especially a magic performance

Comments or questions welcome

Carl

www.magicbycarl.co.uk

Making The Magic Memorable

Why should they remember you?

There is an old saying in magic that "people do not remember what you do they remember how you make them feel"

So how do people want to feel when they watch magic?

If I was to brainstorm this question you will get a list something like the one below (or we did!!!)

• Engaged
• Amused
• Entertained
• Astonished
• Surprised
• Comfortable
• Included (without being picked on)
• Relaxed
• Happy
• Special

This list is not in any order but if you leave any audience member feeling just half of the above they are definitely going to remember you for a long time.

My first observation of the above is that most of the list is not necessarily related to magic at all.The fact is most magic is not about the effect or the trick being performed.

Yes it is really important that any magician performs amazing magic but what makes individual magicians stand out is the way they interact with their audience.

"How they make them feel"

If people have seen me perform you will know there is a section of my close up act where I use the word awesome a lot.I get the audience to repeat the word awesome and at the end of the effect I can almost guarantee someone will say "that was awesome"

This is because by the time I get to this effect everyone feels Engaged,amused,entertained,comfortable,included and I hope special

I sort of hope they are astonished as well but I am sure you get the message

On many occasions I have met people who have seen me perform at another time and they always remember the Awesome thing!!!!! 

As I have touched on in previous blogs it is so important to listen as you perform so you can respond and make an audience feel included instead of feeling they are being performed at.

Next time you are interacting with people whether you have met them before or not consider how you made them feel and how or if they will remember you in the future

This goes for Magic and none magic interaction

Comments and questions welcome

Carl Royle

www.magicbycarl.co.uk

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