You would’ve heard this all before from other magicians (if you know any other magicians that is) “I’ve always liked magic ever since I was a little kid”, so I won’t bore you with my version of it. However I will tell you about my first gig.

My first gig has substantially put my effort of became a magician from the first gear into the fifth. Before that, there was no real drive for me to research and practice magic regularly, you could say it was a very casual hobby. The opportunity came about when one of my best mate, who was also a McDonalds store manager, had asked me to perform magic for McHappy Day at his store. This was the perfect excuse for me to get my act together and polish up my skills.

The Research

At the time I had 2 months to prepare, which was plenty of time, but because I’ve never taken magic seriously, to all of the sudden researching and practicing every night, it was quite a change. Having never performed before, I had no idea what to do or where to start. That was where the research came in.

Squeezing whatever I can squeeze out of the world wide web, watching hundreds of hours of magician videos on YouTube, flipped through all my magic books that I hardly ever touch, I began to have a fair idea of the kind of magic tricks I would like to perform for McHappy Day. Some of these magic tricks are ones that I already know, some card magic, some coin magic, which would’ve been enough, but I wanted to learn a variety of magic tricks, McHappy was the perfect opportunity for me to expend my repertoire in a short amount of time. Doing research for magic is like flipping through the Target catalogue, once i knew what i wanted, it was time to pay Target a visit, in my case, the magic shop.

The Preparation

If you ask anyone who has been to the magic shop with me, they will tell you I was like a kid in a candy store, I’ll have ten of each please!

After I have acquire all the necessary probs for my magic tricks, it was time for training. My training comes in many forms; practicing in front of the mirror – this helps observing what the audience would see from their angle and perfecting the illusions, practicing while I’m watching TV – the mindless repetitive movement of training my hands helps perfecting my sleight of hand techniques, performing in front of friends – this helps me getting rid of my shaky hands syndrome.

Weeks later, I was able to not only make various objects disappear from my hands, but multiply them in my spectator’s hand, transfer them from one hand to the other and transforming something into completely something else. I felt like a real wizard, fireworks shooting out of my magic wand… Ok, not that powerful.

The Gig

10:30am Arrived at McDonalds. It was a walk-around gig. The plan was to mainly focus on performing magic to kids, but when I first showed up there were no kids there at all, so I did a bit of a warm up on the adults and the McDonalds crew. I was a bit nervous at the start and my hands were shaking a bit, but it only took about 10 minute for me to get into the swing of things, the shakes were gone and I was ready to go.

10:50am I consider myself very fortunate to have performed to this particular lady, who later on told me she was on her way to Peter Mac Hospital to have her cancer treatment and that my magic had really brighten up her day. When she thanked me for the 3rd time, my eyes got a bit teary. I was getting all emotional when I realised what little i did to make a huge difference to her. It was a great feeling that I have never had before. Those 5 minutes I have performed for her has really opened up my eyes. I’ve got contacts to get me gigs at hospitals and I’ve been holding off because I thought my skills are not up to scratch yet. My performance to this lady has really opened up my eye, made me realise that although my skills are limited, what I am currently capable of is so much more than the magic itself.

11:15am The kids must be starving by now because they are starting to rush in, before I know it, they were everywhere! I started going up to my 1st group of kids to show them a few magic tricks. I have never performed to kids before this gig, and I tell you what, kids are very smart these days! Every time I made an object disappear, they knew exactly where it went. I will have to lift up my game a bit.

12:00pm By now I have performed to a few groups of kids and have figured out ways to out-smart them, this has proven to be not an easy thing to do at all. Some kids were pretty out there, and some were pretty shy, which took a bit of effort to encourage them to participate. So far the kids were having a great time watching my magic tricks, but it was the smile on their parents’ faces that made it all worth while, seeing their kids smiling and having fun.

1:30pm The crowd has died down a lot by now and my McHappy Day t-shirt was absolutely soaked in sweat, being a walk-around magician is hard work, especially during summer. I had decided that it will do for the day, as I have never performed before, doing a 3 hour walk-around gig can be quite tiring. I must admit, it was a lot more rewarding than I expected, being able to put a smile on people’s faces was priceless. A worth while experience and great introduction to performing magic.

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