Zoom Magician
A Pandemic Pivot
A short tale about a Zoom Magician, also known as a virtual magician. The beginning of 2020 had started so well – I was ecstatic. My theatre show “When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Magician” had had a sell-out run. Consequently, it had been picked up by Underbelly for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2020.
What followed is something we are all too familiar with. It’s odd having a point of reference that every single person who reads this will understand…The beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. It was a very bleak couple of weeks, as like so many performers, my whole year was systematically cancelled. My mental health crashed as everything I had been working towards was ripped out from under me. Being in about the least “essential” career going (a magician!?), me and my colleagues’ future hung in the balance. It was an extremely dark time.
I spent 10 days wandering about my flat, wondering what to do next.
Zoom Magician Announcement
Name drop alert…Derren Brown once said to me “if you want to perform a theatre show, just book the theatre…then you have to do it”. It is an excellent bit of advice. If you commit to something beyond a promise to yourself, it’s very hard to get out of it. So, with that in mind, on April 5th 2020 I announced an exciting new virtual magic show! Just 2 days later I performed my first one.
My expectations were so low, it actually made it much easier as the pressure to provide something substantial felt equally low. I simply propped up my iphone on a few books with the selfie camera facing me and dialled into Zoom. Immediately, I found myself hugely enjoying it and found that magic worked very well through the virtual medium! It was by no means a spectacle, however the tricks had worked, and that is all that mattered.
The first week
Within the first week, word got around and before I knew it, I had performed around 20 shows. I was popping up in people’s homes in Sydney, LA, Canada and the UK! It was both unbelievable and utterly surreal how quickly it took off. It meant that, oddly, during such an incredibly isolating time, I’d never felt so connected to other people.
The initial experience was like nothing I had ever, or will ever, experience again in my career.
Little did I know, performing in this manner was going to become my day-to-day job for the next 2 and a half years, as well as a staple feature of my corporate services to the current date!
The greatest challenge (to my slight surprise) was not the magic itself. I have spent so many years studying and working on tricks, I was able to adapt existing routines fairly easily for virtual audiences. It actually got harder as I developed the show as I wanted to do more and more impossible magic! (I’ll cover thoughts on what magic works and why a little later).
Scaling up as a Zoom Magician
The most difficult thing as a Zoom magician was going to be scaling up the show. Performing for more than 1 attendee felt like an impossible prospect! I had no idea about tech and inherently, performing over the internet presents many tech problems. For example, the phrase “you’re on mute” has become synonymous with modern culture. I don’t think I need to explain the reason behind that one – we’ve all experienced the problem. My concern was that as the show grew, how would I be able to interact with guests, as well as make the viewing experience a dynamic one?
As mentioned, I was not a techy guy. So much so, I was regularly ridiculed by friends for not being able to operate a computer. To mine, my friends and everyone else’s surprise, over the next 6 months I would go on to build a fully-fledged studio with broadcast quality equipment – operating multiple monitors, switching stations, and integrating the highest calibre streaming software…
If you showed present Fergus to past Fergus, he would not recognise the nerd that stands in front of him.
Slow and Steady
Performing for one household at a time was all I did for about the first month. I remember my friend Piete messaged me to ask if I could do a virtual show for 12 people. 12 PEOPLE!? AT ONCE!? I politely declined.
A short while later, a childhood friend of mine by the name of Hal got in touch. He wanted me to perform at an event for his company AON. He mentioned there would be 30 people. I felt both enthusiastic and reluctant about agreeing. At this stage, many problems face me. I was still operating off a single phone and had to reach up to the camera to swipe the gallery mode. In turn, I struggled to see my framing etc. I also had no idea on other logistics such as how to mute someone if their dog started barking etc. Safe to say, I was apprehensive.
Fortunately, everything went brilliant and they enjoyed the show so much, they booked a second. It was this show that made me realise there was a real opportunity in being a corporate Zoom magician and that the ability to connect teams in the corporate world was one to be capitalised on.
Following this event, I proceeded to offer my services to corporate companies with a maximum of 30 guests. I still felt taking on more was a risk with the current setup.
As a result, a steady flow of bookings came in and I was garnering a reputation within the corporate world as being a great option for both team meetings and client entertainment.
PLAY SHOWREEL
The show structure
Performing as a Zoom magician is hard. My mission statement from day one (which is still true to this day), was; I did not want anyone to feel they were sat watching a YouTube video. It was critical that guests felt they could be asked to help at any point – in exactly the same manner they would be if they were at an in-person show. Beyond this, the tempo of the show had to be fast-paced and have a great mix of magic tricks. A quickly developing phenomenon was “Zoom fatigue”. Often audiences (through no fault of their own) resented the fact they were on Zoom irrespective of how exciting a magician or different a magician might be. From the moment I appeared on screen, I had to make them forget they were on a virtual platform. Rather lovelily, this is very common feedback in show reviews.
Delivering the show for audiences of 1000s?
This is where an extremely stressful and testing body of work began! I jumped head-first into the intricate world of live streaming. I won’t bore you with details about the frustrations of setting up professional sound, multiple camera angles, and learning how to live mix Zoom galleries and integrate overlays as well as output videos…Safe to say, I immersed myself in the learning. Through many YouTube holes, patient friends, and an inability to do anything else due to a pandemic, I soon had a set up that would rival any streamer out there! Like improving your magic, improving your tech set up is something you can always be evolving and fine-tuning. This make it quite addictive and at times, even fun!
What tricks work and why?
Years presenting and performing as a television magician was an invaluable skill for the virtual arena. I feel very comfortable talking down the lens – a paramount skill if you want to engage your audiences as a Zoom Magician. I quickly realised that mentalism and mindreading would be the best course of action for a virtual show. In many ways, telling someone a word they are thinking of whilst they sit 6,000 miles away is arguably more impressive than if you are in the same room.
Any close up magic that was performed had to be very clearly thought out in order to make it as fair as possible. Much of my in-person close up magic are often likened to a camera trick – which is great! However, when you are performing virtually, this is not necessarily a good thing as people may revert to thinking it is exactly that! Furthermore, any tricks that are reliant on a unique object such as a signed card, a signed coin, or an object of personal value had to have the most careful consideration.
When you are in-person and someone signs a card, it is understood that there is no way I could have a replica. However, when perfuming virtually, I had to write the information for the person and this is inherently less interesting. Furthermore, you can’t inspect items, and make sure it is exactly as I’m saying – a normal playing card for example!
Evolving Magic
It was a long time later before things got very interesting in terms of magic effect and I began to play with the inherent advantages of having a fixed lens in a fixed location. Why is this interesting you ask? This lends itself extremely well to perspective based illusions. Moreover, this type of effect is something I absolutely love, but having always performed in an in-person setting with changing variables, its never something I’ve been able to do.
What is a perspective illusion?
A perspective illusion is a visual illusion in which objects appear differently to a viewer or audience member than they actually are. This is due to the controlled viewpoint in which they are presented. So to clarify, the illusion is caused by the way our brain processes the visual information it receives.
One common example of a perspective illusion is the Ames room illusion. This is a room that appears to be a regular rectangular shape when viewed through a peephole, but is actually a trapezoidal shape. You may well have seen this at an exhibition. If you and your friend go and stand at opposite ends – one of you will look like a giant(!) And the other very small. The illusion is created by manipulating the angles of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room in a way that tricks the brain into perceiving it as a regular shape. Super clever stuff.
My virtual set up had particular elements that lent themself well to carrying out some great perspective illusions. I also had some interesting props used throughout the show that would be an excellent feature. The development of this method was something I later developed to help me win the international competition, The Virtual Magician Of The Year held by the worlds most prestigious magic society, The Magic Circle. If you would like to watch my act, I invite you to do so, on this private link.
My future as a Zoom Magician
I think it’s safe to say I’ll never return to 25 shows a week. Nor am I sure id want to. My journey as a Zoom Magician has been life changing and connected me with client on 6 of 7 continents – many of whom I have gone on to perform in-person events for. As much as I enjoyed it however, it was exhausting, as well as initiating a slightly unhealthy relationship with performing. I was going from my living room to the studio and back – sometimes not leaving the house for days! My friend jokingly said the only way to see was to visit my virtual bunker where id be hunkered down like Tom Hanks out of castaway till the year 3000. Unlikely, but I guess who knows what we can write off these days…
That being said, I am still hugely grateful they are still a regular feature of my services. I have put in so much work as a Zoom magician and am so proud to present to people what I think is a unique and memorable show filled with mind-blowing magic. So, if you are interested in booking a virtual show, please do get in touch. I still regularly perform corporate events for the worlds leading brands and am always happy to meet clients on Zoom or Teams to show them the set up and talk them through what I can do for them and their company. I love performing as an international magician whether it’s in-person or as a virtual magician!
