I was far from the first person to start performing magic over the internet, in fact one of my very good friends was in fact THE first person as far as we can tell.
Back in March 2020 we helped him come up with ideas for the show, and at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in doing any myself. I knew the shows would work, but I can’t claim to have been progressive enough in my thinking to have realised how good they could actually be.
I spent the month of April reconnecting with my old musical partner of 20 years ago and we put together a very successful reunion gig which I am happy I will always have now to enjoy.
It wasn’t until mid-May that I performed my first online magic show as a Virtual Magician – to one household in America with a father and his teenage daughter. It actually worked really well and it was such a buzz! At the time my hair was out of control from two months of lockdown and I had a massive beard, but the tricks I had chosen worked well and many of them still form the foundation of my show.
I am fortunate that a lot of the act I have spent the last 10 years developing actually already worked well over the internet, but it took me a while to get used to the different dynamic being on a video call. There was often a short delay and so the ends of tricks would take a moment longer to register, and jokes would be received with a pause before laughter.
Also I faced a huge challenge – my internet was terrible!
Despite living on Old Compton Street – for some reason we couldn’t get Fibre Optic in the flat. So I was reduced to using either the internet on my phone or the poor internet we did have. This was fine when it worked – but did provide a few hairy moments when no-one could see or hear me.
In September 2020 I decided to find a new flat and would stay with my Aunt and uncle for a few months in Hertfordshire while I did so. This proved to be a fantastic decision, as it was such a lovely time spending much of the second lockdown with them, and also my Uncle is a technoholic who might as well have invented the internet, so with download speeds of 380mbs, my zoom shows could get a lot more ambitious!
I started using the environment around me and utilising the advantage that I could control exactly what the audience would see and hear, a bit like a theatre or television show.
A Virtual Magician has to be both amazing and entertaining, and so i started writing my scripts more carefully, noting what jokes did and didn’t work and cutting out magic tricks that got anything less than a massive reaction.
I was initially worried that I wouldn’t have enough material or that the magic wouldn’t be as powerful as in real life. I could not have been more wrong!
Now I am wondering how I will ever be able to go back to performing at public events when I am enjoying this new medium so thoroughly.
I love being able to control the music, lights, use multiple cameras, and also be able to test out new material constantly to stop myself from getting bored of the same tricks.
This all built to a huge climax in December 2020 when I performed 67 shows, most of them within a 3 week period! I genuinely enjoyed every single one of them and was very proud of the show I had developed.
One of the most amazing aspects of this new way to entertain, is the the ability to perform all over the world from your own home! I have been performing at corporate events in Australia, Bat Mitzvahs in America, and family birthdays in Bermuda! All on top of the usual corporate and private events that are my usual market in the UK.
It is a great pleasure to be able to connect with people from all over the world, and so interesting every time I open up the laptop, never to know who I am about to meet!
Now I have moved to a new flat in Hampstead and have performed close to another 50 shows already. The world has changed and we must adapt to survive in it.
There are many people performing digital shows now, and I think the most important thing is to try and be as original as possible and follow where the creativity leads you.
