A Busking Magician in the LES: A blog about the power of busking and the shows you can see around New York City.
Founded by Nate Staniforth in 2014, this blog is a place for all things magic, street performance, and the arts. From Nate’s own adventures performing on the streets to his favorite shows in NYC and beyond, this blog is a gathering place for lovers of modern magic and busking.
My name is Andrew Evans. I’m a busking magician living in New York City and writing about the culture of street performance. Busking is a unique thing and I’ve found that New York City may be one of the only places where it’s a true art form. The shows you can see vary from magic to acrobatics to comedy to music to puppetry and more.
I got into busking because I was interested in making a living as a magician. There aren’t many jobs out there for magicians so I decided to create my own job: as a street performer downtown. So far it’s been a great experience and I feel like I learn more every single day.
I love hearing feedback so please leave me messages here or email me at [email blocked] if you have any thoughts, questions, or comments.
I’ve just come from a couple of weeks of vacation and down time, so I haven’t been posting as much.
I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the past year and what I learned from all the shows I did.
I think the most interesting part was going to the different neighborhoods and seeing how people reacted. What I found really interesting is that it’s not really the neighborhood that makes a difference in the reception. It’s more about who is out on the street and where they are going.
In some parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, there are a lot people going to bars, clubs, or dinner. Those people tend to be more in their own worlds and have less interest in checking out shows on the streets. In other places, there are crowds of tourists or families together walking around with nothing else to do besides window shop or check out street performers. Those crowds tend to be much better for busking.
Busking can be a great career for many magicians. Buskers like David Blaine and James Randi are some of the most recognizable magicians in the world. In fact, busking is one of the best ways to market yourself and get new clients.
Busking can be intimidating at first. You have to deal with hecklers, people who don’t want to see you, and cops that may ask you to leave. But if you know how to handle your business you will be fine.
In this blog I will outline how to make money as a magician on the streets of NYC. I’ll tell you what tricks you should do and what props you should buy. Most importantly, I’ll tell you how to get gigs with big corporations so that they can pay YOU to perform at their events.
I don’t know where to begin. It was an incredibly busy day, and a very interesting one. I’m currently sitting in a bar writing this at 1:47 in the morning, and I’m exhausted. As you could imagine, it was absolutely pouring rain today, but that didn’t stop my busking buddies from coming out. No siree Bob!
The nice thing about performing magic is that you get to meet so many people from all walks of life. It’s really quite wonderful. There’s something about being a magician that attracts everyone: even the most hardened of individuals cannot resist me! From toddlers to grandparents, grandpas to grannies…everyone gets involved. And it’s the best feeling in the world when you make people smile.
But there are always those pesky hecklers who just have to spoil it for everyone else. You know the type: those individuals who think they’re really smart by saying things like “I know how he did it!” or “It’s not real!” If they only knew what they were missing!
Anyway, after an early start (beginning at 2pm), I moved around locations as usual throughout the day, performing for random passers-by wherever I went. My last location was particularly fruitful as two
What do you think about when you think about a magician? Is it David Copperfield doing a trick on TV or Criss Angel doing a trick on TV? Is it Harry Potter? Is it Paul Daniels, or is it David Blaine? Is it Lance Burton, or is it Dynamo? Is it Dynamo in the street, or Dynamo on TV?
Perhaps you have never heard of any of these magicians. Maybe you have not watched television for years. Perhaps you don’t know what “busking” is. This blog assumes that you are not familiar with the world of magic and magicians. It assumes that you are probably aware of some kind of magic (either stage magic or street magic), but that your knowledge is limited to what you might see in the movies or on television. If this is true then I will tell you something: there is no such thing as “magic” in real life. Yet there are many people who claim to be magicians, conjurers, illusionists, prestidigitators, etc.
The fact is that most people who claim to be magicians are just frauds trying to make money by pretending to have special powers. These are the same people who will tell you that everything in the universe has been created by
In the early 2000’s a young man named Dan Sperry decided he wanted to be a magician. Now, in the 21st century, that seems like a pretty noble profession. But when Dan was growing up, magic was in decline.
Dan was living in a suburb of Minnesota and his only access to magicians were television specials featuring guys like David Copperfield or Lance Burton. They were larger than life figures who wowed audiences with their mega-magic and filled large arena sized venues. In the twenty years since David Copperfield first appeared on TV, magic had changed from being an art form practiced by amateur hobbyists to this mega-scale mega-production. And while it may have attracted viewers on TV, it wasn’t attracting new magicians.
Young Dan didn’t know any magicians that he could learn from and no one seemed interested in encouraging him to pursue his passion for magic. He was all alone and without any mentors or any community to help him along his path in magic. But the thing about Dan is that he never gives up on his dreams. He wanted to be a magician really badly and he would find his way into the world of magic no matter what it took. So, at the
